Hi,

I am thinking to build a ecommerce site. Among the various web technologies, e.g. ASP, ASP.Net, Java and PHP, which is the best?
Any good site or books for ecommerce programming tutorial?

Thanks,
Cindy

Let start with html, javascript, cgi, then choose one of
asp or php its your choice

That's a broad question - I would say that no particular technology is innately superior to the others, they all have their pros and cons. If you're just starting out then maybe you should consider questions like these to help you choose:

- why do you want to do this? for "fun" or employment reasons? If its employment, then what skills are most in demand by employers in your area?

- where will you host your e-commerce website? This may depend on where you can get the scripting and database services you need for a price you're willing to pay. The choice of a host could be a major factor in determining the technology, e.g. if you go for a host running Apache, you'll be better off with PHP or Perl than you will with ASP.

- what is your programming background, if any? Knowledge of other programming languages may lead you to choose a certain web technology, e.g. if you know VB then ASP will be very familiar to you.

I'm sure others could suggest different questions that may affect your choice.

hth
Phil

Phil:

Thanks for the reply.

I am building this ecommerce site for fun. I have build some web applications with ASP, Java and ASP.Net before. After second thoughts, I am considering to build the ecommerce site in ASP.Net. The programming part is not a big deal to me. However, I have no idea about the credit card charge part. And I don't know what web host supports ASP.Net ecommerce sites. I would appreciate if you could suggest some online resource or book talking about how to handling credit card part.


Sincerely,
cindy

Hi Cindy.

ASP.NET is indeed a good choice if you ask me.
If "I where to list the technologies in a top 10 kind a way" Then
  With AProgrammersView
    .ASP.NET - because it's the leading technology at the time
    .JSP - because you can do the same stuff (as in ASP.NET), but it's slow
    .PHP - because it's fast, free and tons of free stuff comes with it
    .ASP - because it's the standard so you probably got lots of old code _
           you can reuse
    .CGI - because I'm too young to know it...
  End With
End If

I know Wrox once published an e-commerce book, but I don't see it anymore. Maybe it got dropped when Wiley took over...

Regards - Jon

Hi Cindy,

Taking payments isn't really my thing I'm afraid, but lots of people seem to use WorldPay for that part.

rgds
Phil

This is really a question asked to my private mailbox, but I think it can be used in this forum as well:
Hello Mega I´m from Mexico I would like know where I con find a book or Web Page of e-commerce I want to know how I can to do a web page with e-commerce, I want find examples, code exemples, You must know more than I.


Thanks sorry for my English


Erik

************************************************** *

Hi Erik.

Building an e-commerce site is really all about asking the right questions.
First you need to answer these questions by pgtips:
http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=224

There is a lot of books out there. Finding the right one for use is a matter of filtering.
Where as to the law you can probably find some info on:
http://www.gigalaw.com/index.html

The payment issue is a hard one, because it's country dependent. In Denmark we got a national card that cost about 30.000 DKR ($ 4700,-) just to begin with. Then you got to pay a percentages of the amount you generate on your site...
I think if you want to start cheap then paypal is the right choice:
http://www.paypal.com/

You should also check if there is any mexican business that offers some server solution. I know that in Denmark there is one where all the payment stuff, goes one on their server. The benefits is that you don't got to have a security certificate (some card vendors require that), you get it cheaper because lot's of other websites use the same server (you only have to pay for one connection to the banks) and a staff of people working around the clock if a server is down.

It seems that only Java e-commerce books get good reviews(!). I think that .NET would provide the best platform, but I don't know Java...

I hope this helped you else just mail me again..

Happy coding :-)
Jon

Regards - Jon

Hi Cindy,

As your building the site for fun I would suggest something like Pay Pal. However how it works on a large corporate site is as follows.

The seller needs a digital certificate in order to establish a secure connection. The payers card details are posted to the seller via a web form on an SSL. The seller then sends the card details to the clearing house via a remote function call. A couple of seconds later the seller receives a return code from the RFC which shows whether the payment has been authorised. You can also tell if the card is stolen etc.

The clearing house provides the technical details needed to ensure you call the RFC in the correct way. That is the easy bit. The hard part is validating the card details using all the different algorithms each of the card companies use. It is very important to ensure the details are valid prior to the RFC, as the seller pays a small charge for every invalid call. On a busy site this could cost a company thousands.

Hope that has lifted the mystery behind the payment process for you.

Regards

Skin

Hi Cindy,

Actually, for the card payment process, you need first to choose you payment platform. There are MANY solutions.
Example:
- PAYPAL. No need to program anything. Create a merchant accout on PAYPAL and then just follow the instructions on their MERCHANT TOOLS section once logged in. CAREFUL, CHARGES ARE VERY HIGH !!! About 4 to 5 percent of the transaction. Also if you don't have any bank account in US dollars, and transfer the money to a country with different currency, they give you a CRAP change rate. Just consider it.
There are others similar system like MONEYBOOKERS (cheaper than PAYPAL butI never used it). I guess it is also a piece of cake to use like Paypal.

OR

- CREDIT CARD PAYMENT SYSTEM by a third party. It means you will use a Bank payment system. In this case, your job begins. Just study well banks proposalsand you will see what fit you the best.
In any case, they provide a development guidelines. So don't worry.


AND FOR THE WEB HOSTING... You have thousands of ISP that can provide ASP.NET platform. Have a look on a search engine and check their offers.

Actually, I am french, living in Hong Kong and most of my projects are hosted in the US. So you can find your own way to assemble all those bricks...


Good luck and have fun in your project Cindy.

C U

:D MIKE