E-commerce tutorials

Question

I've never done anything with e-commerce before but I was asked today if I could build such a site. Building a website is within my experience but I'm not sure about the nitty gritty parts like processing credit cards and ssl certificates. I was wondering if anybody had any useful tutorials or hints about where to start. Ideally I would like to work with ASP.net MVC, but I wouldn't object to a framework. I've read a couple of other questions on credit card processing and I've also stumbled across http://blog.wekeroad.com/mvc-storefront/mvc-storefront-part-1/ which seems like it will be very useful.

I suppose my question is: where should I go to learn about e-commerce?

Answer 1

It's a very good question; unfortunately e-commerce is a niche even now, and so there aren't very many practical manuals available.

There's many bits and pieces that make up an e-commerce site: the product catalog (containing categories, products and SKUs), the user's order / shopping cart (containing line items, billing info, shipping info, coupons, etc), the checkout flow, and the order pipeline, which handles the fulfillment (inventory, billing, shipping, etc) once the order has been submitted.

Given that you mentioned ASP.net MVC, it sounds like Microsoft Commerce Server might be a good fit for you; even if you don't end up purchasing it, reviewing the documentation and playing with it should give you a good overview of the moving pieces.

Answer 2

Not having much experience of e-commerce myself this is by no means meant to be a definitive answer but...

There is a well-known and very active Open Source solution [I think it's LAMP rather than .NET but you'll hopefully get some ideas to get you started] called osCommerce that you might want to take a look at. I expect you'd get some ideas from looking at the source code. In particular you'll probably find some sample code for coding to the APIs of some of the major credit-card validation services... what appear to be called Payment Gateways. I guess getting familiar with the jargon is an important first step.

From the about section:

osCommerce Online Merchant is an Open Source online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License

Answer 3

Some books that may help:

Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 E-Commerce in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional

Beginning ASP.NET E-Commerce

Pro ASP.NET 2.0 E-Commerce in C# 2005 (Expert's Voice in .Net)

Bonus: Before you buy, check out the Book Burro plugin for Fire Fox. When you go to Amazon in cross references the title with other book sites to find you the best prices!

Answer 4

I've built 8 different E-Commerce sites now. I would highly recommend going with an existing framework or solution as it can be much more involved than you might think at first glance. The framework or solution you choose is really dependent on the complexity you need.

I would recommend staying away from MS Commerce Server, I've never heard a good thing said about it.

In the PHP world, I've used OSCommerce and it has some good points. If they ever release the next version of it, it could be great, but it's 4 years overdue. Zen Cart is a spin off of OSCommerce which is much more polished, regularly updated, and solid.

In the ASP.NET world, I've heard good things about, and am currently evaluating the following: BVCommerce, AbleCommerce, AspDotNetStorefront, and the MediaChase ECF. These are all full-featured commercial offerings that may be overkill for your needs.

I also stumbled upon http://dashcommerce.org/ the other day. It might be a good starting point but I don't really know much about it.

Answer 5

osCommerce is the old standard and I've used it for years. It's still an important player because of how easy it is to customize but since it seems to be completely out of development and has no proper templating system there are other players. Freeway is based on osC but has a great backend if you can find your way around.

For someone who is learning about e-commerce sites from scratch and is comfortable in php then Magento is by far the best choice. It's actively developed and is growing in popularity by leaps and bounds. For open sourced e-commerce applications PHP seems to be the most developed language and Magento is the most sophisticated app.

Answer 6

I answered a question, Payment Processors - What do I need to know if I want to accept credit cards on my website?, similar to this yesterday that was asked a couple of days ago. You may want to reference it.

Answer 7

I would stay away from osCommerce. Its true that it was once "the standard" but that was when there was no competition. Its been dormant for years and its not the easiest system to add custom features to. Magento is a good choice if you want a PHP solution. I personally recommend Spree which is a Ruby on Rails solution.

Answer 8

There is something else to consider. It seems that the credit card companies are starting to mandate that your e-commerce solution be certified by their PABP Certification program. You may want to consider this before making a decision.

Answer 9

Don't forget that if you're accepting credit card payments you need to be PCI compliant - see https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_dss.shtml - so it may we worth looking into a payment gateway like PayPal or Worldpay to accept and process the payments for you

Answer 10

I have had very good experience with aspdotnetstorefront. Their service has been very good and quick to respond. It is extremely customizable. Depending on what you need, you probably do not need to purchase the source code option. I haven't needed it for any of my projects.