e-commerce web design?

27.January, 2010

I run a web design company and i regularly get clients asking about e-commerce sites, i’m not sure how to do them yet so i have come here to ask.

do web designers out there just get an open source ecommerce software and edit the themes to integrate into a clients website or do they build their own?

how should i go about offering ecommerce, and what should i use software wise

Thanks

As said above, but free e-commerce scripts are usually full of bugs.
Large systems, like Joomla, Drupal, Miva or Os-commerce are very complex to use and have HUUUGE amount of stuff you will never need (install 26mb!).
I personally find them a total waste of time.
Here are the basic specs of simple e-commerce:
E-Commerce basic specs

Home page:
6 areas:
- Banner
- Navbar (or menu)
- Main
- Footer
- Login
- basket/cashier buttons
Any area can be horizontal or vertical
login and basket can be included in any other area.
All area contents can be changed through AJAX.
Navbar leads to separate pages or catalogue items.

Catalogue:
- Items referenced by
- Categories
- Itemno
- Subinfo (ie size, colours)
- Each item has two images:
- small
- large
- Catalogue menu extracted from categories in DB (autolist)
- in NAVBAR area
- Select category shows thumbnails of all items of that category
- in "main" area
- Select thumbnail to bring Item full details with
- in "main" area
- add to basket

Login:
- Enter Username/password and login button
- Register button
- Password Recovery button
- My details button (edit or delete account)

Basket:
- Show/edit basket content in session
- Cashier button

Cashier:
- View basket, confirm.
- If not logged in, register form
- Go to PayPal.
- On return, email with order details to user

Paypal:
- Cashier payments through PayPal

Admin:
- Users:
Browse, search users
alter data, access levels
create new users
- Items:
Add, delete, edit items
Browse and search items, to view/edit
- Orders:
Browse orders
- Accounts:
list of bank transactions
list of accounts and status

You can the whole of it in less than 200kb of code! (Not if you use Dreamweaver, of course: you’ll never make it. Use Notepad++ to edit your code.)

Posted by: admin in: web design e commerce 2 Comments »

2 Comments für “e-commerce web design?”

  1. mike sagt:
    27.January, 2010 um 11:17 am

    You have 4 choices.

    1. Use open source commerce software there are several out there
    2. Buy Software, sometimes buying software can be a better option since they may have easier features or even better features the free software and more customer support.
    3. Of course paypal and google offer free carts although I don’t recommend them.
    4. You custom create a cart from scratch which is a backward approach but it can be done.
    References :

  2. just "JR" sagt:
    27.January, 2010 um 11:54 am

    As said above, but free e-commerce scripts are usually full of bugs.
    Large systems, like Joomla, Drupal, Miva or Os-commerce are very complex to use and have HUUUGE amount of stuff you will never need (install 26mb!).
    I personally find them a total waste of time.
    Here are the basic specs of simple e-commerce:
    E-Commerce basic specs

    Home page:
    6 areas:
    - Banner
    - Navbar (or menu)
    - Main
    - Footer
    - Login
    - basket/cashier buttons
    Any area can be horizontal or vertical
    login and basket can be included in any other area.
    All area contents can be changed through AJAX.
    Navbar leads to separate pages or catalogue items.

    Catalogue:
    - Items referenced by
    - Categories
    - Itemno
    - Subinfo (ie size, colours)
    - Each item has two images:
    - small
    - large
    - Catalogue menu extracted from categories in DB (autolist)
    - in NAVBAR area
    - Select category shows thumbnails of all items of that category
    - in "main" area
    - Select thumbnail to bring Item full details with
    - in "main" area
    - add to basket

    Login:
    - Enter Username/password and login button
    - Register button
    - Password Recovery button
    - My details button (edit or delete account)

    Basket:
    - Show/edit basket content in session
    - Cashier button

    Cashier:
    - View basket, confirm.
    - If not logged in, register form
    - Go to PayPal.
    - On return, email with order details to user

    Paypal:
    - Cashier payments through PayPal

    Admin:
    - Users:
    Browse, search users
    alter data, access levels
    create new users
    - Items:
    Add, delete, edit items
    Browse and search items, to view/edit
    - Orders:
    Browse orders
    - Accounts:
    list of bank transactions
    list of accounts and status

    You can the whole of it in less than 200kb of code! (Not if you use Dreamweaver, of course: you’ll never make it. Use Notepad++ to edit your code.)
    References :
    Pro web2 application developer at http://www.web2coders.com
    Free scripts usable for e-commerce.

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