My First post here on A1, but i use UKBF a LOT under the same username.
The best solution i found for my clients, is
Joomla and Virtuemart.
This is because it is expandable, allowing you to add other components into the system as and when required.
For example if you have Osc, Zen, Cube Cart etc, you are stuck for any future development of your site.
If you want to add a forum, blog, gallery, community system, etc etc, you will have to kind of add it in as a separate system. This means if people sign up to the shop, they will then have to sign up separately for the forum, and then again for the blog and so on.
This is because the database that holds all the records or user names and password etc, works only with your shop, and the database you use for the forum etc is also standalone, so they done talk to each other.
Joomla is a modular system though, that works with the same database. So you sign up to Joomla, and the logged in user can use any component that you have added to it, such as
Virtuemart - ecommerce
Fire board - forum
RS Gallery - gallery
and so on.
You can see all the extensions, all 3386 of them (a few are made by me
)
http://extensions.joomla.org/
You dont need any code knowledge to install, you just down load the extension as a zip file, and upload it in to the system. The system takes the zip file apart and pops all the files in the right places and even adds entries into the database if needed.
You need to think if your going to run your business, you should be looking at expansion at some point as you dont want to stay as a one man band. So even though at this moment you may not need a forum, gallery, diary system, ticket support system or anything else, but you never know what you may want in the future.
Also there is no commercial system with more features than virtuemart, and only a handful of systems are equal in W3 standards as virtuemart and joomla, which are completely W3 compliant.
The closest ecommerce system for W3 and DDA compliance is
tradingeye in Newcastle
. Check out that demo, and look at how clean the code is, they have won awards from all over the place, and even had a huge mention in The Times because of its SEO (search engine optimization) and DDA (Disability Discrimination Act), for braille readers etc.
As Actually Oscommerce is about as bad as you can get for SEO and DDA, and with the DDA it is actually breaking UK laws in many places.
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups...legalcase.hcsp
Oscommerce has terrible code, as it is the same system that was developed in 2003, and hasn't been improved since. So most of the children of that system (Zen Cart, CreLoaded etc) also have the same problems as the parent system does. So that is one system i would stay well away from.
They keep threatening to make a V3, but they have been saying this since about 2006, and haven't got out of Alpha testing yet, so not sure what the situation is there, but i think your looking a t long time form now before a stable version is launched
Regards
Ian
By The way i have no affiliation with Trading Eye, i used to live with the guy at uni who started the company which is why i know it so well, but in fact he is in direct competition with my company
www.newworlddesigns.co.uk, i only promote it, because the system is so damn good.