Building an E-commerce site

[mairving]

I have been asked, for a fee, to build a guy an e-commerce site. I have become pretty proficient in HTML. I have never had anything to do with e-commerce before. Can anyone offer any pointers or suggestions? Currently I am using Homesite as my HTML editor. I do hand code most everything but I use it to test the code. Thanks.

[Statica]

Hey buddy ,... going to e-comm eh? :)

The answer would range vastly to what you wish to accomplish with the site, would it involve cc verification? live inventory checking? User authentication, JSP? SQL? oh.. the list is endless.

As a starter, I'd suggest checking out drumbeat, and drumbeat ultradev from macromedia, it even has a HomeSite integration version with it.

Sorry abt more questions than answers, but at least DrumBeat will help get you ask the right questions.

Cheers.
Mo

[mosquito]

E-Commerce sites are VERY difficult to code. Not as much the functionalities, but security is a major issue when you want to do on-line trading.
You have to make sure that no user information is sent over the net without encryption (usually SSL), but you also have to make sure that you don't send everything using SSL because this makes the site dog slow, and creates a huge overhead on the server (the server has to do the encryption).

I suggest that you analyse the needs of the user very well, and check if it is cheaper to purchase an e-commerce product. (I think that MS has Commerce server now, but I'm sure that there are other and better (cheaper) solutions available.)

If you decide to do all coding yourself, make sure that you do the following things:

build a solid security framework, and request validation from the customer (also make sure that you can increase security if necessary)
Build a database model of how you are going to store the commerce info.
Make a clear list of the hard and software requirements.


Also make sure that the customer agrees with every step you take during the development process.

I will look for links and supply them below:
MS Commerce server (http://developerstore.com/devstore/product.asp?productID=7538&store=TOOLBOX_NA&displayCode=dotcom)
this looks interesting too.
On-line merchant (http://www.onlinemerchant.com/new_merchant/whatweprovide.shtml)



[Edited by mosquito on 02-13-2001 at 09:57 AM]

[mairving]

Hey thanks for the replies. The company is a local model railroad company. He really wouldn't be selling everything online mostly just his trains. I have come up with some ideas.
<UL>
<LI>Build my database using MYSQL. It seems like a pretty powerful database & of course open source. I have a good bit of experience in MS Access but most the time I would be in SQL design mode anyway.
<LI>Security is probably my main concern. I guess what concerns me most is getting the information from the web host to the customer.
<LI>This may be a great way to learn. This guy is willing to wait and be our guinea pig so to speak. He won't be selling that many items online either.
<LI><a href="http://www.hostmatters.com/plans.html" target="_blank">Here</a> is the host that I am going to use. They support all the stuff that I need.
<LI>This guy has a site now but with no e-commerce on it. I am going to redo <a href="http://www.modelrailroadandhobby.com" target="_blank">his site</a> also. It was done in Frontpage and looks like garbage as you would expect.
</UL>
I do appreciate the information. I will check those sites out. I let you know how it is going.

[mosquito]

So the technical requirements will be:

- Linux (Server)
- Apache (Webserver)
- php (programming language)
- SSL (encryption)
- MySQL (database)

HTML only won't cut it. (You need php to implement the database access.)

To secure the confidential data that is transferred to the web browser you can use SSL (Secure socket layers). With SSL the information transferred over the network will be encrypted.

Check http://www.php.net for more info about php.

It's a really nice project. Have fun with it.

[mairving]

I found this <a href="http://www.zelerate.org/html/eng/home.shtml" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none">shopping cart</A> software from Zelerate.org. Tell me what you think. It is open-source and looks pretty good

Mosquito, yeah I know that I have a lot to learn. I run Linux on a couple of boxes at home. I have used all but the php. It does look like fun though.

[Statica]

You dont need PHP if u need PERL, but then again PHP is such a cinch!

[mairving]

What a new name. I am sure that you are "exstatic" about it.

[Statica]

I dunno what I was thinking when I made the name, but much to my relief, Dok was pretty accomodating about my idiosynchracies.

Same stupid guy though ...

[mairving]

You are stupid. I have just spent the last couple of hours trying to get MYSQL running. I downloaded the source, gzipped it, set up a directory and everything that I was supposed to. I then changed to that directory and ran first <b>./configure</B>. Then I ran <b>make</b> and received an error every time. Finally after trying this a few times, I noticed that at the end of the <b>.configure</b>, there was a line that said "check for gcc compiler =no". There was no compiler installed. I installed it and no problem after that.

[mosquito]

The zellergate.org shopping cart looks good. It's written in perl, so I recommend that if you are going to use this shoppingcart that you stick to perl for the entire project (Mixing programming languages is not a good policy, but you can do it if you want).

The syntax of PHP is a bit like C, but it's very easy to learn, so don't worry about it.