E-commerce

**Silverfern** · 19-08-05

Hi,

Is it difficult to set up shopping cart websites, and anything to do with e-commerce, i have no problem setting up websites for local tradesmen, which i've just started doing, but if a local shop wanted to sell things, where do I start??

Could anyone offer an advice, do you purchase specialist software, i wouldnt know where to start!

Thanks alot

Ian

**Brains** · 19-08-05

It can be as complex or as easy as you like.

There are ooodles of carts out there and some work right 'out of the box' but it you need customisation that's where the time and effort come in.

I have used most carts and developed my own from scratch. Used to use the old carts in Perl then made the switch to PHP and MySQL.

Had a lot of fun a couple of years ago with ClickCartPro. A new version is due for release later in the year. Large following and once of the most functional carts around but it has a steep learning curve. Some people were disappointed by the multi-step checkout but I hacked it down to 2 steps.

You can even set up a basic html page if selling single products with a link directly to the payment gateway....VERY easy to do and best of all....it works! No complex scripting, no fancy cgi, php, etc etc.

Then there are other carts like actinic. oscommerce etc but i hate these. A nice cart with a windows add-on for retrieving orders, sending e-mail receipts etc is CartIt. They have made some changes over the years and the scripts are less heavy than they used to be. They offer good discounts for developers. Again, the learning curve can be steep although they do offer a FrontPage module for development.

You could even go down the route of CMS - Mambo for example. Its free. It works. It has a HUGE following and there are a couple of carts available. They are not as fully featured as some of those listed above but are a start.

Then there is PayPal.

So many options!

Hope this helps.

BRAINS

**Silverfern** · 19-08-05

Hi Brains,

Thanks for the reply, it's much appreciated!

Do you have any links I could follow to learn a bit more? can all shopping carts be set up using dreamweaver (excuse me if these questions sound daft) Do I need to be able to have merchant status to set any of these products up, or would that be up to the client?

Thanks for your help

Ian

**scifind** · 19-08-05

If you understand PHP MYSQL I would start with OScommerce, simply because it is free and it will give you an idea of what is possible with shopping carts. Once you have the idea of how these shopping carts are configured and templates modified.
If you are not familiar with PHP MYSQL the simplist way forward is either go for PAypal shopping cart or - better still Mals E commerce. (www.mals-e.com) which just requires configuring and product info is posted via forms to their server.

I cannot comment about the paid shopping carts BUT I imagine that they should be fairlt easy to alter the template using dreamweaver and or notepad

**eliteshops** · 19-08-05

Hi

We use VPASP for our e-commerce, although have also recently done a PHP site

If you are handy with ASP and access databases then this is a good paid option as it is packed full of features.

We have a demo site http://www.design365.co.uk/jewellery/index.asp where you can see how flexible it is and also have a look around the back office

With regards to a merchant account, this will only be required for your clients unless you start selling stuff as well. However, if you use nochex or paypal then there is no need for the mercahnt account

Hope this helps

**Brains** · 19-08-05

1. Links
www.cartit.com
www.clickcartpro.com
www.actinic.co.uk
if you need more just do a quick search on google - lots available

2. Merchant Account
Your client should arrange this (although you can get commissions for referrals!). Most are very easy to integrate. ClickCartPro - you can integrate direct from the backend admin. Otherwise, its just a case (usually) of changing a few lines of code (basic stuff).
WorldPay, for example, have code similar to this:

<input type="hidden" name="instId" value="xxx-your-install-id-xxx">
<input type="hidden" name="cartId" value="xxx-yourcartid-xxx">
<input type="hidden" name="MC_callurl" value="www.mydomain.com/callback.php"> (performs a callback to your site)
<input type="hidden" name="testMode" value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="desc" value="My purchased item">
<input type="hidden" name="currency" value="GBP">
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="12.00">
<input type="hidden" name="M_orderid" value="47609">
<input type="hidden" name="M_customerid" value="6897">
<input type="hidden" name="name" value="Customer Name">
<input type="hidden" name="address" value="Customer Address">
<input type="hidden" name="email" value="you@yourdomain.com">
<input name="country" type="hidden" id="country" value="GB" />

These fields are contained in the page before the user clicks on the 'pay now' button (depending on setup of course) - they are fairly self explanatory and there are other fields that can be passed to the gateway.....custom fields etc.

BRAINS

**pricethat** · 19-08-05

oscommerce is great but the more you get into you it your realise the more you can do, make sure the customer doesnt run away with you to do this and do that or you will forever be playing with it.

If you want something a little more basic and not so blatent as oscommerce use cubecart, its cute