For 200ish product site - osCommerce or WP w/WooCommerce?

4 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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I inherited an OLD, as in year 2003, osCommerce website that has been misbehaving. I told the client we need to update.

He has about 200 products (and from the 'orders' section in osCommerce it looks like around <30 sales per year for the past few years), uses PayPal, and is self-admittedly not very computer savvy. Of course he has had his osCommerce site, which hasn't changed, since 2003 so he is comfortable with it.

I'm a WordPress-head ;-) I know it and am very comfortable working with it. I don't know osCommerce.

Going forward with a brand new site - I installed the latest-greatest version of osCommerce and WordPress with WooCommerce / a WooTheme on two test accounts, had some products pre-populated and gave him the admin logins.

In the meanwhile I am trying to get the misbehaving website at least view-able so I can look at all the products.

I could put together a website for him in WP + Woo quickly and with confidence that I can keep it updated, running, know all the basics of trouble shooting it (I'm very familiar with the WP help forms), etc.

I'm sure I can learn osCommerce... but rebuilding a new site in the latest version will come with a learning curve (ie billable time) and I won't know any of the typical 'problems' of it (for example how to optimize it).

I think he is leaning towards the new osCommerce because the admin looks/behaves very similar to the older site. I'm bias in favor of WP because I'm experience with it and feel I can work more efficiently with it (total project cost and going forward for any support costs).

Which platform of these two do you suggest going forward with for a 200 product website? Keeping in mind keeping the site itself (WP or OSC) updated, how it runs on a shared hosting environment, community support if the site goes wonky.

Thanks so much!

Also came back to add / ask ... if staying with osCommerce... do site owners need to do any kind of admin house keeping? For example, looking at this old misbehaving site I inherited... there are some 1300 customers and a lot of them look utter bogus to me. For example, 5 entries with the last name ";lkj;lk" and a different random string of characters for the first name.
#200ish #oscommerce #product #site #w or woocommerce #woocommerce #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
    I use OScommerce, been over 7 years now. I started with it because at the time it was one of the best. And WP sure couldn't do what it can now, back then.

    It is still a solid cart and I've never really had any trouble with it. Sure no "mis-behaving", don't know what that is. Only time I've had trouble was because of hosting.

    With that said, it is an outdated cart and even the newer version doesn't look all that appealing, if it ever gets released.

    I myself will be switching to WP/Woocommerence because there is SO much more you can do with it. With WP you can switch out theme's with a few clicks, you can add plugin's the same. Can't do that with OSC, not without messing with the actual code. Can't even update the code easily if you have modifications, which you pretty much need, it's not ready out of the box.

    Like right now, google insights lists mobile fixes that I can't not do very easily with OSC. I'm kinda stuck.

    Only issue I have and reason why I have not switched yet, is importing my products properly. There are only a couple plugins and they don't do it all.

    But yes, I would go with WP/Woo over OSC in a heart beat.
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  • Profile picture of the author BarnYardGirl
    Thanks for your input, Ron.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sam Zachuth
    Neither, both are garbage for over 100 items. Use Magento, you won't be sorry.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
      Originally Posted by Sam Zachuth View Post

      Neither, both are garbage for over 100 items. Use Magento, you won't be sorry.
      You you know both are junk because? If your going to make a statement, least back up your claims with some valid reasons. That would be more helpful

      I have almost 5K products on OSC and works perfectly fine.
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