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Joseph Grogan

New Member
Hi all... I was asked the other day by a potential client for a web site that sells products using credit cards.

To date most sites do are just brochure sites with products on them and people ring to buy stuff..

But I have no idea on how to do a credit card thing or how much i should charge for it or where to start. But i know i would love to learn.

So if anyone can give me some advice it would be cool..

Cheers

__________________________
Web design Ireland | Freehold dubai property | Buying and sellling Ireland
 

Joseph Grogan

New Member
Oh

Does anyone have any ideas on any good shopping carts as well. I was looking at OSCommerce

But not sure. Anything i read on it said that the php code is very messy and hard to change to suit a site. And Zen Cart but not really sure

any ideas
 

EdenWeb

Member
I'd start off small...even just integrate a PayPal or Google Checkout system to begin with and then work your way towards more complexity.

There are a few main elements ahead of you.

The store/website, the shopping cart, payment gateway, client admin, maintenance and order fulfillment.

I've read good things about ZEN but until you use it or try to config, you just don't know.

Can you set up a pretend store for the moment to play with the interface?
 

EdenWeb

Member
I couldn't actually tell you as I don't have huge exp. in the area.

I did a major eCommerce store a few years ago whereby the products were about 8-12K each. The whole store engine was written completely from scratch by a very talented UK programmer and wrtten in PHP. The actual payment processing was done manually and probably side-stepped a huge amount of issues.

The smaller store I helped integrate a few years ago used WorldPay and RealEx. My experience with both wasn't completely amazing.
 

EdenWeb

Member
Bumped

Suprised there's not more posts here to help you. Some of the guys have a lot of eCommerce experience.
 

Gianni

New Member
Just out of interest. How will you supply this requirement to the client if you have no experience in it?

From what I have read, you may want to go down the PayPal route for the moment while you inform yourself of the other options.

One being Realex. This allows you to integrate Credit Card authorisation into the client's site. i.e. customers are not redirected to a 3rd party site like PayPal.

While this is the preferred solution, initially it maybe not be necessary. It all depends on the amount of traffic and sales that the site generates.

OS cart like OsCommerce are relatively easy to setup and ther is a lot of support with regards to help, modifying the aplpication.

I do find though that thereis an element of overkill with them especailly in the admin section where a lot of my cients don't actually need all the functionality provided.

To that end we actually decided to write our own online shop application as we found that it was quicker to setup and mange both for us and the clients. The other advantage being we can quickly plug in any extra functionality required.


Good luck with messing with the OS shop, it's the best way to learn about them!

If you have any questions, pm me.


p.s. Don't forget, an online shop is not only about shopping cart software.
 

Joseph Grogan

New Member
Hi Gianni

Well The client was a friend from school... That why she wants me to do it. And she wanted a Shopping cart etc.. I already told her I have no experience in it but she still asked me to do it. So i just making the site now but when I learn how to do it I will be putting a shoppping cart on it. But I really have no clue of where to start and what the steps are or anything.... But I suppose I will just have to play around and figure it out


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web design Ireland | Dubai Property
 

Joseph Grogan

New Member
Yea hopefully

Hopefully it will be.... Just one question which do you think would be best go with. ZEN CART or OS... Not sure myself
 

Gianni

New Member
ZEN was developed as an offshoot of osCommerce.

Some say Os has goten too big etc and that ZEN is the way to go. You will find in the (like with most "discussions"), that's it about 50-50.

The one suggestion I can make is that if you have the time, install both and play with them. Dn't forget to keep your client's requirements in mind.

If you don't need loads of admin features then use the cart that suits best.

I find a lot of these products just overwhelm people who have no interest in and little experience of computers in general.

Finally, be sure you understand the amount of work involved in setting all this up. The client, will most probably want to have their own look and feel so you ned to be sure you know how to modify the styles in the products too.

Form my side, I've always used OsCOmmerce because when I started diong online shops about 8 years ago, it was the best OS shopping cart around.

Now I have my own.


Fire away if you need any more help.
 

Joseph Grogan

New Member
Cool Cheers.....

I will give a blast at the both of them... And see how it fairs out. I already told the client that i didnt know about it and that i will be learning it. So i already told her it will be a few months to give myself time to learn it. But it will propbably be longer than a few months:). If I get stuck trying to install it or any thing else I will be posting back to you:)...

Cheers for the help. Much appriciated

________________________
web design Ireland | Dubai property
 

Gianni

New Member
There are different payment modules within osCommerce.

You need to setup the one that

a) Is the easisets for you to get to grips with

b) Will not cost your client too much in charges

c) not necessarily in this order :)

Go into the admin section and slect the Modules section. There you will see the default options available. Then if you're feeling adventurous, go to the osCommerce community forum and read up on what other developers may have created for this section.

If you want seamless integration from the start then you will need to implement a payment gateway like Realex. It all depnds on the no of sales going through the site.

Realex created a module for OsCOmmerce which also includes taking payment from Laser cards. This is available on the community forum.
 

Gianni

New Member
You have to setup accounts with PayPal etc for them to do the CC transactions for you. You set your account details etc. in osCommerce for the checkout routine.
 

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
If you are just starting off Paypal is the simplest one to setup. You don't need to do much with it apart from proving the email address on the account :)
 

Mike

New Member
The first store I created online used Actinic (actinic.co.uk). It's a payware solution btw. It was a great package because it took a lot of the coding away from the developer and was very template based. A little tricky to set up but if your mate keeps to the standard templates and just changes colour and not too much layout it could work well. It has a built in integration with WorldPay which are easier to set up with if you don't have a merchant account. Might be your best bet if you want to dip your toe in the water. The client gets a windows desktop app to look after the sales side of things including vat etc.

If you build your own cart or use a PHP type solution you could consider using Realex to process the payments. It will take away a lot of the pain of secure storage of CC data (http://www.realexpayments.com/). You (or your mate) will need a merchant account with the likes of AIB to set it up. Technically it's not too difficult - you build up your cart, fire a http post off to their script - they check out the payment and post back a result to a script of your choice on your server which then allows you to take appropriate action ('your sale was successful', update database etc.)

Blacknight hosting have cart apps built into your service which you can set up in a couple of clicks. They're reliable and knowledgable too so you might consider that as a first port of call if your going to do the PHP thing. They have a choice of open source apps for free.

Main thing I'd watch out for is that if your own coding is not 100%, work to take away as much of the credit card/payment stuff as you can as you don't want to be liable for fraud.

Hope that helps a bit,

cheers,

Mike
 
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