Migration or PHP 8.5 Upgrade

I’m looking for an experienced eCommerce developer with strong osCommerce and PrestaShop experience to review my existing online store and advise on the best technical direction.

The current store is www.tonerfox.com, running on osCommerce 2.RC2. The existing files and installed contributions have already been upgraded to work with PHP 7.4.

I’m currently deciding between two options:

Option 1: Migrate to PrestaShop
Build a new PrestaShop store and migrate the existing products, customers, orders, categories and important functionality while preserving the current business logic and store structure.

One reason I’m considering PrestaShop is that payment providers such as Google Pay, VIVA Wallet and Klarna have existing PrestaShop modules/plugins available.

Option 2: Upgrade the existing osCommerce store
Upgrade the current osCommerce installation and custom code to work reliably with PHP 8.5, while developing/integrating the required modern payment solutions.

Existing Custom Functionality

The current store has a significant amount of custom functionality, including:

Frontend

- Front Banner Manager with scheduled/date-based banners
- Specials displayed on homepage and categories
- B2B customer pricing/groups
- Points & Rewards system
- One Page Checkout
- Shipping modules
- Credit card payment module

Admin

- Who's Online with visitor IP and viewed product/URL
- Product sorting
- Multiple Product Manager for bulk copy/move/delete
- Quick Product Updates
- Order Editor
- Master Products / dynamic product text
- Suppliers & Courier management
- Supplier product codes
- Supplier pricing management
- And other custom contributions

What I Need From You

I don’t simply want someone to start coding immediately.

I need an expert who can first inspect the existing store and codebase and give me a clear recommendation:

1. Is it technically and financially sensible to continue with the existing osCommerce installation?
2. Can it realistically be upgraded to PHP 8.5 without breaking the existing functionality?
3. Would migrating to PrestaShop provide a better long-term solution?
4. Which existing features can be replicated natively or through PrestaShop modules?
5. What would be involved in migrating the products, customers, orders and other data?
6. What would you recommend for Google Pay, VIVA Wallet and Klarna?
7. What are the expected risks, timeframe and cost for each option?

After the assessment, I would like to proceed with the recommended solution.

Ideal Developer

Please apply only if you have genuine experience with:

- osCommerce, particularly older/custom installations
- PHP 7.4 → PHP 8.x upgrades
- PrestaShop
- eCommerce migrations
- Custom PHP development
- Payment gateway integration
- Database/data migration
- Debugging legacy eCommerce systems

Please include examples of similar osCommerce or PrestaShop projects you have worked on.

The initial priority is getting the right technical recommendation, followed by implementation.