Help!!

[Anonymous]

Hi!. I've read LOADS of stuff on IMAs, PCPs and shopping carts, and so far have decided on Paypal (to start with anyway), just because of the costs of Worldpay, and the apparently long time in setting up a separate IMA.

However the shop is a problem. I decided to go with a 1and1 eshop for quickness, and because it includes a SSL certificate and my website is hosted with them. However I want the shop just to be a part of the site - i.e. not on the Home page, and this is not possible with 1and1 unless I redirect to something like s123456789.1and1shop.co.uk - which doesn't look very professional.

So, here are my questions:

If I get shopping cart software, will I have to get a separate security certificate?

How long does it take to learn PHP - that seems to be very popular? I programmed for 10 years in COBOL and can do a bit of HTML but really don't have a lot of time to spend learning a new language.

Anyone any experience of incorporating a shop into just a part of their website?

Many thanks for help.

[webit]

Could you include the 1&1 page within a frame of your site over https (I've done that a few times). The cert and URL refelect the outer frame rather than the included content.

PHP is quite nice and quick to pick up but I would question speed and how it scales for a busy site(The Wrox books are very good). My background is Java/ASP/SQL (100% J2EE/SQL nowadays)

[MinuWeb]

I would suggest getting a small hosting account for a couple of months somewhere, and then installing / customising a few of the freeware shopping carts available and seeing if any of them really suit your needs.

cubecart
zencart
OSCommerce

are just a few of the freeware carts that are very popular.

[Rob Holmes]

Anyone any experience of incorporating a shop into just a part of their website?

We supply Installatron with our packages http://www.installatron.com

A number of our clients have set up shopping carts using this and seem happy!

Everything installs in just a couple of clicks!

All the software is available free on the web if you needed to install it with a hosting package that didn't have an auto install facility.

Rob

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies! They've given me a few things to think about. Glad I didn't waste time learning PHP last weekend!

I thought frames were meant to cause problems but will reconsider. The hosting idea sounds great, but maybe for the future - feeling under time pressure here.

I haven't had a chance to look at Installatron yet. I guess I might have to buy a separate security certificate which would take time, but will take a look.

Thanks!

[webit]

You'd get problems with spider following frames but in this case you wouldn't want them on your payment pages so no problem.

AFAIK.

[Cornish Steve]

Anyone any experience of incorporating a shop into just a part of their website?

I knew little about shopping carts when we started up. Based on the advice of my hosting company, I looked into x-cart. This worked well for us because we wanted some specific customization work done (the ability to track exactly how much is purchased using each discount coupon). The company made the changes quickly and the price was more than reasonable.

All the developers are in Russia, so no telephone support is available; however, everyone has been very responsive to email messages.

[annethedonn]

We supply a hosting package with lots of free addons like ecommerce, forums, etc... (mysql, php etc) free software, free google vouchers for as little as £1.99/m including domain names:

http://www.freelanceofficeservices.co.uk/hosting_packages.htm

Let me know if you need any more information.

[Altoros]

Need a solution? See below... :)