Hi

I am working on a shopping cart plug in, or a pluggable shopping cart system that can easily use the Links database information.

1- The user Interface:


We have found a way to pass the Price, description, Title of the product-link-from through link.html tag or the detailes_page.cgi script written by pugdog to a shopping cart script through a secure form.
Then The user will be taken to review page for his shopping cart where he can check out or return to the previous page.
If checking out he will be promoted to enter his information then the info will be submitted for verification, and if accepted will be taken to a thank you page.
The order information will be then E-mailed to the admin for processing, or you can use ATS bank services or a paypal account to get paid.


2- the admin functions:
Review orders, change headers, footers, review users, and that is it.

3- the disadvantages:
user is required to enter his info everytime he orders from your site.
No history will be available for users.
No invoice generation capabilities, only a confirmation e-mail will be sent to customer.


We strongly think that we can get this product up for a cost of around $100 only.

Before we spend that much time on it we would like to hear some feedback for Links SQL, or Links 2 users about the functions, price, and other issues they might think of.

We will expect a demo within few weeks from now



Regards
Abd

http://www.idleb.com

that sounds nice.
a lot of users should currently purchase an external shopping cart system, with external admin, the most of them (me too) likes to get the entire site based on one engine.
The most important features should be available in your plugin, but try to program some extra optionss, like the disadvantages in your thread, before release.
The proce of $100 seems ok for such plugin.

Good Luck

hi, your project is great and the price is o.k..

but it should not be difficult to save user informations like adress-datas, customer-numbers (hope that the right word for it) an so on into a database-table.

then tho whole process ca be driven via customer-number. he enters it and the system fetches all data from the database-table.

if that's a good idea for you, it would be an extremely good feature, if the customer-number design is variable.
e.g. : xxxxxxxx or xxxxxx-xx-xx or xx/xxx/ xxx or something like that.

Another option might be to use the user-login. if someone logs in and is customer, the system can fetch the customer datas from the customer-table.
I think you have to add only a new colum "custumer_number" to the user table for this and make some mods.

cheers,
Manu

hy what about to use the Users table as customer table, so that registered users can be customesr without registering again.

Hi

The whole program is based on a flat file database not SQl.
To make the program save users info and require a log in or fetch their information from an existing database (links SQL )here is going to increase the price several folds due to the fact that we will have to write three additional script one to save info, to modify info, and to fetch info..
We are tryning to keep it simple and cheap...
and most important make it work with Links SQL or regular links.
Also such changes will bring up a bigger security concerns since we are saving customers credit info and such.

The history will create the same poroblem we might have those as a future options but it will be an over $400 plug in.



Regards
Abd

http://www.idleb.com

Actually, "keep it simple and cheap" SQL is the way to go. Links has most of the routines in it for database access, and you don't have to worry about flat-file access, locking and that 'flock' may not work on all systems.



PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.
FAQ:http://LinkSQL.com/FAQ
Forum:http://LinkSQL.com/forum

That is a horrible idea, IMHO...mixing flat file system with LINKS SQL...as pugdog mentioned, keep it ALL SQL! If you REALLY want to develop a FLAT FILE system, then I would simply develop it for LINKS 2.0...not even go there as plugin for LINKS SQL...most LINKS SQL users will not use your system, because it does not integrate well with the SQL structure of LINKS SQL...

Regards,

Eliot Lee

I do not If you guys do understand clearly the idea I am talkking about here or not.
We are not Plugging it into The sql database we are simply pasing the sql databse information to another script to process it for us.

I did shop around the minimum offer I had to develpoe a shopping cart plug in for links SQL was $1500 which is way to much to afford by most users..

I wanna but it clearly that this is not the most proffesional solution Yes but for a 100 bucks it does very much all what you will need for any standard store.

You will probaably get to know it better when i have demo up...



Regards
Abd

http://www.idleb.com

Well, again, I think it would be best to promote it for LINKS 2.0, since it is already a flat file system. And you did state that you were creating a "plug-in" in your original post, which it does seem like you are doing. Most Links SQL users will use Mods and "plug-ins" that integrate into the LINKS SQL "engine"....again, mixing flat file systems and SQL systems is not the best solution...

Regards,

Eliot Lee

I would be interested in a shopping card if it can solve one problem:

User should add to the shopping xard from the datailed pages. On the datailed pages must be a backlink to the category pages by javascript history, so you can´t use the same backlink in your shopping-card (back to detailed pages), because you would run in a circle.

The javascript history backlink must be in linkSQL to have fast browsing the records!!!

Just a small detail, but important!

Michael

We've got a totally SQL shopping cart system plugin with a full backend for order fulfillment, about 50% done.

Some of the more advanced features include:

- Full integration with FedEx Online shipmanger
- Live credit card processing
- Virtually unlimited options for shipping charges
- Unlimited templates for categories
- Unlimited templates for products displayed within categories
- Unlimited templates for detailed product pages
- Featured product rotation global tag for templates
- Sale product rotation global tag for templates
- Runs in either dynamic or static mode
- Customer order tracking, including current location direct from FedEx tracking
- Detailed site statistics
- One click install via plugin

These are just a few of the more unusual features that are being written into this plugin from the ground up. It has been designed for a more serious e-commerce site, and will be priced accordingly.

Again this project is only about 50% done (already over 500k in size) and should be in its beta stages by June. More information will be provided as it gets closer to that time.

AlexJ
The Netmall Group

PS - If anyone is wondering, after completing about 75% of MyLinksNG, I was forced to go full speed on this shopping cart project by the powers that be. MyLinksNG WILL be completed, just a little later than expected.

Sounds more aligned with what Links SQL users want and will use than other "plug-in" mentioned in this Thread...what is the anticipated cost for the plug-in??

Regards,

Eliot Lee

I would be interested in your shopping cart pluggin if it has the following features:
similar to http://www.commercesql.com/test/index.cgi
1) Hot buys w/rotating pictures
2) subcategories
3) UPS feature with your Fedx feature

Hopefully you can squeeze these features in.

Good luck and great good, so far.
Ken

sounds like what most people have been looking for.

I've been struggling with the various plug-in aspects, so if you need help, let me know. I've got some pretty complicated installs working.



PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.
FAQ:http://LinkSQL.com/FAQ
Forum:http://LinkSQL.com/forum

Ken,

1) Hot buys - Our pluging has an option for rotating the items on sale anywhere in your templates, and/or rotating featured products anywhere in your templates.

2) Subcategories - Pretty much an unlimited number of categories and subcategories with no limit on depth... Ie Home > Hardware > Videocards > Voodoo is a possible valid subcategory.

3) UPS - This one is a little tougher. FedEx Online Ship Manager was designed so that you can submit a form and it replies with a page that you print as your airbill. We parse that page, and grab the airbill gif. So right from your our backoffice, while viewing any given order, you have one button to click on and it instantly creates a FedEx airbill using the customers date. UPS's online shipping system is setup with 3 - 5 steps, each with a different form and the variables in each form vary depending on the answers to the previous form. Right off the bat, our plugin will offer UPS tracking and a few of the other UPS funtions that UPS offers as CGI's. Full one click shipping airbills like we did with FedEx will be released later as an update.

AlexJ

Hi Alex,

Can I see a demo or your demo in the works?
So far I'm interested. But of course the price would be the deciding factor.

Ken

One last thought,
A review product feature like Amazon, would be cool.
Keep me informed, I would like to purchase a copy.

Ken

That would be the same as the Review plug-in being developed, would it not?

Regards,

Eliot Lee

This sounds GREAT!

Can I please request that you allow multiple types of shipping options on top of the UPS and FedEx models. In other words, allow us to base our shipping costs on destination (location inside or outside of the US) and also on weight or price.

so there could be multiple shipping tables
(defined however you like, but we'd define them something like this)
United States
$0-$19.99 = 5.95
$20-39.99 = 7.95
xx-xx=xx

Canada and Mexico
$0-$19.99 = 9.95
$20-39.99 = 12.95
xx-xx=xx

International shipping
$0-$19.99 = 12.95
$20-39.99 = 15.95
xx-xx=xx

and the plugin could identify the delivery location from the adress and plug in the appropriate table for shipping.

This would be SO HELPFUL!

Please let me know about this possibility.

Oh, and one more thing.

If you allow this type of shipping tables. Can you make it so we can choose if an item gets charged shipping. In other words, some items might not have a shipping fee (a magazine subscription, for example. Whereas another product might be something that we'd charge shipping for)

Just a checkbox in the item's decription could do it (check here if you want to/don't want to charge shipping)

Thanks again.

Might be better design to have one SHIP_TYPE, which would include classifications like INTERNATIONAL/DOMESTIC with the associated Country from another table called something like COUNTRY.

Your suggestions are good and all, but I think that you are creating a mess for future maintenance issues. You have to think about the connections between the PRODUCT and SHIPPING relations (like 1->M or M<->M) and then think about "rules"/"policies" associated with each process of ordering/shipping.

Then you can start building your relations/tables.

Regards,

Eliot Lee

Ya know, I don't know how to build it, but I know what I need in order to be able to use it. Right now, we pay a lot of money to have a YahooStore. The main reason we use it is because it allows us the kind of flexibility we need with shipping options, and is easy to use.

We would like to switch over to a product that allows us to continue using the shipping methods we use now. And this is how Yahoo does it.

Our shipping prices are based on mail order prices that we have published in a print magazine. It is not something we want to change.

So, What I think you are saying is that *how* I was suggesting this be done was in question....not the outcome, right?

One more thing: a refferal system.

One that keeps track of what customers who are reffered by x

perhaps the merchant could choose that the system keep tarck of all purchases, or just certain purchases. hmmmmm. :)

Right now this is how the shipping options are structured. This is cut from the "Create new shipping rule" form.

All orders located:
- within
- outside of
- anywhere

- Country:
- State:
- Zipcode:

Shipped via: (This is a list of options you created)
- Standard Shipping
- Priority Shipping
- Overnight Shipping

Are charged: $ Amount here
- One time
- For each item
- Per pound
- Percent of net total

Each shipping option will be processed against all of the rules that have been assigned to it, so for example, if you wanted to do a $5.00 base shipping fee in the US and $1.00 for each additional item, you would:

Select Within the US, via standard shipping, a $4.00 one time fee.

Then create a second rule, selecting Within the US, via standard shipping, $1.00 for each item.

This is only an example of one of the ways this shipping system could be used.

From the feedback we have gotten, we will be also adding a "per item" option, basing shipping on an amount in the products database (each item can have a different shipping fee, the total shipping is the sum of the shipping fees of each item in the shopping cart at checkout).

The shipping tables you suggested are also a possibility.

Thanks for the feedback!

AlexJ

Evoir,

This is already an option. There is "Shipping_Included" option in the product database, that exempts any item from all shipping fees.

AlexJ

Correct. The output is fine and dandy, but getting to the output is not an easy task...really understanding different ordering and shipping processes for different products and services is essential, and building those systems into this "shopping cart" plug-in will not be easy at all...making it flexible with good database design up-front is the key...

Regards,

Eliot Lee

RE: Affiliate Program / Promotion Tracking

The final version will include an affiliate program with pay per click and/or pay per sale (flat rate or % of sale).

We are also working on promotion tracking which might be more like what you are talking about, where we can create a special link to the store for say, a listing in Goto.com, and view (in a calander format) clicks and sales per day.

AlexJ

You guys at Gossamers ROCK!

thanks. Looking forward to seeing it when it is finished. :)

They do rock... without question.

To give everyone proper credit please understand that Alex from Gossamer Threads and AlexJ are two different people.

AlexJ
The Netmall Group

oh.

well... I guess you rock as well. I think the gossamer folks are also making a shopping cart plug in. So I assumed that somehow you were related to the gossamer folks makikng the plug in.

Wow. more choices now. cool. :)

Hi AlexJ,

The shopping cart idea is excellent. I wish i could program like that.

Anyway just some options to consider.

1, Choice of currency symbol i.e. £ $
2, Maybe add many worldwide currencies and have the option to display products in various currencies.
3. Option to be able to have additional pricing information based on variables for each item. i.e. a small shirt cost £10.00 a medium shirt cost £12.00 etc.
4. Option to have additional variables for each item: colour, size, weight etc.
5. Option of 2 images. detailed pages would be good for this! small image and brief/full description or small image linking to detailed page with larger image/s and full description.
6. Option to import individual text files for each item. for example i have a client who has an online clothing store and explains each item differently ie. actual size, your chest size, length. it would be great to be able to use this simple feature.
7. connection to as many payment merchants as possible. I've listed the big ones below:

Anacom

Authorize.Net, E-Commerce Exchange and QuickCommerce

Bank of America eStores

Cambist

Cardservice International and Clear Commerce

CubeCard

eft.com

eProcessingNetwork (Controlled Devices)

eWAY

gochargeit.com

GORealtime E-Commerce Transaction Processing

InternetSecure

iTransact

PaymentProcessor.net

PayPal

PSiGate

SECPay

SecurePay.com

signio.com

Verisign

WorldPay

8. i think Im probably booring you now so i will go, just thouht I would give you some more ideas to ponder over.

9. thought of another, Gift Voucher purchase and usage.
10. Wish List! visitors can add items to a wish list to be purchased later or by a friend/partner etc.

PS. any idea on price?



Regards

MDJ1
http://www.isee-multimedia.co.uk

any news?

MDJ1 -

Some good ideas. As usual we love the comments and ideas - please keep them up.

1 - We will definately have a currency symbol variable.
2 - Interesting idea - automatic conversion to other currencies. Is there a site where we could have the software automatically download the conversion rates each day?
3 - This gets a little complicated. The program has been designed from the ground up to use a live inventory. This does NOT have to be used. But when using a live inventory, you cannot have one item SKU, and allow for different sizes or colors, or your inventory data becomes invalid. Current plans are to have a create new item option where, you create a base item, and then it uses a grid or table of information that you provide to create all of the different SKU/color/size/price combinations into other items. I'm not sure if I've described this clearly or not... ?
4 - Color, Size, Dimensions and weight are all current item variables.
5 - Currently has variables for 3 images (small, medium, and large), and two levels of detailed pages.
6 - Could you explain this a little better for me?
7 - The payment gateway setup has been made modular. We will be including modules for the most popular gateways as you suggested, and others will be written on request.

It is important to understand that use of all of these features and functions will be optional. In other words, a store built with our system could get extremely complex, or it could be used as a simple shopping cart.

Our programming demo site is viewable at: http://dev.netmall.net. This site is where alot of our programming is done, so it may at times be broken. Currently, you can almost complete an order online. Browser through the different categories to see how flexible the software is..

Looks great!

Is it possible to code it so paypal can process the credit card transactions? (as an additional credit card processing option)

It will save us (the little guys in business) some monthly fees.

Looks like you liked CommerceSQL. : )

Thanks, Ken

Ken,

Thanks! I'm glad someone finally replied. I was starting to think maybe everyone hated it.

The demo store templates as they now sit will only be one of several default templates that come with the program. We've been having a hard time figuring out who the original designer of that template is - it is currently being used or distributed with 3 different shopping cart type systems.

The final version will accept Paypal too. And I really didn't get into this - but there are alot of features that you wouldn't know existed or couldn't understand the depth of from just viewing the user side of the demo. As soon as we get a few more steps along with the project we will open up a live admin demo for everyone to play with.

Again we are looking for as many feedback - comments - suggestions on this as possible. Any features anyone would like to see included, please speak up...

Thanks,

AlexJ

You probably already have this in the program but a review a product like amazon would be cool, and refer other products once a customer selects one.

This might be cool to click on the item jpeg and it opens in a larger screen with a larger picture. I have seen in the latest shopping carts, I think its a java program, where you can click on the picture and rotate the picture.
Its pretty trick.
like this http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store/productdetail.aspx?storeid=inxpot&prodno=493974

and
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store/productdetail.aspx?storeid=inxpot&prodno=493970&zoom=yes

This may be a bit much. But here is another idea.
Also, can it create other stores similar to cafepress. Where a vendor can sign up to create his store off of my original store and he/she could sell their products and I would get a commission or monthly fee for the service. I guess they would have to be able to use their own credit card service.

We plan on having product reviews and ratings... however these features will not be present in the initial release.

As far as recommending products - initially you will be able to select products to recommend (upsell) for each product. Down the road, we want to have both 'recommended' products (by the store owner) or 'Others who have purchased this product also enjoyed....' created from statistics.

Cafepress is using a javascript to preload the 2 or 3 different views of an item, then little bits of java to change which one is being displayed. Not too difficult to do stuff like that. When I click on their 'zoom in on picture', it reloads the same page, adding a zoomed in picture of the logo at the bottom of the page.

So basically, in a nutshell, our system could do those product pages as it sits now. All you would need to do is a little template work.

I do have a pretty cool demo of something we have been working on for a customer, letting you zoom in on a product image:

http://www.tieguys.com/mag-demo2.html

An affiliate program, paying out on a % of sales or per click will be the first thing added to the system after the initial release. Down the road I could see where an entire co-branded store affiliate program similar to cafepress could be possible. Nothing definate on that one though.

AlexJ

That drag-over magnifier is really cute!

I was looking for something similar for a site that's on the back burner at the moment, but a way to enlarge portions of the item, and to fit sized masks. So that the magnifier would clip the image to round, or oval, of a fixed ratio compared to the size of the image.

Did you write that magnifier code, or is it a package from else where?


PUGDOG® Enterprises, Inc.
FAQ:http://LinkSQL.com/FAQ
Forum:http://LinkSQL.com/forum

Yea...very cute...but not interoperatable between web browsers. It does not work in Netscape 4.6 or 4.73, you might want to consider using a set of "browser check" codes and then use DOM codes (for Netscape 6.0 and above, and LAYER based codes for Netscape 3.0 - 4.73) to print the javascript codes that will work in IE, and then put a message for Netscape browsers that the zooming codes do not work.

I have seen a similar feature that uses both java applets and java server side codes (via JSP).

Regards,

Eliot Lee

Hi,
I don´t know how far you are with the development of your shopping cart. I am working on a shopping cart for our company myself but I am not a skilled programmer more a cut and paste/trial and error developer. Anyway I think it might be interesting to consider some of the following options we are working on.
1. you can store all products of different users in one shopping cart table. so the users can view their history and the status of their order e.g. ordered,shipped and so on.
2. Based on the total turnover there are different prices we have Regular, Bronze, Silver and Gold Customers
3. The shipping is Based on the Payment conditions and the weight of the products. Gold Customers don´t have to pay for the shipping.
4. It would be a very easy task to make a price agent. When you update your prices you can run a script which compares the prices in a price agent table in the Links/Products table and if the price is lower there is an automatic mail to the customer.
5. You can sell your shop to other people who use their own design/templates and get a copy of the order. You can handle the shipping and delivery papers. The 'partner' pays the golden customer price and gets the difference between gold and regular customers price. We will offer this option with a cookie based shop and no turnover based price.
Maybe some points are interesting for you

Cheers
Niko

http://www.master-productions.com

another thought that i could use in the program.
at check out a field for special instructions from the buyer. A simply text box where customers can write any noted, instructions or whatever.

Also an option for a pull down table of sizes for clothing on the store.

AlexJ,

how's it going? I have sort of been waiting to see what you've come up with. Any news?

We are still rolling along nicely. As with many of the other plugins, I had to go back and do some updates when ver. 2.04 came out.

The demo URL I previously gave out is now defunct (it was a 2.03 install).

We are very close to putting up a full demo of the store. It is almost 100% working. The admin side is still a bit off.

Thats it for this update... now back to work...

AlexJ

any news on pricing and ETA?

very excited about this.

How's the project going?
any demo in sight?

Ken

hows it going?

i wonder if an delivery address book is included in the plugin package?
Is there any change these day for this plugin? as i notice there is long times
there is no updated infos for this plugin. also no demo for long times.