Shopping Cart Choosing a shopping cart

by Zoviet

Choosing a Shopping Cart
As a professional web developer, it is inevitable that sooner or later, one of your clients will ask you to develop an online store. While it is possible to create a whole shopping cart from scratch, you will learn through using a program like Macromedia Dreamweaver MX that it is often more efficient to download or purchase an extension. But if you're new to cart development, you often must select from a wide range of options and may be unsure of how to proceed.

While this article's scope does not cover all of the issues you will face when choosing the best shopping cart solution, I have attempted to develop a checklist of things to consider when choosing a cart. I have grouped the topic areas under the following sections. Table of Contents What application server do you use? What is your level of experience? What are your current clients requirements? What are future clients likely to want? What is your budget? What does the price include?

An Overview of Shopping Cart Types
First, let's look at the types of carts to consider. Generally speaking, you can divide carts that you would use in a Dreamweaver MX environment into three categories:
Server behaviors/extensions
Carts of this type are generally sold as extensions that will create the code necessary to store the cart information within pages that you create in the site. The actual design of the pages is generally left completely up to the designer. While most shopping cartextensions and server behaviors provide sample documentation, some example pages, and database layouts, it is generally expected that the website developer tailor the design to application requirements. The advantage of these types of shopping carts is that they provide the most flexible design and function possibilities. However, this flexibility can make the learning curve steep for creating a functional cart.

The most flexible shopping carts do not limit the type of database that you can interact with, providing that you can establish a connection to it.
Complete applications As the name implies, complete applications contain all of the pages and the code to create a store. Most often the pages are based on predefined templates that were designed by the application developer. Complete applications usually come with complete databases. The degree to which you can customize the look of the site varies greatly between the products. In many cases, the code is very complicated and hard to alter if you need to add additional functionality. Having said that, the basic database design will probably match the needs of a typical shopping cart 85% of the time.
A complete application that integrates with Dreamweaver MX ranges from those that require you to copy a complete folder into your site to those that have wizards that create and configure the site.
Web-Based applications These are complete application that are hosted on a third party site and provide you with an access point and online tools for controlling the product details. These web-based applications range from complete stores to simple payment gateways.
Generally speaking, this model strictly limits how much you can modify the design; moreover, you have no access to modify the code and add functionality.

Now let's figure out how to choose a shopping cart! What Application Server Do You Use?

While it is entirely possible to write product pages as static HTML, the odds are that you will quickly want to drive page content from some form of data source (most commonly a database). To do this, the pages must use an application server such as ASP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JSP, or PHP.

Most carts work in the same way. When a user adds an item to the shopping basket, the app stores the data in either a session variable (on the server) or in a cookie (on the client machine). The code that writes and reads such items is specific to the application server and its language. While it is possible to mix server code, ISPs generally not recommend or allow it. Therefore, there is absolutely no point in looking at ASP.NET carts if your web host runs a Linux server.

If you already know a scripting language, it is beneficial to use a shopping cart in that environment. This way, if you do need to hand code anything, you have a reference point. With the exception of JSP, there are carts available in all of the server languages which fully integrate with the Dreamweaver MX authoring environment. What Is Your Level of Experience?

One of the great advantages of using products like Dreamweaver MX is that you can develop reasonable, robust, and complex applications without necessarily knowing a lot about the fundamentals that run the system that you develop on. You can also design dynamic sites with only a bare working knowledge of database design. This is because the Macromedia Dreamweaver engineering team created the program to develop this functionality.

There is a wide range of carts on the market, from those that provide the raw tools and let you assemble it, to those that provide everything.
If you are brand new to web development or have come from a design background, I recommend a complete application. The major advantage with this approach is that the application developer has already thought out the pages needed, the database structure, and the logic for the entire application. Having said that, note the comments in the section below section, in client requirements.

However, if you have a strong application development background or you have the time to learn, then it can be better to select a cart with server behavior models. While shopping carts based on Dreamweaver server behaviors may take a little time to set up initially, the flexibility you gain will pay great dividends later on.

Finally, it is important to find out what level of support the cart software offers. Some vendors have their own support forums, while others rely on Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) pages on their sites. If you pick one a popular cart, you can often get support from other members on the dreamweaver.appdev forum. In fact, the developers of CharonCart, Cartweaver, Storefront and UltraCartII regularly contribute to the forums. What Are Your Client's Requirements?

The following section contains questions to ask yourself when choosing a shopping cart for to your client's requirements. Be very careful in determining what your client wants to do with his site. You will often get the simple answer "I want to sell my products online!" Ask your client to be as specific as possible. For instance, "I want to know which products are selling the best based on their location in the shopping cart."All shopping carts will allow your clients to sell their products online, but you should consider the following points when researching your client's requirements:

What country are you? What country is your client in?
While the Internet is international, development is often not. Most commercial carts are developed by companies in the United States. As such, they are heavily based on local rather than international requirements.

You may find that some of the functionality (such as dynamic shipping rates) simply don't work elsewhere. You may also need to customize pages to remove such things as zip codes, state lists, or validation surrounding such items. While you may not think this is a big deal, remember that your client expects you to deliver something to fit his requirements. Having irrelevant fields on forms is not a good way to show them that you know what you are doing. You need to ensure that you can customize such items easily in the design.

You will also need to look at how the cart handles taxes, especially if you are dealing with sales taxes that are only present when the goods are shipped to a different location from your client.

Finally, very few US-based shopping carts handle multiple currencies. If you are based in the UK or Europe, you must ensure that the shopping cart can handle the formatting for the Euro.

What does your client's product structure look like?
You need to understand specific properties about your client's products. Are the client's products separated into categories (and subcategories). If so, can one product belong to more than one category? Do the products vary in size or color? Do the products have long descriptions? Do the products need to display more than one image?

These are all important aspects, as they will determine how to structure the database and how to set up display pages. If you control the database design this is not an issue. But if you have a cart based on a complete application, including the database, then it may be difficult for you to change the structure of the underlying data.

Who are your client's customers and how will they place orders?
E-commerce sites are divided into two types, generally defined as B2C (Business to Customer) and B2B (Business to Business); there can be a lot of differences between these two types of customers.

Generally, B2C sites sell a small numbers of items at set price to a large number of individuals, while B2B sites have a smaller number of customers. With a B2B sites, you may to have to implement additional security, different pricing structures, and give customers the ability to load multiple items into the cart at the same time.

Most complete cart applications can create a B2C well, but fail on the additional requirements of B2B. You need to feel confident that you can handle any modification necessary if you are delivering a B2B solution.

How does your client want to maintain the site?
Creating the cart is only half the application. You also need to establish how the client will maintain the information stored in the database. Some carts come with complete front ends to do this, but not all include this functionality in the price. Alternatively, you may have to create an interface for your client to maintain the site. Since you have Dreamweaver MX, this should not be too difficult for you.

What transaction volume does the client expect?
The client must assess the number of transactions that are likely to occur on the website, especially if you look at a complete application that contains a Microsoft Access database. The simple fact is that Microsoft Access was not it designed to handle high volumes of transactions. If you are designing a site that will handle thousands of transactions a day, consider a more robust database. While the SQL code written to interact with a Microsoft Access database is similar to that for a Microsoft SQL Server database, there are some differences. Therefore, upgrading your database may not be a simple matter of changing a connection string.

If there are any doubts about the volume of transactions the site may handle, it is better to plan cautiously and use a more robust database than Microsoft Access.

What are future clients likely to want?
If you are going to use an online web application for the shopping cart, this question is largely irrelevant as the third party will generally require a separate set up for each client. But if you are planning on purchasing a cart that you can tailor for future clients, ensure that the cart can meet most of their potential needs.

Simply think about what you would like to be able to tell a future client that you can deliver. What Is Your Budget?
Shopping carts range from free to several thousand dollars, so it is important to factor in what you are willing to pay. When working this out, consider the time that you may need to learn the software and how long it will take you to modify features in the shopping cart.

For example UltracartII is $US99.00 and has significantly more functionality than the free Ultracart. The $99.00 dollars that you spend may be well worth the investment, rather than trying to add the additional functionality to the original cart yourself. What Does the Price Include?
Finally, be sure that you understand what you are getting when you buy a shopping cart. This is more important when you are looking at complete application types of solutions. For example, look into the following: Does the price include the ability to create multiple carts or are you expected to pay license fees on additional sites? Do you have the tools to build the complete application (such as the Administration back-end), or is this included as an extra option? Is the price based on a particular database model? (For example, Storefront has different versions for running with Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server databases.). Are there any additional modules available that add functionality to the cart?

Generally, you should be able to get this information on a vendor's website.
While it would be impossible to compare all of the shopping cart solutions in one article, I have tried to provide you with criteria to consider when choosing an e-commerce solution for your clients. About the author Paul Whitham has built websites since 1996. His work ranges from creating simple brochure-like static websites to sites with 500 pages. The majority of his clients are small businesses that want to try e-commerce.

Paul comes from a business background, rather than a programming one. He has built his knowledge of VBScript and ASP through trial and error and by playing a lot on the computer. He can easily relate to the new users who visit the online forums.

As an active participant in the online forums, Paul believes that Macromedia is a fantastic company for making community resources available. He lives just north of the capital of New Zealand. When he is not in front of the computer, he chases a funny little white ball through the trees on the golf course.
CS-Cart shopping cart software and ecommerce solution