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osCommerce vs WebCart - An Ecommerce Platform Shopping Cart Software Comparion Review

Over the past few years, the osCommerce shopping cart system has been an extremely popular choice for online businesses looking to power an ecommerce web site. To those who love free (open source) software, osCommerce (as well as the many other freeware type of cart solutions) is and has been a dream come true. Given the choice, uneducated eCommerce store owners will usually opt for a free cart vs. one which will cost money.

osCommerce is a freeware shopping cart platform built in php and MySQL with many hundreds of programmers supplying addons and plugins either for free or for an additional charge. Some might say that the system is really free, but others who calculate the cost of the time spent configuring the system might disagree.

The question is whether one takes into account the cost of setting up and administering the osCommerce powered web site. For many beginners technical support is critical for setting up a presence on the web. With osCommerce there is no easy phone or email support. The primary method of installing their php shopping cart solution is by reading the online documention, and posting questions in the forum. For more information you can visit http://www.oscommerce.info/docs/english/c_installation_and_upgrades.html.

Because of all the hours one has to spend configuring the cart, it really does end up costing a lot of money to set up an osCommerce powered web store. As an alternative, a webmaster can look for a paid solution like WebCart (http://www.webcart.net) which is not a free solution and in fact is not even a cheap solution. It isn't terribly expensive but it is extremely function rich. In fact, WebCart has recently introduced its osCommerce Transition package to move web sites powered by osCommerce to WebCart in a seamless and frictionless manner.

We are not suggesting that osCommerce has a faulty product nor is our intent to convince anyone of this. However, there are some fundamental complaints about osCommerce, that are floating around message boards and therefore we've written this article so that frustrated users of osCommerce can discover that there are easy and flexible alternatives.

WebCart by the way is developed by Mountain Network Systems who has developers in Russia, Israel and the USA. WebCart does not even offer an installation document because they install WebCart for every customer. "After talking to clients who were previous users of osCommerce, I can tell you that most of them, who were intermediate web users, had an extremely difficult time going through the installation documentation", says Michael Moshkovich from WebCart. A simple Google search for "osCommerce installation help" will produce a wealth of websites trying to sell you an installation service.

If you have questions about osCommerce or about WebCart, post your comments directly in this forum at http://forums.webcart.net.

Stay tuned for more news on this latest development of the osCommerce Transition Upgrade package from WebCart. If you are want to upgrade from a free online storefront and/or you are analyzing specific criteria for developing a new ecommerce powered Shopping Cart software platform, please contact the developers of WebCart at http://www.webcart.net.

Jason Ciment
http://www.webcart.net
1-866-667-2278