Hi

I am working on a shopping cart plug in, or a pluggable shopping cart system that can easily use the Links database information.

1- The user Interface:


We have found a way to pass the Price, description, Title of the product-link-from through link.html tag or the detailes_page.cgi script written by pugdog to a shopping cart script through a secure form.
Then The user will be taken to review page for his shopping cart where he can check out or return to the previous page.
If checking out he will be promoted to enter his information then the info will be submitted for verification, and if accepted will be taken to a thank you page.
The order information will be then E-mailed to the admin for processing, or you can use ATS bank services or a paypal account to get paid.


2- the admin functions:
Review orders, change headers, footers, review users, and that is it.

3- the disadvantages:
user is required to enter his info everytime he orders from your site.
No history will be available for users.
No invoice generation capabilities, only a confirmation e-mail will be sent to customer.


We strongly think that we can get this product up for a cost of around $100 only.

Before we spend that much time on it we would like to hear some feedback for Links SQL, or Links 2 users about the functions, price, and other issues they might think of.

We will expect a demo within few weeks from now



Regards
Abd

http://www.idleb.com

that sounds nice.
a lot of users should currently purchase an external shopping cart system, with external admin, the most of them (me too) likes to get the entire site based on one engine.
The most important features should be available in your plugin, but try to program some extra optionss, like the disadvantages in your thread, before release.
The proce of $100 seems ok for such plugin.

Good Luck

hi, your project is great and the price is o.k..

but it should not be difficult to save user informations like adress-datas, customer-numbers (hope that the right word for it) an so on into a database-table.

then tho whole process ca be driven via customer-number. he enters it and the system fetches all data from the database-table.

if that's a good idea for you, it would be an extremely good feature, if the customer-number design is variable.
e.g. : xxxxxxxx or xxxxxx-xx-xx or xx/xxx/ xxx or something like that.

Another option might be to use the user-login. if someone logs in and is customer, the system can fetch the customer datas from the customer-table.
I think you have to add only a new colum "custumer_number" to the user table for this and make some mods.

cheers,
Manu

hy what about to use the Users table as customer table, so that registered users can be customesr without registering again.

Hi

The whole program is based on a flat file database not SQl.
To make the program save users info and require a log in or fetch their information from an existing database (links SQL )here is going to increase the price several folds due to the fact that we will have to write three additional script one to save info, to modify info, and to fetch info..
We are tryning to keep it simple and cheap...
and most important make it work with Links SQL or regular links.
Also such changes will bring up a bigger security concerns since we are saving customers credit info and such.

The history will create the same poroblem we might have those as a future options but it will be an over $400 plug in.



Regards
Abd

http://www.idleb.com

Actually, "keep it simple and cheap" SQL is the way to go. Links has most of the routines in it for database access, and you don't have to worry about flat-file access, locking and that 'flock' may not work on all systems.



PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.
FAQ:http://LinkSQL.com/FAQ
Forum:http://LinkSQL.com/forum

That is a horrible idea, IMHO...mixing flat file system with LINKS SQL...as pugdog mentioned, keep it ALL SQL! If you REALLY want to develop a FLAT FILE system, then I would simply develop it for LINKS 2.0...not even go there as plugin for LINKS SQL...most LINKS SQL users will not use your system, because it does not integrate well with the SQL structure of LINKS SQL...

Regards,

Eliot Lee

I do not If you guys do understand clearly the idea I am talkking about here or not.
We are not Plugging it into The sql database we are simply pasing the sql databse information to another script to process it for us.

I did shop around the minimum offer I had to develpoe a shopping cart plug in for links SQL was $1500 which is way to much to afford by most users..

I wanna but it clearly that this is not the most proffesional solution Yes but for a 100 bucks it does very much all what you will need for any standard store.

You will probaably get to know it better when i have demo up...



Regards
Abd

http://www.idleb.com

Well, again, I think it would be best to promote it for LINKS 2.0, since it is already a flat file system. And you did state that you were creating a "plug-in" in your original post, which it does seem like you are doing. Most Links SQL users will use Mods and "plug-ins" that integrate into the LINKS SQL "engine"....again, mixing flat file systems and SQL systems is not the best solution...

Regards,

Eliot Lee

I would be interested in a shopping card if it can solve one problem:

User should add to the shopping xard from the datailed pages. On the datailed pages must be a backlink to the category pages by javascript history, so you can´t use the same backlink in your shopping-card (back to detailed pages), because you would run in a circle.

The javascript history backlink must be in linkSQL to have fast browsing the records!!!

Just a small detail, but important!

Michael

We've got a totally SQL shopping cart system plugin with a full backend for order fulfillment, about 50% done.

Some of the more advanced features include:

- Full integration with FedEx Online shipmanger
- Live credit card processing
- Virtually unlimited options for shipping charges
- Unlimited templates for categories
- Unlimited templates for products displayed within categories
- Unlimited templates for detailed product pages
- Featured product rotation global tag for templates
- Sale product rotation global tag for templates
- Runs in either dynamic or static mode
- Customer order tracking, including current location direct from FedEx tracking
- Detailed site statistics
- One click install via plugin

These are just a few of the more unusual features that are being written into this plugin from the ground up. It has been designed for a more serious e-commerce site, and will be priced accordingly.

Again this project is only about 50% done (already over 500k in size) and should be in its beta stages by June. More information will be provided as it gets closer to that time.

AlexJ
The Netmall Group

PS - If anyone is wondering, after completing about 75% of MyLinksNG, I was forced to go full speed on this shopping cart project by the powers that be. MyLinksNG WILL be completed, just a little later than expected.

Sounds more aligned with what Links SQL users want and will use than other "plug-in" mentioned in this Thread...what is the anticipated cost for the plug-in??

Regards,

Eliot Lee

I would be interested in your shopping cart pluggin if it has the following features:
similar to http://www.commercesql.com/test/index.cgi
1) Hot buys w/rotating pictures
2) subcategories
3) UPS feature with your Fedx feature

Hopefully you can squeeze these features in.

Good luck and great good, so far.
Ken

sounds like what most people have been looking for.

I've been struggling with the various plug-in aspects, so if you need help, let me know. I've got some pretty complicated installs working.



PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.
FAQ:http://LinkSQL.com/FAQ
Forum:http://LinkSQL.com/forum

Ken,

1) Hot buys - Our pluging has an option for rotating the items on sale anywhere in your templates, and/or rotating featured products anywhere in your templates.

2) Subcategories - Pretty much an unlimited number of categories and subcategories with no limit on depth... Ie Home > Hardware > Videocards > Voodoo is a possible valid subcategory.

3) UPS - This one is a little tougher. FedEx Online Ship Manager was designed so that you can submit a form and it replies with a page that you print as your airbill. We parse that page, and grab the airbill gif. So right from your our backoffice, while viewing any given order, you have one button to click on and it instantly creates a FedEx airbill using the customers date. UPS's online shipping system is setup with 3 - 5 steps, each with a different form and the variables in each form vary depending on the answers to the previous form. Right off the bat, our plugin will offer UPS tracking and a few of the other UPS funtions that UPS offers as CGI's. Full one click shipping airbills like we did with FedEx will be released later as an update.

AlexJ

Hi Alex,

Can I see a demo or your demo in the works?
So far I'm interested. But of course the price would be the deciding factor.

Ken

One last thought,
A review product feature like Amazon, would be cool.
Keep me informed, I would like to purchase a copy.

Ken

That would be the same as the Review plug-in being developed, would it not?

Regards,

Eliot Lee

This sounds GREAT!

Can I please request that you allow multiple types of shipping options on top of the UPS and FedEx models. In other words, allow us to base our shipping costs on destination (location inside or outside of the US) and also on weight or price.

so there could be multiple shipping tables
(defined however you like, but we'd define them something like this)
United States
$0-$19.99 = 5.95
$20-39.99 = 7.95
xx-xx=xx

Canada and Mexico
$0-$19.99 = 9.95
$20-39.99 = 12.95
xx-xx=xx

International shipping
$0-$19.99 = 12.95
$20-39.99 = 15.95
xx-xx=xx

and the plugin could identify the delivery location from the adress and plug in the appropriate table for shipping.

This would be SO HELPFUL!

Please let me know about this possibility.

Oh, and one more thing.

If you allow this type of shipping tables. Can you make it so we can choose if an item gets charged shipping. In other words, some items might not have a shipping fee (a magazine subscription, for example. Whereas another product might be something that we'd charge shipping for)

Just a checkbox in the item's decription could do it (check here if you want to/don't want to charge shipping)

Thanks again.

Might be better design to have one SHIP_TYPE, which would include classifications like INTERNATIONAL/DOMESTIC with the associated Country from another table called something like COUNTRY.

Your suggestions are good and all, but I think that you are creating a mess for future maintenance issues. You have to think about the connections between the PRODUCT and SHIPPING relations (like 1->M or M<->M) and then think about "rules"/"policies" associated with each process of ordering/shipping.

Then you can start building your relations/tables.

Regards,

Eliot Lee

Ya know, I don't know how to build it, but I know what I need in order to be able to use it. Right now, we pay a lot of money to have a YahooStore. The main reason we use it is because it allows us the kind of flexibility we need with shipping options, and is easy to use.

We would like to switch over to a product that allows us to continue using the shipping methods we use now. And this is how Yahoo does it.

Our shipping prices are based on mail order prices that we have published in a print magazine. It is not something we want to change.

So, What I think you are saying is that *how* I was suggesting this be done was in question....not the outcome, right?

One more thing: a refferal system.

One that keeps track of what customers who are reffered by x

perhaps the merchant could choose that the system keep tarck of all purchases, or just certain purchases. hmmmmm. :)

Right now this is how the shipping options are structured. This is cut from the "Create new shipping rule" form.

All orders located:
- within
- outside of
- anywhere

- Country:
- State:
- Zipcode:

Shipped via: (This is a list of options you created)
- Standard Shipping
- Priority Shipping
- Overnight Shipping

Are charged: $ Amount here
- One time
- For each item
- Per pound
- Percent of net total

Each shipping option will be processed against all of the rules that have been assigned to it, so for example, if you wanted to do a $5.00 base shipping fee in the US and $1.00 for each additional item, you would:

Select Within the US, via standard shipping, a $4.00 one time fee.

Then create a second rule, selecting Within the US, via standard shipping, $1.00 for each item.

This is only an example of one of the ways this shipping system could be used.

From the feedback we have gotten, we will be also adding a "per item" option, basing shipping on an amount in the products database (each item can have a different shipping fee, the total shipping is the sum of the shipping fees of each item in the shopping cart at checkout).

The shipping tables you suggested are also a possibility.

Thanks for the feedback!

AlexJ

Evoir,

This is already an option. There is "Shipping_Included" option in the product database, that exempts any item from all shipping fees.

AlexJ