Sorry, Kuminda, it doesn't have to be as complicated as you say. First, you can get a good host account for about $45.00/month that includes SQL, and secure transactions (using the web host's certificate). That's $540/year. I assume that the customer already has a merchant account, and would need to talk to her (his?) bank about adding Internet transactions. If the internet host account has monthly costs that are too high, someone like WorldPay is an option (though they are high - you can get a better deal). Your minimum estimate of $5000 per year is way out of line.
Building the site in ASP, insuring complete transactions is easily handled. I'm not going to go over this point by point. Each of the points you make does need to be considered, but they are all easily handled. Put them all together and you have a complex programming job, but a do-able one. I believe this is intended to be a learn-as-you-go website in a number of ways. That's fine. The request was to help him get started, and my answer was geared to that request. As you say., and arts and crafts site doesn't need to be too complicated. If scalability becomes an issue, then the customer will be able to afford a more robust solution. You are right in that the business end needs to be addressed. Jim, don't get discouraged. You can do this. A book was suggested, reading it or something like it would be valuable to insure that all the business considerations are considered. These considerations should be resolved before you write a single line of code. So get thee to a bookstore! Then break the job down into pieces, and work on each piece (keeping the overall picture in mind). If the client can't pay much, then you'll have to balance what the cost should be with what you're getting out of it in terms of learning and experience. Off to finish my own current ecommerce project! Good Luck Diane -----Original Message----- From: Kuminda Chandimith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, August 04, 2002 4:53 AM To: ActiveServerPages Subject: RE: ECommerce Web site - Getting started advice As Tore Would have said, "One of my Pet Peeves". And this post has very little to do with ASP and generally talking about implementing an e-commerce business. I will forget that you are a programmer who want to do some programming :). Let me give you some basics details. The first thing you have to look in to is that how much that your customer is willing to or could pay, and what is his/her requirements in broader perspective. If the customer has no money to pay, I would not even consider writing a single source code. Not just because that I am not getting Paid, but also considering that to maintain an e-commerce site there is substantial cost. If customer cannot afforded the same the whole exercise will be a white elephant. (Believe me I have seen this happening) If you are considering a self programmed (custom developed) web site hosting. with fully functional credit card Payment systems etc, . You would be looking at minimum 5,000 USD a year hosting and related cost. If you are planning to have your own SSL certificates etc, this cost would go much higher. When consider this in the business perspective I would consider something like following. Since your commodity is Arts and Crafts, Consider developing a simple good looking HTML based web site. Find one of those ready to use online shopping cart. (I've used "Click and Build" from WorldPay UK and that has a lot of features that You could use for your customer, but there may be better ones out there.) Then place the web site in and see how it Perform for few months. But above is just what my opinion. Should you decide that you need to build a custom solution for the customer you may have to consider following. 1. Hosting : where you want to host the solution, In-house or at a shared hosting location. 2. Security: How you going to secure the transactions: In-terms of a. Communications : SSL, Server certifications etc, b. Database : You need to have A secure database. Some countries forbid you to store Credit Card, Customer information in your location unless proper security is assured. C. Application : Use of methodologies that would implement proper transactions, (no halfway transactions etc,) 3. Site Management: How the merchant could manage the product catalogues, Ordering details etc,. 4. Application scalability and architecture. 5. Credit card Payments and Merchant Accounts: The customer may need to have merchant account and connectivity to a payment gateway. In some countries you will not have proper Payment gateways, which would make you to have merchant account in a different country. and there is lot formalities involved in getting a merchant account from 2nd country. if so you may decide to go ahead with a virtual merchant Accounts Like PayPal or worldpay. 6. Credit card fraud protection. How your CC gateway provider protect you from fraud. What are the facilities available for you to assess risk of each credit card transaction. (let me add some from my experience: We started an e-commerce site about 3 years a go and we ware so overjoyed when we received our first few orders, which included few Lap-tops. We ware in haste to fulfil the Order and managed to deliver the products with in the Promised delivery days. After 3 months we received notice for credit card disputes from the Bank and we lost about 3 Laptops due to fraudulent transactions. We ware not given instructions from our payment gateway provider how to evaluate risks for credit card transaction. After few such transactions the management made a decision that we have to remove the Credit card payment facility from our web site. ) The DB Structure and implementation of Shopping cart etc, will be the least important thing when you consider the Above aspects. the post from Diane describes a typical Shopping site implementation. Of-course you may need to customise According to your needs. I have to mention there are issues in the Payment aspects specially regarding storing the credit Card numbers in your Database. Also remember there is few more concepts that in implementing shopping sites. Things such as 1. SKU's Or Stock Keeping Units. (This is when you have the same commodity in different configurations EX. Same shirt may be available in different colours.) 2. Shipping Cost calculations. 3. Taxation 4. Promotions managements (Buy one get one free Or buy One Of X and Get Y for xx.xx Price ) etc, So remember the Programming part of an e-commerce site is plays a very small role in implementing a e-commerce business. There is much larger and Business level needs that you need to consider. HTH cheers Kuminda Chandimith Sr. Technical Consultant Ducont.com FZ-LLC Tel: + 971-4-3913000 Ext 237 Fax: +971-4-3913001 http://www.ducont.com -----Original Message----- From: Falls, Travis D (CASD, IT) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 August 2002 00:10 To: ActiveServerPages Subject: RE: ECommerce Web site - Getting started advice 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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