TUTORIAL: How to get your simple e-commerce Website in less than 1 hour!

This E-commerce platform can be installed on any server which support PHP and has access to a MySQL database.

STEP 1
Create your MySql Database

You can see 6 examples of database already created

It will take few minutes to have your database created in your web hosting account.
Keep in memory or write the address (ex:345mysql2221.secureserver.net) of host name server shown on the database details when this one is created, click in the info icon database to see it. Keep the Password and the Username on a paper, you will need them for the step 4.

STEP 2

Send all the osCommerce files to your web hosting. Send all the files in ASCII MODE to your host account. You can also send the files in automatic mode.

STEP 3

Set the permissions properties Catalog represent the name of the main directory.
The permission on the catalog/admin/configure.php file needs to be set to 777 by logging into your server selecting the file and clicking on the right button of the mouse: select files properties.

You also need to set the permission on the file:

catalog/includes/configure.php

needs to be set to 777

those ones : (/admin/includes) and (/catalog/includes) need to be set as a 755 Value.

STEP 4

follow the instructions coming from the osCommerce installation. Type your website address in your browser to log in to the installation process :
http://www.yourwebsite.com/

STEP 5

Delete the install directory.

STEP 6

Reset the permissions properties to the original value.

Change some files permissions again to 644 or 444 (= read/read/read) depending how is your hosting, in some hosting setting the file to 644 is not enough to remove the red warning in the top of your page, so you need then to set then to 444.

The permission can be changed by logging into your server selecting the file and clicking on the right button of the mouse: select files properties.

- Reset the permissions on catalog/includes/configure.php to 644

- Set the permissions on catalog/images directory to 777

- Set the permissions on admin/images/graphs directory to 777

STEP 7

Create the directory backups

- Create the directory admin/backups and set the permissions to 777
(this is directory is there to store the database backup of your store in the admin “Tools” section).

STEP 8

Protect your admin directory

http://www.yourwebsite.com/admin

The store admin directory on your server needs to be protected by using .htaccess.
Sometimes your web hosting has the ability to password protect directories through the server administration area, so check with your host.

If it’s not the case, follow those instructions:
Create a .htaccess and .htpassword file with your text editor, write the lines generated one of the 2 following on line tool.

http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/password/ or
http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/htaccess-generator.shtml

and change the extension “.txt” by “.htaccess” and “.htpassword”

Conclusion

This tutorial show you how to install osCommerce, but I think osCommerce is really a bad choice to create your e-Commerce website. The feature provided by Magento commerce are much more professionals. These are 12 examples of websites made in Magento to get your own opinion. www.smartcoyote.com/blog

Once again you just have to register from the Magento optimized web hosting (www.simplehelix.com),


you will received by email your username and a password to log into the admin panel.

You just can have a quick look to the installation tutorial made for Magento to see that it take only 5 to 15 minutes to install Magento. Click here to install Magento