Diane, that was a great description on the basics of an ecommerce site. I especially like the way you broke out the tables. I have a quick question on this matter, how is a merch. account different from verisign? Is it that verisign validates the credit card, and merch does the bank transaction?
Regards, Travis D. Falls Software Engineer The Hartford (CASD) 860.547.4070 [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.thehartford.com -----Original Message----- From: Diane Schips [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2002 3:54 PM To: ActiveServerPages Subject: RE: ECommerce Web site - Getting started advice OK. My advice? Write a clear, functional spec. Put together some page to show what the site will look like. Then run it by the customer. NOW is when you want to find out that your ideas and hers (his?) don't match. With your clear spec, design a data base, then code around it. The hardest thing you'll have to deal with is moving from a state machine (VB) to a stateless machine (the web). All the server knows is that its sending a page to a browser. It has no idea of what page was last sent to the browser, if any. So you need to write into your code a way to keep track of who is doing what. A person selects a product, then clicks some kind of select button and goes to another page. OK, now you have whatever product info was sent from the last page's form, and whatever you can look up from the database based on info you have from the last form. Does that info include a customer number? That could be in a cookie (people can and do disable cookies), a session variable (can also be disabled, and not supported in all browsers), a hidden variable (subject to hacking) or something else? I won't go into this discussion here, its a discussion all unto itself, and something we all struggle with. Some other things to keep in mind: I recommend the following tables: customer, product, payment info, header, detail, login. The customer table holds customer info, the product table holds product info, the payment table includes the customer ID, and holds payment info (someone might want to keep on record more than one credit card), The header table includes order information, the detail table include information regarding item order, and the login table includes passwords, usernames, and customer IDs. The header table might include order number, customer number, order date, shipping info (if different form billing info), payment info, if credit card was accepted or declined, if order was shipped, etc. The detail table might include info on the order number this record belongs to, the item ordered, the quantity, the price (always get your price from a lookup, never pass it along on forms. It's too easy for someone to hack when passing through forms) and other info related to the item. Customers need to edit their own info (address, phone, etc), and their payment info (if you choose to store it). You need to link ordered product with order info, and to a customer. You need to be able to get rid of records created by orders that were initiated, but not complete. You need to give your customer a way to update product info, and to check on order, customers, declined credit cards, orders that need to be shipped, etc. Your customer needs an internet merchant account, which you will have to integrate with (easy). it sounds like a lot, but then most programs are. Break it down into it's pieces, then work on each piece. But it is imperative that you have an overall picture in your mind! Good luck Diane -----Original Message----- From: Jim MacDiarmid [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 5:02 PM To: ActiveServerPages Subject: RE: ECommerce Web site - Getting started advice No real clear spec.. As for the other questions.. I've been doing VB programming for the last 5 years developing custom security applications, COM Objects, ActiveX Controls, applications that interact with a database, advanced WIN32 API programming, as well as some web applications in both Cold Fusion using Fusebox and some ASP, but no ecommerce stuff, just intranet. |-----Original Message----- |From: Diane Schips [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] |Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 4:22 PM |To: ActiveServerPages |Subject: RE: ECommerce Web site - Getting started advice | | |Ecommerce probably isn't a good starter program. And it's a bit difficult |to know where to tell you to start. So I'll begin by asking you some |questions. How experienced are you as a programmer? How much |experience do |you have with database programming? Programming for the web? Do |you have a |clear spec in what is wanted? | |Diane | |-----Original Message----- |From: Jim MacDiarmid [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] |Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 3:55 PM |To: ActiveServerPages |Subject: ECommerce Web site - Getting started advice | | |I'm in the process of gathering information on doing a web site for the |owner of a arts and crafts store in my area. My mom sells her crafts in the |owners store on consignment so I wanted to cut her a special deal |since this |is my first "customer" and first project. |I was wondering if anyone here would be able to give me tips on how to get |started on this. Also if there are any good books I should look at that |would give me ideas and/or step by step advice on putting together a |shopping cart,etc. | |Thanks in advance!, | |Jim MacDiarmid |Manassas, Virginia |Yahoo & AIM: Jim6763NVA | | | |--- |You are currently subscribed to activeserverpages as: |[EMAIL PROTECTED] |To unsubscribe send a blank email to |%%email.unsub%% | | |--- |You are currently subscribed to activeserverpages as: |[EMAIL PROTECTED] |To unsubscribe send a blank email to |%%email.unsub%% | --- You are currently subscribed to activeserverpages as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%% --- You are currently subscribed to activeserverpages as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%% This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential or privileged information. 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