Hi,

I have a client that would like me to create an Ecommerce site for her. She has a nursery business and received permission from a supplier to use their inventory to sell from. They have availability lists which they update frequently possibly weekly. She wants to know if we could get the updates to show on her site? How would the changes appear on her site as they are updated? Is it just as simple as linking to their page? What if the page is password protected for certain individuals?

Also, I read the links provided for getting started with ecommerce shopping carts etc. The client agreed to use Authorize.net and thought about using Paypal to start, but is concerned about using a 3rd party for payment collecting. By using these gateways she would not need IP and SSL Certification correct?

The site would need to be created first before contacting Authorize.net or Paypal correct? Is that the last step to setting up an ecommerce site? I'm sorry for all of the questions, but this is the first ecommerce site I have been asked to do and am a little nervous and not sure of what I am doing yet.

Thanks,
LG

1. Most canned shopping carts/e-commerce solutions seem to assume that your inventory is "local" (in your database), and that product images, etc. are locally stored. There may be something out there more oriented towards a "reseller" business, so look around carefully to make sure the shopping cart does what you want it to do. The supplier will have to permit "hotlinking" by her site, to use the supplier's images, etc. An alternative would be to use a regular shopping cart, and on a weekly basis copy over images and inventory numbers (from the availability list). It might be possible to (semi-)automate this, but you're getting into expensive custom coding. Depending on how much stuff there is to manage, it might be easiest to manually cut-and-paste from the supplier to your friend's shopping cart admin page. An advantage would be that your friend sees everything and can choose to exclude certain items.

One thing I would worry about is that if visitors see that they are linking to the supplier's page, and that supplier is also a retailer, visitors may figure that they'll get a better price by going directly to the supplier. Even if the supplier doesn't do retail, visitors may find it confusing to end up on some other site's page. I think it best to have the entire shopping experience on your friend's site.

Another thing that will have to be resolved is transferring orders from your friend's site to the supplier. Will items be consolidated into a single large order from the supplier, and your friend handles the shipping, or is the supplier drop-shipping directly to her customers? In the latter case, be sure to let customers know that someone else is fulfilling the order, and who to deal with for returns or when problems arise. Are you talking about a volume of business that can be handled manually for all this, or does it need to be automated (custom coding)?

2. I haven't used Authorize.net, but from a quick look at their web page, it sounds like they are a merchant account/payment gateway. This is a different animal than PayPal, and would require SSL (certificate and dedicated IP address) because your friend's site would be collecting credit card numbers, etc. Someone correct me if I'm misreading their information. PayPal has the advantage that you don't need to have SSL -- you just throw the purchase information "over the transom" to PayPal, and the visitor visits their site (using SSL). For a low volume business, PayPal may be cheaper. I think it's a pretty widely trusted third party for payment collection -- I don't know why your friend would be concerned.

3. I would certainly have the site "ready to go" (but not live) before signing up for any payment system. They may want to know specifics about the site in order to sign up someone.

You might want to take a look around or pick the shopping cart software first, and see what limitations (if any) there may be when it comes to designing a template around it, that matches that rest of site or design you want to use.  Some scripts may be more limiting than others. 

I think any of the shopping carts would probably work for you. I would suggest taking a look at all of them, to at least get a idea of what they're like. Ask around and read their support forums. Install them and play with them, if you get a chance. And you can always change to another if you don't pick the right one the first time -- you're not locked in by a contract.