Book Image

Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Beginner Edition

By : David Mercer
Book Image

Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Beginner Edition

By: David Mercer

Overview of this book

Using an easy-to-read and engaging style, this book introduces the fundamentals of osCommerce, and helps you build your first online store. It covers the out-of-the-box features of osCommerce, but it also shows you how to customize the application to your own needs. The book starts with the basics of downloading and installing osCommerce, or simply how to enable it on your Internet domain using the tools provided by your host. All of the most important configuration issues are explained, with clear instructions and advice to help you make the right choices. Once osCommerce is installed and configured, you will take a good look at how to work with your store's data including product information as well as other data which is responsible for keeping your site healthy. The all important topic of customization is also dealt with comprehensively. You will see how to develop attractive sites that will make your store a pleasure to browse and your products a pleasure to buy! Of course, no discussion on osCommerce would be complete without a look at how to obtain and treat payments. Using the modules provided with osCommerce you will be collecting money from your happy customers in no time! Once the reader has a fully fledged, and operational site it is time to look at deployment? an important topic for discussion if development has taken place on a development machine. The appendix will add a few tools to your armory and shed some light as to what is going on behind the scenes in case things go awry.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

About the Author

David Mercer was born in August 1976 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Having always had a strong interest in science, David came into regular contact with computers at university where he minored in Computer Science.

As a programmer and professional writer, he has written both code and books for about seven years. He has worked on a number of well-known titles, in various capacities, on a wide variety of topics. This has afforded him a singularily unique oversight into the world of programming and technology as it relates to furthering the goals of business.

David finds that the challenges arising from the dichotomous relationship between the science (and art) of software programming and the art (and science) of writing is what keeps his interest in producing books piqued. He intends to continue to write professionally in the future.

As a consultant for his own technical and editorial consultancy, David balances his time between programming, reviewing, writing, and furthering his studies in Applied Mathematics. When he isn’t working (which isn’t that often), he enjoys playing guitar and getting involved in outdoor activities ranging from touch rugby and golf to water skiing and snowboarding.

You can contact him at [email protected], or alternatively, visit his consultancy’s website at http://www.contechst.com/.