[thelist] website help/advice

> Waaaaazzzzzzzup?!

Bah! I guess I still answer... ;-)

> Immediately 2 concerns come to my mind. 1. Selling gift certificates
online,
> can this be done securely? For example, how could I stop the user from
> printing out multiple copies of it? I could stop them from accessing the
> page by setting a cookie to stop them, but that will only work if they
don't
> clear all of their cookies/cache. Is this feasible by anymeans? Right now,
> I'm thinking it is not going to work too well.

Shit... they can print out as many copies as they want. You need to
synchronize the Web database with the database used in the store (if you can
use the same one, that would be less messy). You need to print a certificate
ID on the generated certificate, along with owner ID information. When the
certificate is redeemed, the store will do a lookup in the database to see
if that number exists and has not already been redeemed. You might also want
to look into some type of encoding (bar code?) so that Joe Hax0r can't do
some nifty graphic editing on a screen capture of the certificate and guess
a valid certificate ID.

> 2. Selling his products online. He has various shampoos and related items
in
> his shop, but his shop is local only. I figure if he sells online either
he
> will get too much business that he can't fill all of the orders (since
there
> isn't really more than 4-5 people that work at a time there) or he won't
> really get any orders at all since the people either could get their
product
> somewhere else online possibly cheaper with a faster fill order or just
> rather visit his shop instead (second scenario is most likely I'm
figuring).

You mean he's not going to ship to non-local customers? I hope not. Too much
business won't be a problem. If anything, he won't get much. I agree with
your reasoning to an extent... but I'm thinking that most of the business
will come from gift sales. Lemme think of an example...

http://www.fairfieldflorist.com The structure of the site sucks IMO (I've
offered to re-design it for them), but I've ordered flowers online mucho
times. I don't even know where exactly they're located (I know their local).
But, it saves me a trip to the florist (and the embarrassment of writing the
card while Nancy Rose looks over my shoulder). What can I say, I'm a lady
killer.

Personally, I think it would be worth this guy's denero to build at least a
makeshift online ordering system... or at least get one of those
pre-packaged thing-a-ma-bobs.

> So basically I told him of this and said I would find more support to back
> up my ideas. Anyone got any ideas on this? Should I just focus on creating
a
> great looking site with a great virtual tour and tell him to scrap those 2
> above mentioned ideas (since I don't think they are vital to his site and
> would just cost more money for more problems and things he doesn't really
> need)?

Kinda sounds like he wants the online store anyway. Explain to him that he
probably won't get more than 10 orders per month (max) or so. Let him make
the decision.

Oh, and if you need any help flushing out the details... you know my ICQ
number.

--
mattwarden
mattwarden.com