Creating Online Shop

Question

After a steep learning curve, and help from the forum, I have
my clients new site up:
www.entwyne.com
Next step is to fill the product pages.... I need to create
an online shop...
The hard part is making it so my client can update, ad new
products and include a Paypal button.
I want to do something simple like this:
http://www.mariecristine.com/?&mp=Default&class=inventory&id=SP71&cid=SP1035
Anybody know of some easy online tutorials?
Or a little program that takes the pain out of it?
I have explored
http://www.plogger.org/ ... and
Photoshops automate web photo gallery.
Not sure they are quite right for the job.

Answer 1

Hello,
The page you showed as an example of what you want to do is
simple in layout
only.
What makes it work is very complex.
It involves Server Side Language and a database. Essentially,
an
application.
There is also a "back end", which is the administration part
of the website
where the client can add new products or photos, edit
descriptions or
prices, delete products, add stock, control shipping charges
and so on.
Take a look at webassist.com (their eCommerce suite) or
Cartweaver.com for a
solution..
Check out Cartweaver's demo of the admin section for an
example of what your
client would need to update and maintain the store.
Click around through the menu.
http://www.cartweaver.com/demos/php/basic/cw3/Admin/
Essentially, all the forms are for the client to add to or
edit things in
the database. Server Side Language defines how this works.
To go back to the public side of the site,
You need the list of products to show so people can click on
one to get a
"details" page with a bigger photo, more information, an add
to cart button
and so on.
Briefly, VERY briefly, this is one way things happen:
There is a menu list of products for sale on the home page of
the site.
This list comes from the database. It's in the database as
the client used
the admin section of the site to define what products he or
she has.
A Server Side Language (SSL) takes the information from the
database, and
"draws" the menu on the page.
So, one of the products is rings.
You click on "rings", in the menu and a "product page"
displays.
Again, the information on the products page comes from the
database.
Your client used the admin section of the site to enter all
of the ring
types into the database and to add photos.
Now, when this page opens, the fact that you picked rings
defines how this
page is built dynamically.
(There is not a separate page for all products..that would be
insanely
manual if there were a lot of products.)
The SSL pulls all the ring names and short descriptions out
of the database,
and builds a table on the page big enough to hold
the number of rings. It inserts the link to each ring's image
into each
cell, so the image will display on the page.
It then adds a link to each cell, so the user can click on
that and get more
details about the ring.
Now, you click on a certain ring.
A "details" page opens.
Information about this specific ring is gathered from the
database and drawn
onto the details page.
A bigger picture, a long description, an add to cart
button.....
Again, there is not a different page for each product. There
is 1 details
page, and the SSL creates the page dynamically (on the fly)
based on which
product someone wanted more info on.
Lastly, you want this ring.
You click on the "Add to Cart" button.
A cart view opens showing what is in the cart.
This, too, is built by the SSL using the database.
You can proceed to checkout, or continue shopping and add
more things to the
cart.
It is complex.
Luckily, applications like Cartweaver and Webassist can do
most of the work
for you.
They build the admin section and all the dynamic pages.
You just "style" things to match your site.
You will need to get familiar with setting up a testing
server on your
computer, as you can't test SSL pages locally without one.
I know Cartweaver comes with great instructions on how to do
this.
I would assume WebAssist does as well, I've heard their
support is great.
Time to start reading!
Take care,
Tim
"Astro Boi" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
> After a steep learning curve, and help from the forum, I
have my clients
> new
> site up:
> www.entwyne.com
>
> Next step is to fill the product pages.... I need to
create an online
> shop...
> The hard part is making it so my client can update, ad
new products and
> include a Paypal button.
> I want to do something simple like this:
>
http://www.mariecristine.com/?&mp=Default&class=inventory&id=SP71&cid=SP1035
>
> Anybody know of some easy online tutorials?
> Or a little program that takes the pain out of it?
>
> I have explored
http://www.plogger.org/ ... and
Photoshops automate web
> photo
> gallery.
> Not sure they are quite right for the job.
>
>
>