OsCommerce is a great software application for creating an online presence for your web store. Released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), osCommerce is one of the most famous open-source e-commerce software packages for web hosting.
The software is supported by all hosting provider that has PHP and MySQL installed. Its invention started in March 2000 and has seen a lot of improvements and bug fixes since then.
In this guide, we will focus on the basic steps for installing osCommerce in your cPanel account to help you create a complete online store for selling products to worldwide customers.
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Prerequisites
- A domain name (e.g., example.com)
- A Web hosting account that includes the cPanel web hosting control panel
- The Softaculous apps installer
- A Cpanel username and password.>
Step 1: Login to your cPanel account
Enter your domain name followed by ‘/cpanel’ to login on your cPanel account. For instance, if your domain name is ‘example.com’, enter the text below:
www.example.com/cpanel
Then, enter your username and password and click ‘Log In’ to proceed.
Step 2: Locate softaculous apps installer
On the search box, enter ‘Softaculous apps installer’. When the search results are displayed, click the icon as shown below:
Step 3: Find osCommerce from the software
Softaculous arranges software under categories. You can find osCommerce under the E-Commerce categories by clicking the link on the left menu. Then, click on the ‘Install Now’ button on the right side as shown below:
Step 4: Customize your osCommerce installation
On the next screen, you can customize your osCommerce installation. First, choose a protocol. Because you will be collecting a lot of customers information, choose ‘https//www.’ This protocol will encrypt information flowing on your web store.
You can leave the ‘In Directory’ value blank because in most cases, you will be installing your webstore under the root of your domain. Then select the domain under which your web store will run(e.g. www.example.com).
Store settings
Under store settings, enter the name of your store, store owner and address. Then, under the Admin Account enter your preferred username, password and your contact email address and click on ‘Install’ as shown below:
Softaculous apps installer will check the submitted data as shown on the image below:
Once the installation is completed, you will get the below message;
You can now access your osCommerce webstore and its looks pretty amazing. See the image below:
If you want to visit the admin section, enter the admin url (e.g. www.example.com/admin) on a web browser and login with the username and password that you selected above and click ‘Log In’
Once logged in, you can use the dashboard for navigation:
Conclusion
We have showed you how to install and configure your osCommerce in cPanel. You now need to use the admin section to make further customization including creating new categories, adding products and configuring shipping and payment methods. Finally, you will have a fully fledged web store that can sell products to the online community.
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