Forum Moderators: buckworks
I could use some help for a small (budgetwise) project.
My client is:
- small business
- niche market
- loyal customer base, to be expanded
He wants:
- online catalog, some 250 items to start
- shopping cart to generate orders for home delivery (no credit card)
Extras:
- online (and shop) orders need to be recorded;
- customers have a monthly sum to spend and need to be able to check (from the shop's workstation and/or online) how much they have left.
What am I looking for?
Trouble? ;-) (the customer knows that I've never done anything like this and it's fine for him...).
Thanks in advance
ApMx
yep, you're definitely looking for trouble :)
client wants quite a lot there, as much as or more than many small ecommerce sites. you've got your work cut out there.
the catalog is best in a database, but if the products / prices won't change very often, you could use static HTML pages. static pages will take longer to develop and will make maintenance and updating more difficult and time consuming.
you'll need a shopping cart to allow customers to order goods. you could download a free cart to simply "bolt on" to the catalog but you may need to modify it to suit or may need to modify the way you send product info from the catalog to the cart.
recording orders and customer details will also need extra database(s). you would send order details direct from the cart to the database(s).
client doesn't want ability to take credit cards? why not? the system contains everything else needed for an ecommerce site. to add ecommerce, you would simply direct order information from the cart to the payment pages (your own SSL or a 3rd party processing company) then send order info back to the site to be saved in the databases.
my advice is this is a lot of work and will take you a long time. you'll learn a lot from your own mistakes. IMO, the best thing you can do is outsource it and see how a pro does it - you'll learn a lot from that too, and you'll save yourself and the client a lot of time and money in the long run. do it yourself and fail, and you could lose the client.
my advice is this is a lot of work and will take you a long time. you'll learn a lot from your own mistakes. IMO, the best thing you can do is outsource it and see how a pro does it - you'll learn a lot from that too, and you'll save yourself and the client a lot of time and money in the long run. do it yourself and fail, and you could lose the client.
I second that. It's a lot of work; don't start it if the budget is not sufficient. I've learned to turn down jobs the hard way.
Try to explain to your client that he might end up with half-working solution and a lot of finger-pointing at the end.
client doesn't want ability to take credit cards? why not?
because their market is local (less 100 km radius) and they would prefer to bring people to the shop, where different items and services are available.
Thanks a lot for sharing your ideas guys, I'll be around for more.
Cheers
ApMx
There is a good security article (referenced by Shane) on the boards that can be found here [unc.dl.sourceforge.net], that goes pretty deep into the various security holes that you want to avoid in your setup.
When your login setup is perfected, the rest of the site should be a more of a chore ;)
//added
hm, couldnt access the link there...it might be available in a bit...
You see a few sites where the entry page is dominated by driving instructions on how to get to a retail business. These site owners are utterly clueless. I've seen sites that say something like: "Visit our store in the Pinewood Plaza Shopping Center." Then they don't say what city it's in!
We have physical stores, and a site. Almost no one comes into our stores because of our website. (and we offer a discount coupon on our site for those that visit our stores)
quite right. the retail store may only be 10 minutes down the road, but if i'm on the net, i might as well order online and save myself some time and effort. if the site i'm looking at doesn't sell online, the next one will.
welcome to the world's biggest shopping mall :)
the retail store may only be 10 minutes down the road, but if i'm on the net, i might as well order online and save myself some time and effort. if the site i'm looking at doesn't sell online, the next one will.
As a general rule I agree. In this specific case I could be working on, services are a lot bigger part of the business than sales. We talked about it and at the end the customer still insisted on his model.
Thanks for the security link
Cheers
ApMx
Its the "extras" in the original spec that would worry me. Your client wants a system with all the functionality that you need for an e-comm site, but because it won't take a c/c, he'll think that it won't cost as much as a true e-comm site.
F'rintance :
>> - online (and shop) orders need to be recorded;
this implies that you will need to create an integrated database capable of taking information from the sales processing system in the shop, plus matching that to customer details, plus making the relevant information available to the web site - essentially the core of an e-comm site. But, because it isn't perceived by the client to be an e-commerce project, will he accept the fee is likely to be comparable?
In my experience, cusatomers who are fixed on one aspect of the project (ie the model), may also prove inflexible on other aspects of the project (ie paying you for your work).
The question is (or should be) "How would my target markewt like to buy my products and services?". Now if the answer to that is that they actively WANT to find the site on the web, then visit the physical retail store, the site should prove a success. Otherwise, it will be a waste of everyones time
then the site won't be a true e-commerce site, but one of those strange hybrid brochureware sites that let you do nearly everything, bar order.
hybrid maybe, but I'd try to make it work ;-)
Its the "extras" in the original spec that would worry me. Your client wants a system with all the functionality that you need for an e-comm site, but because it won't take a c/c, he'll think that it won't cost as much as a true e-comm site.
I'm not sure if that's his reasoning. I really believe that he would like to bring customers to the shop. But we'll talk about money next time...
Now if the answer to that is that they actively WANT to find the site on the web, then visit the physical retail store, the site should prove a success. Otherwise, it will be a waste of everyones time
I agree. If I get this job I'll report back in six months.
Thanks everybody for offering LOTS to think about.
Cheers
ApMx
