osCommerce shopping cart tutorials

Customizing the osCommerce shopping cart catalog

The next step is to add categories that will contain the products you will be selling through your store. To do this, select the Catalog icon from the administration index page. This will take you to a page where the default categories are displayed. You can edit or delete an existing category, or add a new category after clicking the "new category" button.

After clicking the "new category" button the page will refresh and a box for the new category name will appear in the rightmost column.

As osCommerce is a multi-language shop, you will be able to add category names in German and Spanish as well as the default English name ( these are optional and you may leave them blank if your store is in english only). You can also select an image to represent the specific category (image is optional and you can ignore warnings for missing image), the image can be uploaded from your local computer. The last thing to do before clicking the Save button is to select the order number for the category. The lower the number - the higher in the list will your new category appear (zero will represent the top of the list).

You can now start adding items to your store. To create a new item, click the "new product" button.

First, select whether you have the product in stock or not. Next, select the availability date and the manufacturer. Type in the name of the product in the languages you have installed and decide whether the item is taxable or not, select the net and the gross price.

Enter the product description in the languages you require(remember this is optional), the quantity the product is purchased in and the model. Images can also be uploaded from your local computer - osCommerce automatically creates a thumbnail. If you wish to link to an external product page, enter the address without the http:// part of the address. You can now add the product weight, this will help with determining the shipping costs later.

Once you have added all the details, hit the "preview" button to view the result. Once you have viewed the preview scroll down to the bottom of the page and select one of the three buttons (Back to continue editing, Insert to confirm product creation and Cancel to drop the new entry).

Once you have created the product you will be taken to the category/product list.To include the product in a parent category, click the Move button in the rightmost column. Select the desired category from the drop down list and click the "move" button..

Now you will be able to see the new addition at the top of your product list when you visit the store.