Forum Moderators: buckworks
My client is hosting a national conference coming up in June, and wants thier existing website to be redesigned as well as having the option to accept online registration and payment for attending the event.
My skills are all self-taught HTML and CSS, and I think I'm pretty good at it, but no experience at all with e-commerce, or any of the scripting languages I've heard associated with writing a shopping cart.
The client's existing host offers an e-commerce upgrade with Miva Merchant built-in. Is this the way to go for something like this where no products are actually being sold?
More details:
In addition to the conference registration and payment, there will be additional events at the conference that are not included with the price of admission. Would these be added as "add ons" to the registration or should I list these as separate items in the "store."
The final thing we might want to add is the ability to purchase sponsorship packages (ie: a company pays a chunk of money to help cover expenses for the conference and in return gets advertising and other perks at the show). I suppose that once I have everything else set up this would be simple to add as a separate "department" in the online "store."
Any and all thoughts welcome, as I am under a tight deadline on this project and need a cost-effective solution soon.
Are you interested in ASP or PHP?
-Corey
Not even the obligatory "Welcome to Webmaster World!"
Did I forget the secret handshake or something?
I would use Mal's Ecommerce. Simple to set up and very effective.
-Corey
So far, the Mal's E-commerce looks to be a frontrunner, simply by what I percieve to be ease of use. Now if only there weren't so many people involved in decision-making around here …
The input is appreciated.
But you have a lot fo things to consider - it sounds like a simple proprietary system would be easier - depending on how much you need to add. I never understood how developers could say they would do it for one amount without knowing everything that you want it to entail.
-Corey
BTW, [6]Welcome![/6]
Birdman
The client does not already have a merchant account, Birdman. At least, not as far as they know.
What we need is something that will allow a quick startup, with no long-term contract if possible. Thanks for the suggestions so far, I am investigating them as time permits.
Check out oscommerce. I am sure they have add-ons for a particular item. Meaning if you choose package A, then you can also buy products a,b,&c. But if you choose package B then you get products d,e,&f. They have a lot of contributions that you can search thru. I am not too much of a PHP person, ASP is my style.
And then tell your clients about the merchant account. But let them make the final decision. We did something similar a couple of years ago but they decided to pay the extra (monthly) and maintain their merchant account.
-Corey
