e-commerce solution?

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#1

I have never set up any sort of online store. I have a friend of the family who wishes me to do it for her. I am a CS student in college, beginning graduate work this fall, so I believe I can handle things, but I have not done anything of this sort, so I am completely ignorant of the general setup.

Basically, I will get a domain and code a site. What I need to know is

  1. Who are the good hosting providers?

  2. What programs should I be looking for (cpanel, or some kind of CMS)?

  3. What will I need to do to get this thing off the ground?

Once I get pointed in a direction, I believe I can get the details just fine. I am completely without direction, though. Can anyone help?

Thanks,

Wayne

#2

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Wow… that’s quite the start. Knowing some more about your
requirements and background would probably be useful as this isn’t a
trivial task. Also while opensuse is a great product this forum doesn’t
seem to be the ideal place to find help on an e-commerce site,
especially as you didn’t ask any SUSE-based or even Linux-based questions.

Considering the lack of specifics I’ll reply with some other
generalities. First, CS student or not, be sure you know well what you
are doing before going into this. e-commerce typically implies private
information, and specifically financial information, being stored. If
you mess up and lose that you could be in for more legal hassle than
your major has hitherto prepared you. Losing a friend of something
silly like this also seems a bad way to go shortly after college.

Also keep in mind options out there for those just starting out like
Google Checkout or Amazon’s affiliate program. Some of these, if I
understand them correctly, will handle all the financial stuff leaving
you with (possibly) a small fee and peace of mind. All you then need to
do is keep the personal information about the actual customers (if any)
and what they ordered private.

Whom to use as a host? I don’t know. I’d search online for good
customer reviews. I have a friend with a ‘Linode’ (linode.com) that’s
pretty neat. Other services do similar or different things. What you
do depends on your needs.

Good luck.

wnj92996 wrote:
| I have never set up any sort of online store. I have a friend of the
| family who wishes me to do it for her. I am a CS student in college,
| beginning graduate work this fall, so I believe I can handle things,
| but I have not done anything of this sort, so I am completely ignorant
| of the general setup.
|
| Basically, I will get a domain and code a site. What I need to know
| is
|
| 1. Who are the good hosting providers?
|
| 2. What programs should I be looking for (cpanel, or some kind of
| CMS)?
|
| 3. What will I need to do to get this thing off the ground?
|
| Once I get pointed in a direction, I believe I can get the details just
| fine. I am completely without direction, though. Can anyone help?
|
| Thanks,
|
| Wayne
|
|
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#3

It’s been long since I’ve set one of these up… but back then oscommerce was a good one to use. I see they are still quite active and it was not hard to set up (as long as your provider supports MySQL and PHP).

Here is the link : osCommerce, Open Source Online Shop E-Commerce Solutions

Good luck,
Wj

#4

I don’t know what your skillset is as a “CS student”, but here is a basic checklist of what you will need.

  1. Domain name. Don’t overpay. Avoid Register.com.

  2. Hosting. Once again, don’t overpay. I use 1and1.

  3. Access to a database like MySQL, should be available from host.

  4. Software, probably an open-source e-commerce CMS like OSCommerce, Zencart, or Cubecart would be fine.

  5. Some basic knowledge of HTML, FTP, and site layout. If you don’t have this, or are unwilling to learn, there are pre-built packages available from many vendors.

  6. An SSL for the domain. No e-commerce site will be taken seriously without one.

  7. A payment portal. Once again, to be taken seriously, yo will need to have some way of clearing credit cards, and a merchant account. Be carful, as some of the processors will want you to sign expensive long-term contracts.

As the previous poster said, this is non-trivial to do correctly.

#5

Firstly, thanks to all for posting.

Up front: not every post on this forum needs to deal with openSUSE. I posted here because I thought I might get some intelligent responses, which is exactly what I received. Thanks again.

I was deliberately vague concerning my “skillset” since I believe that any attempt to describe it would most likely be inaccurate or incomplete. I merely threw the thing about being a CS student out there to (hopefully) intone that I have a pretty decent idea about how computers and software work.

Let’s use the domain issue as an example. I know what a domain name is. I know what a TLD is. I know why domain names are used, and I can calculate subnets and convert to and from binary with no problem. I know what a domain name server is, and how a client communicates with it to receive the necessary information to contact a web server. I know that an organization needs to contact someone to register a domain for them so that they can have people easily access their website.

What I don’t know is: who are the good providers? How much can I expect them to provide in the way of software (mySQL, php, “storefront” software, etc.). In other words, I know what these things are, and I am confident that I can work with them, but I have no experience in the matter, so I thought I would garner some opinions.

I have written projects in C++, Java, and Assembly. I am slated to take a Database Management class in the fall (amongst others). While I am confident, I do not take it lightly, or I wouldn’t have solicited advice. :wink:

I have done some websites before, but nothing too heavy. I know what css is, html, xhtml, etc. I just needed some pointers on the setup. I did some searching after posting to get some more info, and I gleaned some from yahoo’s small business section.

I will check out osCommerce. Also, I did not know that I had to get the ssl certificate on my own; can you expand on that?

Concerning the payment portal, taxes, etc.–I might have more questions later, but the friend I am doing this for already has a business and has been selling for a few years, so I am guessing that she has something set up for credit cards, but I will definitely be asking.

Thanks again for the responses. Keep 'em coming if you will, especially about the ssl…

#6

SSL’s are sold separately from domains, expect to pay $50-100 per year for one. As I said, I use 1and1.com and am pretty happy, they include alot of stuff. They do not use cpanel, though. You might look into hasweb.com if you want cpanel for a reasonable price.

#7

I have been checking out 1and1, and they look pretty good. The cpanel thing wasn’t a deal-breaker, so no problem.

From what I gather, the ssl can be purchased from one of several vendors, correct? Additionally, it appears that 1and1 might take care of a lot of this type of stuff with their “eshop” packages: 1&1 Internet Inc. - 1&1 eShops. If I go that route, they take care of the credit card stuff. If I don’t, to stay in compliance with what I am guessing are the de facto regs concerning credit cards (https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/pci_dss_v1-1.pdf, found on 1 & 1 eCommerce FAQ), I need to choose a vps solution (an entire installation inside a virtual machine?), or a “dedicated” server. Does “dedicated” server mean a single box all to myself?

Anyway, I appreciate the help. If you have any more to comment on concerning my current post, please do.

#8

1and1 also has the SSLs, I have one from them myself.

#9

I did a quick glance and did not see any. Can you tell me what you paid?

Also, one of the eShop plans offers SSL but not a certificate. Am I correct in assuming that I will still need one (or maybe, that I need one to properly offer the SSL?)