Hello guys

I've heard about all these shopping cart scripts, some free, some for sale. I really wanted to make my own shopping cart so that i can be more familiar with it, and that I could customize it to the fullest. I also wanted to make the shopping cart in Flash.

I know everything i need on the Flash side of the app, but the php side is a bit of a mystery to me. Not that im a newbie in PHP, but coz i've never done a shopping cart system before.

in my mind right now, im thinking, it can't be that hard. it's just something like:

1) List the products
2) add options to add to cart and check out
3) if add to cart, put in user cookie the product IDs of items in the cart, or temporary file on the server
4) if check out, list everything in the cart and show total plus some predefined charges (shipping, etc)
5) then process

So, is there anything special with real shopping carts or is my above description good enough to cary out the sale?

Also, on number 5 of my list (Process), what is actually done here? Where do I pass the variables to? Does the bank/merchant accout have a sript i have to call as the final step????

Please enlighten me oh knowledgeable creatures!

🙂
Tea

    it's gota be as simple as below.

      Sup Tea.

      Readin around (PHP & MySQL Web Development) says that you'll need:

      -Database of products for sale
      -Catalog
      -The actual cart
      -Checkout script
      -Admin features

      For these it has about 32 seperate pages for the above functions. I'm not about to type em all out, so what specifically do you need assistance on?

        lolz. that's ok mate. ya dont have to.

        I just wanted to know if there are anything special that a seasoned programmer like me dont know about.. besides the common evaluation of what is typically needed in such a system.

        WHat I really need help on is this.

        I think i can basically take care everything from data base entries and inventory to the final stage of the shopping cart. But from there, how does one process the payment? Say I have this data in my customers cart

        $products = (289,3948,123,0284); // these are the product ID's of my products

        $total = $25.99; // total charge

        do I just pass the above variables to a script at my bank's website or something? What's next?

        Tea

          Hmm.. I don't think that would be too secure.

          You are wondering what the processing of the payments is, right? In da book it appears to just store the values in the database.. credit cards, products, everything.

          I still don't see what you are asking really... how payments are processed? By hand I would assume...

            im sorry for being unclear mate. I know it isnt secure, but "that was why" i was asking.. how does the popular shopping sites take care of the payment interface side?

            basically, what i wanted to know is say i have everything taken cared of, and now the customer has his cart full of goods...

            what's next?

            1) do I create the PAYMENT INTERFACE myself (name, cc, expiry date, etc), and when the customer hits submit, I STORE his data in my database? <-- i dont think that is right though.

            2) Or do i do the above, but not store in my database, but rather send to the bank's database???

            3) Or i simply send the contents of shopping cart to the bank's payment interface??

            So yeah, how does that part work?

            PS
            Thank you very much for your kind patience with me.

            Tea

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