Any advice on making an online shopping website?

[that mike guy]

Hello all you helpful folks,

I need to make a website for an online shopping store. There is no deadline so i have time to learn, lol.

I'm comfortable with web design with html, but what else do I need to know about programming to get this going? ASP I think right?

I need to make one totaly customized; HIGH END design. I can't settle with a prebuilt store which I can only modify colors and logos here and there.

The store won't have much stock, probably only under 80 items for a while.

Thanks for any help.

[ecsyle]

You are going to be stuck with a prebuilt store. Luckily most stores are template based so you can change the look and structure however you want.

My only suggestion is that if there is going to be actual money transfered online then do not, do not, build your own store. Purchase a license or download something like oscommerce and customize it.

If you are comfortable and experienced with web programming , security, and ecommerce, then I would support the idea of building a custom online store. Otherwise you will save yourself, and your client, a bunch of headaches by using a pre built solution.

[Pixel8]

I must agree. Unless you are a SERIOUSLY experienced programmer, just don't go there.

http://www.lifecenter.org

This is the company I work for. I built this site, and it's fully integrated with MIVA shopping cart system with VeriSign security. The site is hosted by Apollo Web Hosting, (http://www.apollohosting.com) which offers MIVA to its customers when you sign up for some of their hosting programs. That's better than shelling out $400 and installing the system yourself, I think.

Setting up this system was a major pain because I had to deal with the company that gave us our Merchant Account, VeriSign for the Payment Gateway, Apollo Hosting for the new hosting account, our internal Finance Department, and then learn the MIVA program itself! :eek:

Anyway, it's very slick and I'd recommend it over OsCommerce. OsCommerce is freeware, but it's kind of a lightweight program, IMO

[ecsyle]

...But it's free. And for small operations it does pretty well. I personally do not use it beucase it required I turn on register globals, which is bullshit.

I use x-cart + authorize.net. Easy. Done. Complicated template structure though.

[that mike guy]

ok... that helps. I have agora shopping cart with my hosting. So could I basically design my site (slice it up and throw it in dreamweaver) and toss in the agora shopping cart, using my design as a 'shell'?

I know its not as easy as that, but does it work that way?

[ecsyle]

I am not familiar with Agora. Most of the shopping cart systems use a templating engine to keep programming logic and presentation separated. You templates will have variables and conditional logic which then gets handled by the template parser. The final output is the html. For example in phpBB (because I am more familiar with it's template system than other applications) you would see something like this in a template file:

<h1>{VARIABLE_NAME}</h1>

When the template is parsed {VARIABLE_NAME} will be replaced with the actual content for the variable.

It would be best to just use the default store templates as a, well, template, for your design.

If you are lucky you will only have to update the css file :)

[Meganpru]

Wow, I was going to ask a very similar question. Does the server that the site is hosted on need to match with the shopping cart software? I'm not a backend person at all, but was recently approached by a potential client wanting a small e-commerce site but they're fine with using pre-built software for the shopping cart/payment processing side. Does anyone have some good suggestions for resources? Especially easy to install & update software that is really customizable?

Thanks in advance!

[Meganpru]

bump!

Anyone have suggestions on shopping cart software to use?

I was thinking Paypal, but I'm not sure how customizable it is... or oscommerce... has anyone had any experience using these or other software programs before?

Thanks

[ecsyle]

If the software requires a specific server configuration then you have to use that configuration.

Paypal, eh, it works but I would rather trust my money with an actual bank. You can customize paypal enough to suit most needs. Read through their documentation for more information.

[Pixel8]

I've seen PayPal used effectively, though it's not as slick as a full-blown E-Commerce shopping cart system.

OsCommerce seemed a little "flimsy" to me when I used it, and not very well documented. It's popular, however, and it is free.

For sake of simplicity, I am going to suggest PayPal to my small business clients. After all the trouble I went through with MIVA, PayPal is MUCH simpler.