[thelist] Inexpensive E-Commerce

Beau Hartshorne beau at pair.com
Thu Jun 21 22:27:36 CDT 2001


Hi,

I have a client who wants me to make him an e-commerce site. He doesn't
have much money, so I'm trying to do build it inexpensively. I've never put
an e-commerce site together, but I have an idea of how it might work:

1. Find an inexpensive host that supports php, mysql and ssl. (I'm using
http://www.cedant.com/).
2. Create HTML pages with all the products listed.
3. Create a simple PHP shopping cart.
4. Set up a secure area (shared ssl).
5. Create a PHP checkout app (which resides in the secure server) that adds
taxes and shipping, calculates the total, collects the address, and credit
card number. This information is either (which is best!?):

a) PGP emailed to my client.
b) Stored in a mySQL database that is accessed via a php script that
resides on the shared secure server, in a secret directory behind .htaccess
protection.
c) Stored in a flatfile database that is accessed via a php script that
resides on the shared secure server, in a secret directory behind .htaccess
protection.

6. My client gets an email sent with the order information (and credit card
information if it was sent via PHP email). If 5b or 5c, then my client goes
to his secure area and gets the credit card information, then deletes the
information from that area.
7. My client prepares the order to be shipped.
8. My client enters his card information to his bricks & mortar store, the
transaction is approved, and he ships the product.

How am I doing?

Thanks,

Beau





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