centresource interactive agency

Installation

Virtuemart:

• <5 minutes (if you have a working installation of Joomla, <10 minutes otherwise).
• Installs as a module for Joomla. Click upload & install from module installer pane, and viola!
• Package comes with two Joomla components, two mambots, and several plug-in modules that offer added functionality (i.e. minicart, top 10 products list).
• Includes sample data for a demo store.
• Uses Joomla's admin interface for store administration

osCommerce:

• <10 minutes.
• Includes sample data for a demo store.
• Comes with admin interface.

Features

(as stated on the websites for each product)

Virtuemart:
Products/Categories:

Add as many Products and Categories as you want
Can also be used just as a catalogue (without cart features)
Unlimited Category/Subcategory depth, products can be assigned to multiple categories
Sort your Categories the way you like
Sell downloadable Products like MP3s, Templates, Videos or Software
Add a Thumbnail and a full size Image to every Product via your Browser
Add Attributes like Size or Color to your Products to offer product variations
Use Product Discounts (percantage/total, time limited or not)
Show Details & images for every Item
CSV Upload, (CSV Import & Export)
Manage the Stock Level for Products and Items
Automatically Notify Shoppers when a Product is back in Stock
Feature specific products by setting them “on special”

Shopper Groups / User Management

Add Shoppers and assign them to different shopper groups
global Shopper Group Discounts
multiple prices can be added to a Product, each for an own shopper group or a quantity range
Restrict “Display prices” to specific user groups
Access Management: assign users to user groups like “admin”, “storeadmin”, “shopper” or “demo” to allow the administration by other users

(assign products to vendors and allow those vendors to maintain only their products)
Easy Configuration / Customization

Manage your shop through an easy and completely Joomla/Mambo-integrated interface
A “Welcome Screen” shows your daily Shop Statistics: A Summary with “number of customers”, “number of orders”, “5 newest customers” and so on
capable of Frontend Administration (without having to login into the Backend of Joomla/Mambo)
global Price/Currency Display Formatting
Templates for Product Display Pages
Extend the Shop with other Modules and Functions
Manage different Currencies, Countries

Shipping Addresses / Rates

Shoppers can add individual Shipping Addresses
Fetch Shipping rates live from Intershipper, USPS, UPS, Canada Post, ...
Write your own Shipping Modules using the Shipping API

Tax Rates

Product prices can be displayed “including tax” or not (set for each shopper group)
Choose between Shipping-Address-based tax calculation (city/state & country/region)

OR

Store-Owner-based tax calculation (e.g. in european countries)
Add your own shipping carriers and shipping rates

Payment

Use safe SSL encryption (128-bit) and Shared SSL
Capable of live credit card processing
Supported Payment Providers:

o authorize.net online Credit Card Processing (AIM)

o 2Checkout
o PayPal (with IPN gateway)
o Paymate
o NoChex
o WorldPay "IPN"
o PayMeNow
o eCheck.net
o eWay (XML transactions)
o eProcessingNetwork
o and more...
* Payment Module API for custom payment modules...

Order Management

Complete Order Management
Automatically notify your customers when the Order Status changes
See who has ordered: IP address storing
Extend the pre-defined order statuses with your own ones

"Nice" Features for Customers...

Let your customers easily search for products through a search form
Shoppers can see, in what time a product will usually ship, on product-details page (with nice images!)
Shoppers can manage their user accounts
Shopper can view all their orders (and order details)
Order Confirmation mail (customizable!) is sent to shopper and store owner

Joomla! / Mambo Integration

Registration while checkout automatically registers the user to the global user table (registration is necessary for purchasing items)
Complete integration of the layout using Joomla!’s standard CSS styles
Easy installation / uninstallation using the Joomla/Mambo Installer

Free VirtueMart hacks/tweaks/modules

(made vailable from the community, and growing daily!)

Zone Shipping Module from Zephware.com
Flypage Admin Link for phpShop
Latest Products for phpShop (as a seperate module)
Mini Cart for phpShop (also available as a separate module)
Random Products for phpShop (as a seperate module)
Featured Products for phpShop (as a seperate module)
Special Products Manager for phpShop
Report Basic (for statistical purposes)

osCommerce:

General Functionality

• Compatible with all PHP 4 versions
• All features enabled by default for a complete out-of-the-box solution
• Object oriented backend (MS3)
• Completely multilingual with English, German, and Spanish provided by default

Setup / Installation

• Automatic web-browser based installation and upgrade procedure

Design / Layout

• Template struture implementation to:
  • allow layout changes to be adaptive, easy, and quickly to make (MS3)
  • allow easy integration into an existing site (MS3)
• Support for dynamic images

Administration / Backend Functionality

• Supports unlimited products and categories
• Products-to-categories structure
• Categories-to-categories structure
• Add/Edit/Remove categories, products, manufacturers, customers, and reviews
• Support for physical (shippable) and virtual (downloadable) products
• Administration area secured with a username and password defined during installation (MS3)
• Contact customers directly via email or newsletters
• Easily backup and restore the database
• Print invoices and packaging lists from the order screen
• Statistics for products and customers
• Multilingual support
• Multicurrency support
• Automatically update currency exchange rates
• Select what to display, and in what order, in the product listing page
• Support for static and dynamic banners with full statistics

Customer / Frontend Functionality

• All orders stored in the database for fast and efficient retrieval
• Customers can view their order history and order statuses
• Customers can maintain their accounts
• Addressbook for multiple shipping and billing addresses
• Temporary shopping cart for guests and permanent shopping cart for customers
• Fast and friendly quick search and advanced search features
• Product reviews for an interactive shopping experience
• Forseen checkout procedure
• Secure transactions with SSL
• Number of products in each category can be shown or hidden
• Global and per-category bestseller lists
• Display what other customers have ordered with the current product shown
• Breadcrumb trail for easy site navigation

Product Functionality

• Dynamic product attributes relationship
• HTML based product descriptions
• Automated display of specials
• Control if out of stock products can still be shown and are available for purchase
• Customers can subscribe to products to receive related emails/newsletters

Payment Functionality

• Accept numerous offline payment processing (cheque, money orders, offline credit care processing, ..)
• Accept numerous online payment processing (2CheckOut, PayPal, Authorize.net, iPayment, ..)
• Disable certain payment services based on a zone basis

Shipping Functionality

• Weight, price, and destination based shipping modules
• Real-time quotes available (UPS, USPS, FedEx, ..)
• Free shipping based on amount and destination
• Disable certain shipping services based on a zone basis

Tax Functionality

• Flexible tax implementation on a state and country basis
• Set different tax rates for different products
• Charge tax on shipping on a per shipping service basis

Thoughts:
Both products support alot of the same features. Customizable products, carts, shopper account administration, reports, etc... Virtuemart definitely benefits over osCommerce when it comes to extensibility. If you are familiar with Joomla's framework and templating system, then the sky's the limit when it comes to extending virtuemart. osCommerce, while certaintly popular, is difficult for the developer wade through, lacking meaningful comments and a having a code structure that is haphazard at best. osCommerce and Virtuemart are both easy to administrate from each others' respective admin interfaces.

Virtuemart Pros:

• Fast and easy installation and configuration.
• Easy to customize and extend.
• Shopper groups (vendors, guests, whatever your heart desires. Product prices and descriptions can vary from group to group).
• Small codebase, easy to develop for. (it's just a Joomla module)
• Easy to adminstrate.

Cons:

• Still quite a bit on the CVS to-do list. (some functionality could require development if needed immediately)
• Not stand-alone. Requires Joomla to function.
• Must learn Joomla framework (or at least how to write Joomla modules and templates) to develop custom functionality.

osCommerce Pros:

• Fast and easy installation and configuration.
• Vetted. Though still a development release, it is widely popular and thus has a larger support base.
• Lots of plug-ins. Chances are, any feature you need, has already been written by someone else.
• Supports most e-commerce standard features out-of-box.

Cons:

• Large and overly complex code base. Difficult to extend or modify.

Final thoughts:
Still waiting for the "holy grail" e-commerce solution. osCommerce comes close in functionality, but from the developer's perspective, the code could really benefit from a reorganization and some general TLC. Better comments, cleaner code layout, and a more thought out class structure would definitely boost osCommerce's standing among developers. If Joomla continues to grow as (probably) the best web CMS out there, Virtuemart could give osCommerce a run for its money. Having the advantage of being fully integrated into a very rich CMS, managing Virtuemart becomes almost trivial.