Well Mark and the rest of the gang answered my questions on how one can use PHP and MySQL to populate an HTML product detail template for use in an e-Commerce site.  So...I'm almost ready to dive into PHP (acutally have started learning already) so I can learn how to use it for the functionality for the site that I'm rebuilding.  Currently, I am hosted by Storesonline and restricted by their templates.  I plan on "cutting the apron strings" sometime in the near future after the rebuild is complete and decide on a new host.

I have read several posts on this forum regarding OS Commerce and how this package is great for e-Commerce sites.  That's the route I was planning on going and thinking of coupling it with shopping cart software.  Now I'm thinking that perhaps after learning some PHP and MySQL that I would be better off building the content management part of the site myself.   This way I would have much greater flexibility in my design.

What I need to know is just where the shopping cart software takes control.  Anything it WON'T do, I'll have to build myself.  i.e. once a customer navigates to my product detail page and makes the decision to purchase, is this where the shopping cart takes over?  Will it add the shipping charge, calculate sales tax, etc?

Any help in understanding everything a shopping cart will do and what it won't do will be much appreciated.  Basically, if it doesn't do enough, I might be tempted to use OSC in lieu of going the PHP/MySQL route.

Thanks in advance,
GP

There are a lot of definitions about what a online shopping cart is. My analogy is probably the most sensible, but the least recognised...so I'll move on

OSCommerce is an all in one solution. It handles the product pages/database, can work out the extra charges such as shipping and tax, and can integrate into many payment gateways (eg paypal, google checkout, 2CO etc etc).

To me, a store consists of 3 main parts

A - The products - database driven info pages
B - The cart - a way of remembering what products you want
C - The checkout - a way to pay

OSC has all 3 components and is essentially a narrow-minded CMS

Hi Northie,

Based on your response I would say that if I can develop my product pgaes by using PHP and MySQL I should be able to integrate one of the shopping carts and checkouts available to do the rest, no?  Or...perhaps it may not be too difficult to build the cart with PHP and/or HTML.  That way all  I would have to do is look for a checkout.  I can tell from your many posts throughout this site that you have built your own CMS with PHP and MySQL but what is your experience with building your own cart?

I have successfully built my own cart on many occasions

the first time i did it was on a membership-only site. Only members could buy and i had ~5000 unique products that could only be bought once. This made things pretty easy. The checkout was done through paypal

Next i developed the cart for redrushvouchers.co.uk - the database, CMS and pages had already been built and I just added a session/mysql based AJAX cart. The checkout was done using the existing company's merchant account.

For your needs I would recommend OSC for all of it. It can act as your CMS, cart and checkout.

You can still modify the templates and php to customise it - as an old friend once said, "Why re-invent the wheel?"

By all means write the database/CMS part yourself - but that's the bulk of the work and possibly the hardest part.

If you know in your mind how your stock-take works, what shipping and taxes are required you could do it all yourself in PHP+MySQL....I'm always around to ask for advice

Ok...please help me organize my plan.  Here are some pertinent facts about my situation:

1. I'm currently using Storesonline (SOL)  for a host.  I make changes to my site via their store builder software.  All my products are currently stored on their server somewhere, somehow.  I plan on staying with them until I have the new site ready to go.
2. I have to design all my pages yet. i.e. home page, category pages, product template page, FAQ page, etc.
3. I have to rewrite the URL's for my current pages to be more SEO/KWP friendly.  SOL has a redirect feature built into their storebuilder so I thought that once I decided on all the URL changes I would take care of all the redirects via SOL approx. one month before going live with the new site or sooner if possible.
4. I have to build my database in MySQL for my products and develop my product detail template page for the HTML/PHP/MySQL realationship.
5. I have to download and install OSC yet so I know exactly what it does.  I would hate to have all my pages and database designed and find out later that I didn't make them OSC friendly.
6. I have to decide on a new host
7. I have to decide on which checkout's I'm going to offer.  I'm currently thinking of integrating three: Google, PayPal ,and 2CO

I know that perhaps the most important step right now is to get my URL's in order before I do much of anyting else.  That way I could have all the redirects taken care of early.  I would like some advice on the order of the remaining steps and also would like to know if I missed any.

Please advise.

Thanks,
GP

Don't put the windows in before the walls are built.

And don't build the walls without any foundactions.

Forget the roof, for now - that'll come by it's self (maybe)

Here's my plan:

Download and install XAMPP; this will give you PHP and MySQL running on your local computer so you don't need a new webhost just yet.

Then you can get OSC downloaded and installed as well and start playing around with it.

OSC comes with some out-of-the box templates for you to play with.

My advice at this stage depends on your competency with PHP and MySQL. If you don't know much then get OSC - it has all the database design already done, and the PHP to query it and the HTML templates to output it all.

If you know php and database design fairly well, it may be quicker doing it from scratch.

Thanks Northie,

I aleady have Universal Server downloaded for testing purposes.  It comes complete with Apache, MySQL and PHP.  Should I still use XAMPP?

I'm bound and determined to build my own pages.  When I say "pages", I'm really referring to the "look and feel" of the page and not necessarily how the page functions and relates to PHP or MySQL.  I don't really want to use templates designed by someone else for the "look and feel" part.   I taught myself CSS for this purpose and feel pretty confindent with it at this point.  I also have the latest issue of Dreamweaver that came with the Adobe CS3  Web Premium package I bought but I plan on using mostly manual coding in lieu of the WYSIWYG features.

I have a pretty good background in database design.  I did quite a bit of work in the past with Microsoft Access and get around with the programming pretty well.  I have recently been getting used to SQL 2000 for work-related purposes.

I just started learning PHP but it really doesn't look to awful difficult.

So...based on the above clarifications, do you think I should start out with OSC?

If you've already got a web server running locally then you may not need XAMPP - does your server run MySQL as a database?

Most webhots will offer MySQL as a database option - so I'd recommend using that.

phpMyAdmin is a fairly good web-based admin tool for it

OSC may be worth a look; but if you get familiar with how to use he php manual then going it alone will be a very rewarding experiance

Yes, the Universal Server I installed handles MySQL.  I've already been familiarizing myself with the documents for its setup and operation.

Well...it looks like it would be best for me to download and install OSC at least to see how it operates.  Then I should be able to see how much PHP/MySQL is involved with duplicating what it does.  If it looks like too much for me to do myself, I'll go ahead and use OSC at first anyway.  At least until I become a little more versed in PHP/MySQL manipulation.

Thanks for your help,
GP

Hmmmmmmm

Why are we re-inventing the wheel might I ask?

Day in and day out, from the web development and the SEO side of things we do this;

1. Joomla for CMS and SEO work
2. OsCommerce for the ecommerce aspects

Carts SUCK at SEO....  not to mention conversions. There is nowhere near enough control. Thus we support it with a CMS ... to date Joomla has been the best for that pupose.

In short, you can get the site up and running much easier and both applications can be 'extended' as U wish.

I am about getting a site up and making money.. (and allowing for future growth). If you want to learn/program applications ... go get a job at a web design firm. If you are looking to get your business online, then do so. As always, any and all time being spent farting around with the site is time taken away from revenue generating activities.

It's funny, back at the turn of the century clients did nothing but complain about the need for webmasters/programmers and how tough managing a site is. These days we have many applications to make it easier.... and here ya are looking to make the process more dificult.

He's right, you know

Hmmmm...Gypsy...interesting, important, AND entertaining comments.

I have to agree with you BUT...(and there's always one of those, isn't there??) what I'm trying to accomplish here is to discover what's available out there that's already functional, pick it apart so I can understand how it functions internally so I can decide if I need to spend some time up front learning a little PHP first.  Speaking of PHP... I was studying on W3Schools last night and discovered a HUGE time saver!    Which is...referring to PHP pages from your HTML pages that return common HTML elements i.e. headers, navigational columns, etc. that will be used on many similar pages.  That way, if one needed to add a new category, all  he would have to do is add it the the PHP page and then all the HTML pages referring to it would be updated.  How cool is that!!!  (of course...I'm sure you already knew that trick)  At any rate...the point here is that I don't think this little time-saving trick is already built into OSC or Joomla so it's good that I took the time to learn it so I can use it while building my new site.

I downloaded OSC last night to see what it offered.  I could see right away that I would love  to use it's built-in functionality regarding customer/order tracking, email templates, product database, etc. but I did not like the look and feel of the example pages at all.  I would have to find a quick way of introducing my own personally designed pages into the system that could use the programming functionality that's already there.

As far as Joomla is concerned...I have no idea of what it is.  You can bet your last dollar (or beer) that I will download it as well so I can see what it is.

I just need some help developing a plan.  I want to go from my already-established, Storesonline-hosted site all the way to my own site hosted by an alternate firm.  If you review what I've written earlier in this post, you'll see a better clarification of this.  I need to develop the steps in the proper order.  Norhie has offered her advice and it was much appreciated.  I would love some input from others as well.

Any takers???

GP

Ok to start with OSC is VERY flexible (as is Joomla) in terms of Design/layout....

All of my sites (see sig) are running on Joomla  as are these;

http://www.gonewiththewind.com.au/index.php
http://www.pro-techequipment.com/
http://www.pinzongroup.com/cms/
http://www.internationalswede.com/

OSC  sites -

http://www.goodsauna.net/
http://www.technologydirectcanada.com/
http://www.zerofreight.com/
http://www.euro-spec.net/



Joomla and OSC in tandem as such;

http://www.bloomdepot.com/
http://www.the-seo-handbook.com

Joomla Front end - http://redwell.com.au/
Cart/OSC area -- http://www.redwell.com.au/RWshop/



As far as extending the applications to suit a variety of situations;

Extending Joomla - http://extensions.joomla.org/
Extending OSC - http://addons.oscommerce.com/



NOW - one only uses the cart for what it does. If we need to have a sales page for a given product (establishing the value proposition etc..) and for SEO purposes... we create that page in the CMS and then Link it (drill down) to the eventual product page.

I spent 5 years or so working in the world of site development prior to getting full time into the marketing gig. I still to this day deal with web development issues with the missus (whom runs Verve) and clients alike. So, if it's a plan of action ye want.... I am wise in these ways.... I have been watching sites come and go for nearly 10 years now....

My advice comes from not only a web development perspective and SEO/marketing, but from a business development perspective. There is a fine line to understanding what efforts/resources should be directed at which parts of the process. The web developer believes it's the site, the SEO believes it is the site and off sites stuff (link building) the marketing guy thinks it's about pricing/conversions to get ROI on the marketing $$$.

These days I try to look at building a web business from a combination of them all. Only by properly assigning resources (time and money) and valuating them correctly, can one truly seek to succeed. The more companies that come online and the more mom and pops looking to 'make it' on the web, the more competition there will be out there. It is not going to get any easier. I dare say, running a profitable online business will only get harder going forward.

SO, wherever possible, don't re-invent the wheel. Use what is available to get the job done in the most efficient way possible - with one eye on the future.


...and hey... if you Google ' Joomla and OSC ' - who dya think is #1 ?? - http://www.google.com/search?source=ig& … la+and+OSC

How about ' OScommerce and Joomla experts ' - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en& … la+experts

ask the mighty Google - it knows all ... bwaa ha ha ha ha ha

Bwa..ha...ha...ha....he says.....

Yeah...I see who's no. 1 for Joomla and OSC designed websites....YOUR WIFE!!!  Ha!

Any way..

I played around with Joomla 1.5 last night and got a pretty good feel for what it does.  It  looks like it's PHP driven and CSS (tableless) which is good.  It also  looks like it will allow me to create and use my own templates...which is a MUST have....much more involved code wise than what I expected.  The way the PHP commuicates with the HTML pages and such. Sheesh...XML files, PHP files...template directories.... It looks like I'd be much better off using what they already set up and just tweak things to my liking.

That all being said...I wasn't impressed with their apparent capability to handle products. (unless I missed somehing)   After all...I have about 230 to offer.  OSC seems to have a much better design to handle e-commerce for 230 products.  Shopping cart and other related features.  Now I think I see why you were saying Joomla-front end CMS and OSC-backend cart and check out.  So...it seems that it would be best to use Joomla for the home page through the category pages and then make a clean break to OSC for the product detail template/shopping cart pages.   I will say that I did like the look and feel of Joomla better than I did OSC regarding a working/design environment.

Here's a couple of questions:

1. Is is complicated to get Joomla and OSC to work together like I described above?
2. Would it be simpler to use OSC alone (front end and back end)  since it looks like it's better geared for e-commerce?

It looks like I'd be much better off using what they already set up and just tweak things to my liking.

Yeah, or email yer buddy Dave for some help getting the template sorted :0)


Methinks yer getting what I was saying;

1.Use Joomla for Home page, content pages, marketing pages
2.Use OSC for cart application and product pages, latest products, specials etc..

it would be best to use Joomla for the home page through the category pages and then make a clean break to OSC for the product detail template/shopping cart pages.   I will say that I did like the look and feel of Joomla better than I did OSC regarding a working/design environment.

Questions;

1.It is not that tough at all really – it simply takes some forethought and planning. There are a few bridges to put OSC and Joomla together, but it has been our experience that folks prefer a separate admn, and the bridges can muck with the SEO efforts. Simply build out Joomla in a main directory and install OSC into a subdirectory (appropriately named for SEO goodiness)

2.NO. I have a potential client at the moment that is using the standalone variety of OSC. I no uncertain terms I told him it is unlikely that I would work with the site – from an SEO standpoint. It is simply not flexible enough. Further to that his conversions suck on his PPC efforts – once again OSC is not fexible enough to accomplish the marketing parameters ( value proposition, flow, analytics/split testing). So I do not recommend a stand alone cart from a marketing perspective….

Well...now...thanks Ol' buddy Dave.

I appreciate the insight and offer to help with the sorting of the template files.

Now...on to another post in a different area.  I think the next, MOST important step I need take is to rearrange my existing URL's on my existing site so that they're more SEO friendly.

See ya there!