Looking for advice on developing an E-commerce site
Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 3:43 pm
I am currently developing an ecommerce website, and it's going to fairly simplistic: the client needs a private section to enter/delete/modify his products, and a public section of the site where the user can view products, select them, and then buy them.
Normally, I would take an off the shelf shopping cart (e.g. osCommerce, agoracart, etc) and tailor it to the look and feel of the site. I haven't spent much time with these pre-written carts, but it seems like it's overkill, and it seems like an all or nothing deal? By that, I mean if you use one, do you have to use it to store products in its database, display your products etc?
The reason I ask is this: I don't want to spend hours and hours learning how to customize one of the carts to make it do what I need, when code I've written gets me halfway there. I already have an administrative section that I've written for other clients. I already have basic pages up to display the products as the client desires. The only thing I need is the ability to put them into a cart. The client has a company that will serve as a payment gateway.
So, what do you think? Is it possible to use my own code, and take only those parts of a prewritten cart as needed? Or, am I up the creek, and I have to use of the off the shelf carts?
Normally, I would take an off the shelf shopping cart (e.g. osCommerce, agoracart, etc) and tailor it to the look and feel of the site. I haven't spent much time with these pre-written carts, but it seems like it's overkill, and it seems like an all or nothing deal? By that, I mean if you use one, do you have to use it to store products in its database, display your products etc?
The reason I ask is this: I don't want to spend hours and hours learning how to customize one of the carts to make it do what I need, when code I've written gets me halfway there. I already have an administrative section that I've written for other clients. I already have basic pages up to display the products as the client desires. The only thing I need is the ability to put them into a cart. The client has a company that will serve as a payment gateway.
So, what do you think? Is it possible to use my own code, and take only those parts of a prewritten cart as needed? Or, am I up the creek, and I have to use of the off the shelf carts?