Building new ecommerce site on my own.

few questions about the software

[lampip]

Just found this forum and there is tons of great info on it, very helpful.

I am building a website for my wife who is starting an online business. at this point i am building it myself from scratch (i have been a software engineer for the past 11 years, though not in the web space). I am currently using php, mysql, and apache. I have built a db model and have built navigation pages and a product display page (where all the attributes are configured in the db.) I am doing it on my own for a few reasons:
- i know exactly what i want and want to customize for that, as opposed to using something generic and having to continually modify it (i find it becomes more and more inefficient).
- i want total control of the webpage design.
- want total control over things like url names...
- i am making a template based admin interface so my wife can easily change the content of the non-product pages without touching code.
- and i personally find it easier to do myself than to figure out how someone else did it and making changes.

Having said that i want to get peoples view on this since it is not my area of expertice. any thoughts on whether this is a bad idea (other than the obvious reason that there are off the shelf solutions) i would appreciate it. my time to work on it is limited to evenings, but the fact is we have no deadlines we have to hit and we enjoy the process. i am just looking for any pitfalls i should avoid or other issues.

finally, regarding language, i see some people switching from php to .net2.0 because it is easier to product web pages. if someone could give more background on why i would be interested, i find php to be pretty straight forward.

sorry for the long email and thanks in advance for any responses.
peter

[FalseDawn]

If you have the skills to program an e-commerce site from scratch, then there's no reason why this couldn't work, although I do think that modifying an existing cart might be faster. No point re-inventing the wheel and all that.

Don't forget to plan ahead though, and consider security issues, like users logging in, accounts, cookies and sessions to store the cart itself. Also, how are you going to handle SSL integration, merchant accounts and 3rd party payment processors.

Also, you will probably find it easy to hunt for existing scripts and modify them (eg for sending E-mails, which can be a pain).

Don't forget about expansion, too - if you design the site to handle (say) 50 items, will it still hold up under 5000?

regarding php and .net - if you're happy with php, why change? Sure you might gain a few more OO features (php is not OO anyway) and a slightly faster development time, but so what?

[lampip]

Thanks for the quick reply!

good advice, i have been thinking a lot about security issues, reading books and searching online. i will ensure things like putting include files outside of the html tree, creating logins with the minimum required permissions on the db... you mention ssl. i definitely plan on using a certificate that i will purchase through my hosting service, are there any specific issues you are referring to, or aspects of it that would be difficult for me to deal with?

One question i am working through now is whether to store the session data in files or the db. files seem like the standard, though a lot of my products have a lot of customizable features that will make them fairly large. not sure if that should influence the decision. Any advice would be appreciated.

and i definitely will be searching for scripts to reuse. i agree, i have no desire to rewrite the scripts to handle functions like emailing, submitting transactions... i will probably be back asking for advice on those things in the future (just not ready for it yet :)

thanks again,
peter

[sharbel]

If you can develop your own application and you have the time, I would. I find a lot of 'off the shelf' solutions are very bulky and slow performing vs my custom built e-commerce apps. I too am a programmer, although I specialize in web-apps, so its really nice to be able to control very specific things like caching database results, creating your own business logic for things like coupon codes, and integrating your own admin back-end to fulfill your orders etc.

Dont get me wrong, I am not slamming off the shelf apps at all. A lot of people do not have the budget for custom apps.. some have the budget, but can't wait for it to be developed (which is kinda silly IMHO)..

I developed my core classes for all my e-commerce sites, and all my sites inherit from these base classes. I either use the same core classes/pages on each site, or modify the business logic when needed, but it's never really rewritting the whole app, just changing. All my code is object oriented (C#), so it's easy to reuse everything...

So, I guess to sum it up, if you are developing 1 e-commerce site a modified pre-built app might make sense. If you are a control freak like me, and want total control, build it yourself. If you are likely going to develop other e-commerce sites, and have the knowledge (it sounds like you do), I would develop your own from scratch and inherit your new apps from the one you develop.

HTHs

[lampip]

thanks for the reply, i agree with everything you are saying. could you give me more detail on your technical architecture? I am currently only familiar with php for web development (html-php-mysql). could you explain how you use c#, meaning, what are the actual web pages communicating with? does c# act as a html embedded language like php does? Or is there a lanuage in between? and does c# give you all the web convenience functions that php gives you (e.g. easy session control...)?

thanks again,
peter

[henry0]

Just for the record
Other High Languages such as C# are indeed OO
However since PHP5, PHP is more and more aiming at becoming a fully OO oriented scripting language.

As far as building an E_comm from ground zero this is obviously (With ad hoc knowledge) the way to go.
But I will first look at some open source scripts and do on them a good post mortem (Since time seems not to be the essence).

As a fellow poster mentioned you can "borrow some very usual chunks from free source and learn from their logic, not to belittle you but just because often there is a good reason for some common logic.

Cheers and welcome on WebMasterWorld!

[Essex_boy]

I know you guys always say dont reinvent the wheel but through writing your cart you make far more effective than bought ones.

You can build so its tweakable for SEO etc etc beside you only have to write it once and you can use it again and again.

Write your code!

[henry0]

Essex_Boy we both agree
However a word of caution
It could be pretty much straightforward but the tricky part is to incorporate the gateway.
With that in mind I will as #1 Step try to verify that I can do it.
<edit>
Not to forget incorporating quickbook and all goodies such as UPS etc...
</edit>

[sharbel]

C# is just a language developed by MS in the last 4 or so years. It C++ and Java (really a lot like Java). So, I would use the ASP.NET framework with C# as my programing language. All the code is compiled so its very quick. You can go to www.asp.net if you want more info.

Yes, ASP.NET has all the convience of PHP, and then some. I am not about to get into a .NET is better than PHP discussion but as a developer who develops in both, I will pick C#/.NET any day of the week for any non-trivial app.

At the end of the day, program with whatever you are most familiar with so long as it can do what you want (PHP can certainly do anything you want with E-Commerce).

[lampip]

thanks for all the replys. this forum has been great. i spend time just browsing the posts and find some very useful information. and i definitely intend on sifting through some of the freeware out there to see how they do some common tasks, and lifting them where appropriate. i have programmed in c++ for years, but have not done much c# at this point. since i have gone pretty far down the php path i will probably stick with it, so far it seems fairly convenient and capable. i am using php5 so have been able to develop a fairly oo codebase.

thanks again,
peter

[BradleyT]

We're doing our own e-commerce app in vb.net using asp.net 2.0.

It allows you to develop multitudes faster than php once you learn it. Does php have a good IDE yet?