With BigCommerce you get all the upgrades for free without having to worry about installation and hosting etc but unline OSCommerce where you get all the customization for seo and modifying the scripts or add an module to suite your needs. But if you are not worry about too much customization and just want a store with ability to design you layout and control the site with the control panel plus a lot of ready templates I would recommend BigCommerce as it is the easier options for someone wanting to have the online store running in less than a week! Ray Australia Souvenir Gift Shop mail@australiasouvenir.com --- This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.

If your product list is relatively small go with free community edition of magento, this is the best up to date (2010) open source shopping system. The only complaint it is a bit slow, due to its code complexity. OScommerce is good, old, fast , and proven, but it will take a lot of effort to make it nice and functional. 1U Server Expert ---This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.

Thanks for chiming in, everyone! Government101 - did you find these replies helpful?

You can use x-cart. I use this ecommerce software over 5 years.

I'd suggest Zencart for a DIY solution (easier to use than OScommerce, which was the code Zencart branched from, and improved upon). But, to modify the cart (design/features you might want to add that doesn't come 'out of the box'), you're either going to have to hire someone or do it yourself. If you have time for that, I'd go the DIY route. If you're not a coder, developer, designer, I'd suggest a hosted solution (though, I agree, there are limitations to that as well: the biggest issue I foresee is that if you would later like to migrate to your own hosted solution, you won't be able to just pick up your database and go). If you have the budget, I'd definitely say get your own hosted solution and hire someone to take care of the initial setup for you. The benefits of hosting your own shopping cart: 1. Easier to migrate and expand on in the future. 2. SEO will be kept in-tact and YOURS if you ever decide to change hosts/cart systems/etc. 3. In short (yeah, yeah, a bit too late for that): When possible, get your own website host and host the website yourself. It's more difficult at the beginning but gives you more control over your own information.

i use zencart to do website

These are two different beasts. BigCommerce is hosted ecommerce. osCommerce is open source. If you want to focus purely on the business side of things, let BigCommerce run the technical side for you. If you have the technical resources (time, effort, skills), you might want to go osCommerce so you can have 100% control over your website. For me the biggest advantage of hosted is that they will do most of the technical work for you, giving you time to make your business work. The biggest advantage of open source is that you can modify and enhance it according to what you want, giving you a technical advantage over hosted sites. I suggest you go hosted when you start and as the business grows, you can switch to open source. Yes, switching sites is not a simple task, but if you have the need and the resources to switch to open source, you should be able to do a site switch.