Forum Moderators: buckworks
Can anyone recommend any combinations of CMS and cart scripts (open source or otherwise, and preferably PHP) that can accomplish this? Or is this scenario really only amenable to custom scripting? Also, does anyone have any recommendations as to Payment Processors in this type of case?
I'd be grateful to hear anyone's thoughts on this, and advice or recommendations. Thanks to all in advance.
(1) A sort of CMS (so that the non-techie bookshop owners can manage their stock by uploading new text and images, and so enter new titles, delete others, etc);
(2) A shopping cart linked to a database;
(3) A Payment Service Provider;
But (1) and (2) would have to work closely together. When new stock is added via the CMS, the database needs to be updated, as it also would when someone makes a purchase via the cart. The shop would be selling unique book titles which seems to make instant updating necessary. A shopping cart doesn't include content management and a linked database (perhaps there are some uber-template-y ones that do, though I'd prefer a custom look for the site if possible).
I guess the choice for (3) is less complicated; whichever I choose I guess I just bolt on to the (1) & (2) combination.
But it's that combination/integration of (1) and (2) that I'm really looking for. It's the frequent updating of stock which means I'll need this tight integration between the CMS, Cart and database.
So I'm looking for scripts or services that can do this - unless this sort of setup is best suited to custom coding all the way through.
For clients who want to update their own stores (ie most all of them) I use ecommercetemplates software. Generally I buy a generic template (ie no design included) and slot it into whatever design the site has already. Some clients want an off the shelf template - thats ok with me too.
You do not need a separate cms - they can add all they want to add about any item of from within the store admin area, and take care of stock control, orders and so on also. I usually drop something like HTML area into it so that they can edit in a wysiwyg environment. The CP is childsplay for them to use.
It works with pretty much all the major payment providers - several at once if you want it too.
One or two use FP to maintain other bits of their site, but frankly they can add so much via the CP that they don't really need to be able to do that.
I have several non-tech savvy clients happily maintaining their own stores that way, a couple of them publishers.
