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Encorporating an online shop without changing design

         

chocobogo

7:07 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have designed the following site
<url snipped>

I have been looking into putting an online shop on the site, all the shops I have come accross require you to use one of their set templates!!
I dont want to change the whole site design just want to have some "ADD TO BASKET" links to add the item to a basket and proceed to a checkout etc...

Can anyone give me some advice??

Thanks

(edited by: tedster at 1:30 am (utc) on May 15, 2002)

Morrison

7:19 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi chocobogo,

there is no need to change the look of your site at all to make it an online store, still you got to know the basics.

the simple option is to create a cookie that will store the items that the buyer want to buy, and then, make a form that send you an email with all the data.

ofcourse, there are much better ways to do it using DB & ASP.

if you need more help, please ask.

Morrison.

mivox

7:24 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Are you looking for a "ready to go" online solution? Or are you willing/able to install a pre-written shopping cart script onto your own site? Or do you have the budget to hire a programmer to write/implement a custom shopping cart for you?

We can offer a lot more help if we know more about what your needs & abilities are... ;)

chocobogo

9:30 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am a young budding Webdesigner with extensive HTML knowledge, I have used vairous Javascripts, SSI, ASP scripts etc... Not fully understanding them but getting them to work all the same, I just wanted to know what my options were, I have a budget of around £100,

I want something that I can add to the HTML Code eg.

<a href="buyproduct.asp?add=computer1">BUY COMPUTER 1</a>

and that to link to a txt file with:
Computer 1: price, £599 ....

or a program that will do this

I hope I have explained well enough,

basically I want to be able to encorporate the shop into the site and be able to fully decide where and what items to add to the shop/!!!

Morrison

9:56 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



You can easly "create" a shoping basket using:

<%response.cookies("basket") = request.cookies("basket") & "," & Item_id%>

and then you can send this string to you using a form, and you can figurate out of the string what items the client want.

still, this is a very ugly way to do it.

a "real" online store should include functions like:

* see what's in the basket
* add/remove items

you can search the web for "asp online shop script" and i'm sure you can find free scripts that you can use.

if you want, i can help you to build it step by step using ASP.

Morrison.

chocobogo

10:07 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



That would be brilliant.

I would like there to be a Basket staus at the top of the screen.
Just text: Items In Basket 0, CHECKOUT

I have seen this on a few sites and i think it looks really professional.

I will have a look for some ASP programs

Do you know of any??
Cheers

mivox

10:07 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Look for a script with fully configurable html templates, and you'll at least be able to customize the shopping cart to coordinate with the look of your site...

or find an "add to cart" button solution, where each item's necessary data are encoded into a hidden form/buy button configuration, and fed into a back end script...

Did that make any sense? I can never tell. ;)

Morrison

10:33 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I build my own scripts and you won't be able to use it couse it's not geniric, and it's got alot of "hebrew" in it :)

you can take the cookie idea one step forward and using string handling functions you can even let the visitors what's in thier shoping cart:

it's goes like this:


<%
strBasket = request.cookies("basket")
aryBasket = split(strBasket, ",")
for i=0 to UBound(aryBasket)-1
select case aryBasket(i)
case 1 response.write "computer"
case 2 response.write "monitor"
case 3 response.write "HD"
.....
end select
%>

the same idea you can let them delete items from the shoping cart (split the string, modify, and reconstart it).

and so on...

Morrison

chocobogo

10:37 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have had little to no experience with cookies,

I have founf a free CGI shop

[arpanet.com...]

Advice

I would like to understand more on cookies

chocobogo

10:45 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



All they have given me to work with is.

<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="http://www.arpanet.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/taussig/PolishBooks/perlshop.cgi">
<input type="submit" name=ACTION value="ORDER">
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=ORDER_ID VALUE="420521137">
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=ITEM_ID VALUE="12345">
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=ITEM_NAME VALUE="Polish for Dummies">
Polish For Dummies $212.98 <br>
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=ITEM_PRICE VALUE="212.98">
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=thispage value=page1.html>
Qty:<INPUT TYPE=TEXT SIZE=3 MaxLength=3 NAME=QTY VALUE="1">
This book is especially good for beginners. <br>
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=ITEM_CODE value="d2041b61 560e1491 84baefe7 f60b3687 9ed13d99">
</FORM>

There is only one CGI file, I assume this has to be placed in a certain directory on my server??

If anyone knows of another, better system please help

oilman

10:50 pm on May 14, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



yo might want to look at Mal's E [mals-e.com]. Great system for plugging into an already built site.

Morrison

8:28 am on May 15, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



i'm not expert in CGI, but i think the CGI file should be store in the "cgi-bin" directory on your server.

about coockies:

it can be used to save data like password, username, site setting, shoping cart and so on on the client computer.

i don't know how to do it in CGI, but in VB it's something like:
[code]
response.cookies("mycookie") = "my value"
response.write = request.cookies("mycookie")
[code]

(edited by: Morrison at 10:28 am (utc) on May 15, 2002)

Marcia

8:39 am on May 15, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



There's a free PHP/MySQL shopping cart that plugs right into Mal's called Option Cart [optioncart.com], but that's all it can be used for.

chocobogo

8:08 pm on May 15, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have decided to go with mals, It is such a great service,

How would I go about adding an basket status feature to my site

e.g. Items In Basket = 10
Cost = £445.05

?????

Marcia

8:51 pm on May 15, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



There are complete instructions right at the site, with sample code. Forms are the easiest way to go, and all the specifics for that system are right there. Works great.

sun818

10:54 pm on May 15, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



hey chocobogo -- Receiving a total count of items in the cart can be "hacked" via JavaScript. Search for posts by the author g.e. on the mal's forum. The alternative would be to provide a "Review Cart" link which would be similar to what you want. Both are covered on the Mals-E site. Mals-e does not offer the running total as it would be too great of a load for the servers to handle.