E-Commerce Prosper

Wow... I wanted to learn more about the fundamentals of E-Commerce so I loaded up my trusty search engine and went on a hike.

An hour later I was not sure if I was more confused than depressed. I wanted to find a clearly defined tutorial where I could learn how to set up an online webstore from scratch. I have a reasonable programming understanding and was up for the challenge.

So I did not give up so easily. What I did learn was that there are a large number of great solutions for both the inexperienced programmer and internet savy entrepreneurs out there. It was a matter of understanding how each particular solution worked, and the differences in features. More particularly, you need to understand the software requirements of each solution.

Generally an ecommerce solution works like this. First, think of it as an online shopping centre. From the consumers perspective, he or she selects an item from your list or catalog, then selects the number of items. Your total cost is calculated, including applicable regional taxes and shipping charges. You indicate your type of payment, visa, money order, etc. . You would generally receive an order confirmation, indicating that your order was accepted or otherwise. Then presto... in a couple of days, your new set of golf clubs will be delivered right to your front door!

Sounds simple enough right? It can be. The onus, however, is on the storeshop owner (e-commerce website programmer) to provide the customer the greatest level of transaction security as possible.

There are quite a few commercial software packages that you can purchase. These programs are basically e-commerce or e-store templates that you can mold to suit to the needs of your own storefront. You would need to talk with your internet ISP to understand their policies on e-commerce, particularly when it comes to the use of server side scripts on your ISP's server. Most ISP's will not allow a residential account user to use server side scripts. That is, where some of your e-store software resides on your ISP's computer server. If you have a business internet account, your ISP is generally more favorable. You will pay an extra few dollars each month for a business account. But search around, there are ISP's that will host your software, and at a reasonable price.

The main component of an e-commerce site is the use of a relational database which stores and maintains all of your product inventory information. This database would typically be located on your webspace on your ISP server. Your database could have been created using Microsoft Access, MySQL, SQL Server, or almost any common database application used today. Whether you are eager enough to create your own webstore or use a commercial package, you will need to understand TCPIP protocols, the basics of webservers such as Apache or Microsofts IIS (Internet Information Server), or Dreamweaver, an excellent application which works as a combined HTML editor and webserver.

The database is connected to frontend software, typically a userfriendly customer interface, and a hidden administrative interface.

How sophisticated your e-commerce store is.. is totally up to you.

I was fortunate to have found an excellent tutorial which makes an excellent starting point for new webstore owner wanabees. This tutorial can be found at this site:

http://www.webthang.co.uk/tuts/tuts_ud4/uecart/uecart_1.asp

You can also try their live e-commerce demo:

http://www.webthang.co.uk/tuts/tuts_ud4/uecart/ecom/default.asp

I have found the above tutorial to be an excellent learning tool. It will definitely answer many of your questions not covered in my writing. The www.webthang.co.uk site offers many other tutorials and hosts a forum where you can also search for answers offered by other webstore owners.

Have fun with your new store!