How to setup ecommerce for a website

External Since: Jul 15, 2004 Posts: 1

I am looking into ecommerce-enabling a website and I am looking for
information on where I can find some basics. I understand web hosting,
ssl, etc., but I am unsure about what exactly I need for a simple
ecommerce setup. Here is the situation: small website with a few
products to sell; no serious volume, inventory, database, etc. But I
would like to be able to accept credit card transactions. I know I
need some sort of subscription to a credit card portal and they will
charge me per transaction or whatever. But do I also need some sort of
shopping cart software? Is there a good tutorial out there that
actually explains what I need to do to put this site together
technically?

External Since: Jun 30, 2004 Posts: 4

drl.TakeThisOut@lockesystems.com (DRL) wrote in message news:<df523f.0407151957.37c5283.TakeThisOut@posting.google.com>...
> I am looking into ecommerce-enabling a website and I am looking for
> information on where I can find some basics. I understand web hosting,
> ssl, etc., but I am unsure about what exactly I need for a simple
> ecommerce setup. Here is the situation: small website with a few
> products to sell; no serious volume, inventory, database, etc. But I
> would like to be able to accept credit card transactions. I know I
> need some sort of subscription to a credit card portal and they will
> charge me per transaction or whatever. But do I also need some sort of
> shopping cart software? Is there a good tutorial out there that
> actually explains what I need to do to put this site together
> technically?

If you have a specific question, beyond "what should I do" I would be
happy to help.

Here are a few things to get your going

How will you maintain your inventory? Database, flat files, HTML
pages by hand?

How will you host your site? Windows or *nix This makes a big
difference.

You basically need to do these steps (there is a bunch left out here)

1. List your product groups (if any)
2. List a specific item with detail
3. Add that item to a cart
4. Allow adjustment of that cart (emtpy, more quantity)
5. Go into SSL
6. Collect billing and shipping info
7. Display the total price, including shipping, and ask for CC info
8. Process CC info
9. Approve or decline order
10. Show reciept or ask to fix the information

Anything after step 5, you are dealing with customer info, so you
better protect it. As some people are fond of pointing out, there are
fines if you don't. It isn't as difficult as people want you to
believe though.

Chris Zwemke
Lead Programmer, Spliethof Inc.
An Internet Corporation dba ASPilot.com & Scarab Media
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.ASPilot.com" target="_blank">www.ASPilot.com</a> | <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.scarabmedia.com" target="_blank">www.scarabmedia.com</a>
Full Scale E-commerce applications, web stores, online automated
services
541-734-7308 : 1-888-755-7308 : fax: 1-866-728-8436 :
Makers of Pilot Cart <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.aspilot.com/" target="_blank">http://www.aspilot.com/</a> Web Store Applications