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Posted by Dano on 10/23/06 12:35
I've worked for a company that used one extensively to sell barcode
printers, labels, scanners, etc., so I think I can give you a couple of
good pointers.
First, decide if you will do real-time processing of credit cards, or
just take the numbers, and process later as a batch process. Real-time
processing costs more, and to be honest, might be an expense you don't
need, especially in the startup phase. Consider gathering the credit
card info, and processing as a batch process later with your bank.
Either way, you'll need good Secure Socket Layer (SSL) security to
encrypt the credit card info. A good resource is InstantSSL
(http://www.instantssl.com). They take your compamy info, verify it,
and issue a digital certificate at a considerable savings - and I mean
CONSIDERABLE! - over Verisign or Thawte, which are more than happy to
charge you over $1,000 per year! (Hint: InstantSSL costs less than $200
for a 3-year certificate, and has an adequate guarantee for most
eCommerce applications.)
When you design your shopping cart, I would recommend open source
solutions as a low-cost alternative. Shopping carts do a few basic
things:
Gather product info
Display accumulated products
Allow deletion of individual products or the entire order
Checkout, which typically involves:
Gathering shipping/billing and credit card info
Displaying/choosing shipping options for products in cart based on
weight
Providing a summary of the transaction when the process is complete.
The shopping cart works with a "back-end" database. Here, I would
recommend MySQL, an open source database. (At "free" it sure beats the
heck out of SQL Server or Oracle!) The database allows you to store
captured data from the shopping cart transaction, which can be used for
order processing and fulfillment.
On your Web site, I recommend PHP as a scripting language to allow you
to build the kind of site that interacts with your customers. PHP also
"plays well" with MySQL, and with the added benefit that the two
applications are found on nearly all good Linux-based hosting servers,
it really is a convenient fit.
Final recommendation: Hosting. You want a good hosting service that
provides the tools you need. I recommend TotalChoiceHosting
(www.totalchoicehosting.com), which can run you - for an adequate
service - a whole $5 per month. There are no ads attached, the server
is "yours," and it's left up to you to configure it as you need. There
are a lot of site management tools, including unlimited email accounts,
unlimited MySQL databases, PHPMyAdmin (for administering your MySQL
database) and AWStats, a great all-around statistical "dashboard" for
your server.
Hope that helps, and hope I haven't given away too many secrets! ;)
Dan sends...
John Paul wrote:
> I'm thinking of building an e-commerce site in php.
>
> Anyone got any advice in building one?
>
> What is the best way to implement a payment system?
>
> Are any legal issues involved?
>
> Thanks,
>
> John Paul.
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