Hi, what are some things I will need to know about starting my own ecommerce website?

You'll need to know everything that ecommerce involves like security. PHP, MySQL, logistics, competive pricing for the products you're selling. It's alot of work to put together an ecommerce site but if you think you're up for the challenge go for it.

I would look into commercial solutions, the opensource PHP solutions just don't cut it anymore and are falling behind. Even with commerical PHP solutions, they fall behind in technology and alot of them have questionable security, but they work.

Is it to supplement your existing business or a totally new venture?

I'd suggest that you visit www.oscommerce.com :)

There's a plenty of info on many e-business topics.

Well among the very important things should be the host you choose, downtimes and/other problems should concern you since that could mean money losses.
You would then need a shopping cart to handle your ecommerce needs. I wouldnt go for something fancy at first if you cant afford it or dont need so many functionalities.

An SSL certificate would be in order and a merchant/3rd party processor account for payments.

Have you thought how much are you willing to invest in these things alone?

Ofcourse after all the technical stuff is setuped there is a matter of actually getting clients onto your site but that is another story.

Regards

i would suggest cs-cart :-)

I have used it on alot of projects. For the time / budget that my clients give me, its better for me to set them up with that then build one from sratch

I think it really comes down to you sitting down and listing all of your core requirements. What do you need for functionality with your site? What are your competitors offering and why are they offering it?

Once you have determined what it is that you need, then you can start to research between commercial and open source applications that will support your list of functionality. When researching, I suggest that you make sure that the carts are secure and will support an SSL connection through your hosting provider.

Once that's been completed, you should search for a reputable merchant service provider that can get you setup with your own merchant account so that you're in full control over your payments that pass through your site (not relying on a 3rd party provider to process this for you and cut you a check once or twice a month).

This should get you in the right direction and off to a good start.

I would look into commercial solutions, the opensource PHP solutions just don't cut it anymore and are falling behind. Even with commerical PHP solutions, they fall behind in technology and alot of them have questionable security, but they work.

Festus,

I do not want to depend on a turnkey provider. I want my own shopping cart (bought or licensed), my own database of customers, orders, etc. You are worrying me now, because I am getting closer and closer to finally diving into e-commerce and I narrowed my shopping cart choices to Zen-Cart and CubeCart.

How are the opensource PHP solutions falling behind?

Is there anything you recommend for up to $500 for a shopping cart?

I am also considering clickcartpro, which is a cgi-bin script written in Perl. Not sure what database it uses.

Are cgi-bin shopping cart more secure than PHP ones?

Looking forward to your reply,
Learner

Don't get me wrong, PHP is a fine language, I just am not impressed anymore by what is being done with it for ecommerce solutions. CubeCart is a commercial solution, although they do let you use it for free if you advertise them. It's security is questionable but they at least didn't start with osCommerce.

Zen-Cart is just more trouble in the long run because it just has alot of architectural problems and it is not anything you should use if you plan on building a real business on it. Maybe in another year or two it will get there, but it isn't there yet. I know it is feature packed and if you have a handful of items, it may be ok for you.

CS-Cart just looks like a better solution and may have good internal architecture, I am not sure. You should find out if they extensivley use OOP or is it just procedural code and lines and lines of functions.

If you want state-of-the-art code, the ASP.NET and JSP solutions available are there now for under $1000 and I think they are just a good solid base to expand with. Some that I know of:

ablecommerce ASP.NET, Cold Fusion, (JSP Beta)
aspdotnetstorefront ASP.NET
softslate commerce JSP

Festus,

Thank you for your time.

I was hoping for recommendations for unix servers, since I have a good host that has been reliable for years. I hate switching hosts.

Thanks again,
Learner

www.jshop.co.uk is a very professional php/mysql cart script.

I like oscommerce, it is open source, so you can customize it to fit into your business.

I'll also second the suggestion of OSCommerce, though if you are going to go that route, use www.creloaded.com - a beefed up version of OSC.

Festus,

Thank you for your time.

I was hoping for recommendations for unix servers, since I have a good host that has been reliable for years. I hate switching hosts.

Thanks again,
Learner


JSP runs on *nix & windows and what ever OS that runs a servlet container & webserver.

Thanks again, Festus. I knew that .net needed a windows server, but wasn't aware jsp runs on both.

Ever heard of Zen Cart? Its an Oscommerce remake, so if you like oscommerce, try Zen Cart - I think you'll be much surprised when you'll see how they redo the initial OsCommerce...