E-Commerce

Create a flexible framework in PHP for a powerful ecommerce solution

• Build a flexible e-commerce framework using PHP, which can be extended and modified for the purposes of any e-commerce site
• Enable customer retention and more business by creating rich user experiences
• Develop a suitable structure for your framework and create a registry to store core objects
• Promote your e-commerce site using techniques with APIs such as Google Products or Amazon web services, SEO, marketing, and customer satisfaction

In Detail

The popularity of online shopping has increased dramatically over the past few years. There are plenty of options available if you not are planning to build your own e-commerce solution but sometimes it's better to use your own solutions. It may be easy to find an e-commerce system but when it comes to extending it or using it you might come across a lot of difficulties.

This book will show you how to create your own PHP framework that can be extended and used with ease, particularly for e-commerce sites. Using this framework you will be able to display and manage products, customize products, create wish-lists, make recommendations to customers based on previous purchases, send email notifications when certain products are in stock, rate the products online, and much more.

This book helps you build a Model-View-Controller style framework, which is then used to put together an e-commerce application. The framework contains template management, database management, and user authentication management. With core functionality in place, e-commerce-focused features are gradually added to the framework including products, categories, customizable products with different variations and customer input, wish-lists, recommendations, the shopping basket, and a complete order process.

At the end of the book, you will have an e-commerce architecture that will take you from viewing or searching for products, and adding them to your basket, through the checkout process and making payment for your order, to your order being dispatched. Focus is placed on flexibility, so that the framework can be extended as the needs of a particular store change, as illustrated by one of the appendices, which goes through the process of modifying the store to sell downloadable products, as well as physical ones.

Supplementary information, such as how to market and promote an online store, as well as take regular backups and perform maintenance is also covered, ensuring you have every chance of success with you own e-commerce framework backed store.

What you will learn from this book

• Plan and develop a flexible, scalable PHP framework with emphasis on e-commerce
• Implement the Model-View-Controller architecture within the framework and learn how to use the registry design pattern to centralize core features
• Allow customers to customize their purchase by selecting product attributes, uploading files, and supplying custom text
• Offer attractive incentives to your customers in the form of discount codes
• Protect your e-commerce framework by keeping and maintaining regular backups
• Structure an extendable framework to build a custom e-commerce web site
• Add features such as product ratings and reviews from customers to enhance user experience
• Maintain your site using campaign monitor and CAPTCHA tools
• Create a shopping basket, manage its contents, structure the checkout and order process
• Filled with useful marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and customer retention tips
• Create a PHP framework to power your web site with a range of e-commerce features

Approach

This is a fast-paced tutorial focusing on creating a framework and using it to build an online store through an ongoing case study. Later chapters include examples to illustrate how easily the framework can be adapted for different situations. The framework and code are enhanced and built upon with each chapter, adding more and more functionality.

Who this book is written for

If you are a web developer, or anyone looking to increase your understanding of e-commerce site development, this book is for you. Primarily aimed at PHP developers, it is suitable for any web developer interested in enhancing their e-commerce knowledge, or developers looking to move towards PHP.

Intermediate knowledge of PHP development and object-oriented programming is assumed, and basic knowledge of e-commerce principles will be of benefit too.

Build feature-rich online stores with Joomla! 1.0/1.5 and VirtueMart 1.1.x

• Build your own e-commerce web site from scratch by adding features step-by-step to an example e-commerce web site
• Configure the shop, build product catalogues, configure user registration settings for VirtueMart to take orders from around the world
• Manage customers, orders, and a variety of currencies to provide the best customer service
• Handle shipping in all situations and deal with sales tax rules
• Covers customization of site look and feel and localization of VirtueMart

In Detail

VirtueMart is a widely used component for adding e-commerce to a Joomla! site. VirtueMart covers all the aspects of e-commerce in an easy-to-use fashion and allows administrators to configure the various factors such as those of the shop, selling workflow, payment, products, and more. It also has many other features, which include managing customers and orders, so that every aspect of the shop is handled on-line for your comfort.

This book demonstrates the setting up of an on-line Joomla! e-commerce site from scratch using VirtueMart. It focuses specifically on e-commerce and VirtueMart. It teaches all the aspects of quickly setting up a feature-packed, easy-to-build e-commerce site--from basic installation and configuration of Joomla and VirtueMart through adding features step-by-step to an example web site to deployment.

The book begins with an introduction to VirtueMart with an explanation of its capabilities and how you can use it to earn money from your Joomla! site. This is followed by the necessary installation and configuration of Joomla! and VirtueMart to enable you to lay the foundation of your web site. Then it explains configuration of the VirtueMart store, which includes payment and shipping methods, configuring zones, and currencies.

The book then looks at managing products, customers, and orders, and customizing the web site appearance, all through demonstration so that you can build your own store with minimum effort, investment, and time. It also illustrates the promotion and public-relations factors such as banner ads, featured products, coupons, and more, so that you can build a wide customer base. It follows this up with examples of more advanced features such as localization and using extensions for bulk import/export of products to your VirtueMart shop, to suit your individual store needs. Maintenance, troubleshooting, and security, which are essential for running your site, are also explained. There is also an Appendix provided for configuring shipping and payment modules.

What you will learn from this book?

• Install/Uninstall Joomla! components, plug-ins, and modules; install the VirtueMart component and its modules, to start building your store.
• Configure the shop, create and use the appropriate zones and currencies, configure payment methods, shipping methods, and taxes, which form part of the most essential shop functionalities.
• Manage manufacturers and vendors, products and product categories, and watch your VirtueMart shop take real shape with the products you want to sell.
• Configure user registration settings for VirtueMart, manage users and user groups, create and use order status types, view order statistics and order details, update orders, and manage inventory, which will ease your apprehensions about customer service.
• Install and configure new themes, customize the Joomla! template, customize VirtueMart themes and layouts, and use search engine friendly (SEF) URLs to attract more customers to your shop.
• Use VirtueMart's promotional tools such as banner ads, specials, featured products, newsletters, product notifications, and more, which are important factors in determining the success of your business.
• Add further value to your shop by using different regions and region-specific taxes, multiple currencies, installing new languages, and translating the language of the site.
• Learn to add third-party extensions to further broaden VirtueMart functions for bulk import/export of products to your shop catalogue, update multiple product information at the same time using AJAX, and display slideshows with product images to spice up your shop further.
• Finally, learn to move the shop to your server, to back up and restore files and databases, and also about security, maintenance, and troubleshooting as a final step to complete your brand-new VirtueMart shop!

Approach

This is a step-by-step tutorial-style guide, which teaches you to build an e-commerce site through a complete practical example.

Who this book is written for?

Are you a Joomla! user who wants to build an e-commerce store? Do you have a Joomla! site and want to add e-commerce to it to sell products? Then this book is for you! The pre-requisites are simple. You should already know how to build a site with Joomla!, have a smattering of CSS/HTML and perhaps some PHP.

Create a flexible framework in PHP for a powerful ecommerce solution

• Build a flexible e-commerce framework using PHP, which can be extended and modified for the purposes of any e-commerce site
• Enable customer retention and more business by creating rich user experiences
• Develop a suitable structure for your framework and create a registry to store core objects
• Promote your e-commerce site using techniques with APIs such as Google Products or Amazon web services, SEO, marketing, and customer satisfaction

In Detail

The popularity of online shopping has increased dramatically over the past few years. There are plenty of options available if you not are planning to build your own e-commerce solution but sometimes it's better to use your own solutions. It may be easy to find an e-commerce system but when it comes to extending it or using it you might come across a lot of difficulties.

This book will show you how to create your own PHP framework that can be extended and used with ease, particularly for e-commerce sites. Using this framework you will be able to display and manage products, customize products, create wish-lists, make recommendations to customers based on previous purchases, send email notifications when certain products are in stock, rate the products online, and much more.

This book helps you build a Model-View-Controller style framework, which is then used to put together an e-commerce application. The framework contains template management, database management, and user authentication management. With core functionality in place, e-commerce-focused features are gradually added to the framework including products, categories, customizable products with different variations and customer input, wish-lists, recommendations, the shopping basket, and a complete order process.

At the end of the book, you will have an e-commerce architecture that will take you from viewing or searching for products, and adding them to your basket, through the checkout process and making payment for your order, to your order being dispatched. Focus is placed on flexibility, so that the framework can be extended as the needs of a particular store change, as illustrated by one of the appendices, which goes through the process of modifying the store to sell downloadable products, as well as physical ones.

Supplementary information, such as how to market and promote an online store, as well as take regular backups and perform maintenance is also covered, ensuring you have every chance of success with you own e-commerce framework backed store.

What you will learn from this book

• Plan and develop a flexible, scalable PHP framework with emphasis on e-commerce
• Implement the Model-View-Controller architecture within the framework and learn how to use the registry design pattern to centralize core features
• Allow customers to customize their purchase by selecting product attributes, uploading files, and supplying custom text
• Offer attractive incentives to your customers in the form of discount codes
• Protect your e-commerce framework by keeping and maintaining regular backups
• Structure an extendable framework to build a custom e-commerce web site
• Add features such as product ratings and reviews from customers to enhance user experience
• Maintain your site using campaign monitor and CAPTCHA tools
• Create a shopping basket, manage its contents, structure the checkout and order process
• Filled with useful marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and customer retention tips
• Create a PHP framework to power your web site with a range of e-commerce features

Approach

This is a fast-paced tutorial focusing on creating a framework and using it to build an online store through an ongoing case study. Later chapters include examples to illustrate how easily the framework can be adapted for different situations. The framework and code are enhanced and built upon with each chapter, adding more and more functionality.

Who this book is written for

If you are a web developer, or anyone looking to increase your understanding of e-commerce site development, this book is for you. Primarily aimed at PHP developers, it is suitable for any web developer interested in enhancing their e-commerce knowledge, or developers looking to move towards PHP.

Intermediate knowledge of PHP development and object-oriented programming is assumed, and basic knowledge of e-commerce principles will be of benefit too.

Build feature-rich online stores with Joomla! 1.0/1.5 and VirtueMart 1.1.x

• Build your own e-commerce web site from scratch by adding features step-by-step to an example e-commerce web site
• Configure the shop, build product catalogues, configure user registration settings for VirtueMart to take orders from around the world
• Manage customers, orders, and a variety of currencies to provide the best customer service
• Handle shipping in all situations and deal with sales tax rules
• Covers customization of site look and feel and localization of VirtueMart

In Detail

VirtueMart is a widely used component for adding e-commerce to a Joomla! site. VirtueMart covers all the aspects of e-commerce in an easy-to-use fashion and allows administrators to configure the various factors such as those of the shop, selling workflow, payment, products, and more. It also has many other features, which include managing customers and orders, so that every aspect of the shop is handled on-line for your comfort.

This book demonstrates the setting up of an on-line Joomla! e-commerce site from scratch using VirtueMart. It focuses specifically on e-commerce and VirtueMart. It teaches all the aspects of quickly setting up a feature-packed, easy-to-build e-commerce site--from basic installation and configuration of Joomla and VirtueMart through adding features step-by-step to an example web site to deployment.

The book begins with an introduction to VirtueMart with an explanation of its capabilities and how you can use it to earn money from your Joomla! site. This is followed by the necessary installation and configuration of Joomla! and VirtueMart to enable you to lay the foundation of your web site. Then it explains configuration of the VirtueMart store, which includes payment and shipping methods, configuring zones, and currencies.

The book then looks at managing products, customers, and orders, and customizing the web site appearance, all through demonstration so that you can build your own store with minimum effort, investment, and time. It also illustrates the promotion and public-relations factors such as banner ads, featured products, coupons, and more, so that you can build a wide customer base. It follows this up with examples of more advanced features such as localization and using extensions for bulk import/export of products to your VirtueMart shop, to suit your individual store needs. Maintenance, troubleshooting, and security, which are essential for running your site, are also explained. There is also an Appendix provided for configuring shipping and payment modules.

What you will learn from this book?

• Install/Uninstall Joomla! components, plug-ins, and modules; install the VirtueMart component and its modules, to start building your store.
• Configure the shop, create and use the appropriate zones and currencies, configure payment methods, shipping methods, and taxes, which form part of the most essential shop functionalities.
• Manage manufacturers and vendors, products and product categories, and watch your VirtueMart shop take real shape with the products you want to sell.
• Configure user registration settings for VirtueMart, manage users and user groups, create and use order status types, view order statistics and order details, update orders, and manage inventory, which will ease your apprehensions about customer service.
• Install and configure new themes, customize the Joomla! template, customize VirtueMart themes and layouts, and use search engine friendly (SEF) URLs to attract more customers to your shop.
• Use VirtueMart's promotional tools such as banner ads, specials, featured products, newsletters, product notifications, and more, which are important factors in determining the success of your business.
• Add further value to your shop by using different regions and region-specific taxes, multiple currencies, installing new languages, and translating the language of the site.
• Learn to add third-party extensions to further broaden VirtueMart functions for bulk import/export of products to your shop catalogue, update multiple product information at the same time using AJAX, and display slideshows with product images to spice up your shop further.
• Finally, learn to move the shop to your server, to back up and restore files and databases, and also about security, maintenance, and troubleshooting as a final step to complete your brand-new VirtueMart shop!

Approach

This is a step-by-step tutorial-style guide, which teaches you to build an e-commerce site through a complete practical example.

Who this book is written for?

Are you a Joomla! user who wants to build an e-commerce store? Do you have a Joomla! site and want to add e-commerce to it to sell products? Then this book is for you! The pre-requisites are simple. You should already know how to build a site with Joomla!, have a smattering of CSS/HTML and perhaps some PHP.

Beginning Ruby on Rails E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional is the first book of its kind to guide you through producing e-commerce applications with Railsthe stacked web framework taking the world by storm. The book dives right into the process of creating a production-level web application using agile methodologies and test-driven development combined with Rails best practices. Youll take advantage of the latest crop of Rails plug-ins and helpers that will radically improve your programming schedule. Youll also create a real application step-by-step, plus the book is driven by real-world cases throughout.

You will begin by learning how to install Rails and quickly create a product catalog interfaced with your choice of database technologies. Then youll discover how to build modern, Ajax-powered shopping carts and add useful features like customer feedback modules. Next youll learn how to integrate your application with open source packages like the Ferret full-text search engine, and how to interface with back-end electronic payment systems. Youll also learn how to make your application work flawlessly with existing production systems using web services, and then ultimately deploy and tune your application for production use.

Build a proficient online store to sell products and services

• Earn huge profits by transforming WordPress into an intuitive and capable platform for e-Commerce
• Build and control a vast product catalog to sell physical items and digital downloads
• Configure and integrate various payment gateways into your store for your customers' convenience
• Promote and market your store online for increased profits
• Follow a practical, step-by-step guide packed with screenshots to ensure your store is created and deployed successfully

In Detail

WordPress is easily one of the hottest platforms for building blogs and general web sites. With the addition of the WP e-Commerce plug-in, it's also a competent platform for easily creating and running an online store, capable of selling physical items as well as services and digital downloads. WordPress with e-Commerce offers every feature that a seller and a customer may need. You can build an online store that makes it easier for the customers to find and buy products.

WordPress 2.8 e-Commerce focuses on the integration of WordPress with the WordPress e-Commerce plug-in, covering all aspects of building and developing an online store from scratch.

This book provides a simple, step-by-step approach to developing an effective online store. It guides you through your initial planning and first steps, plug-in installation and configuration, building your catalog of products to sell, accepting payments for your orders, and dealing with taxes and shipping. You will also learn how to promote and market your new store, handle customer accounts and staff roles, and deal with essential store security.

As you work through each chapter, your online store will grow in scope and functionality. By the time you finish this book, you will have a complete and working store, ready to release your products to the world.

What you will learn from this book

• Tweak WordPress to build an adept, business-friendly online store
• Install and configure WP e-Commerce and add products to your online catalog
• Manage and sort your products with groups, categories, tags, and variations
• making it easier for your customers to find any product
• Automate the delivery of digital downloads after purchase ensuring the convenience of your customers
• Create and manage user account roles and permissions for customers and staff
• Brand your site by customizing WordPress themes
• Accept payments using a variety of payment processors and automatically apply sales tax and shipping
• Create your own customizable shipping rates and connect to shippers such as USPS and UPS
• Secure your online store against attacks and data loss
• Explore alternative e-Commerce plug-ins for WordPress

Approach

This book provides an easy to understand, step-by-step approach to installing, configuring, and using WP e-Commerce to run your online store. We will construct an example store in the book with enough information and flexibility to adapt the store to your specific needs.

Who this book is written for

This book is for you, if you are interested in using WordPress as the basis for a store that can sell physical items, downloads, or services.

It is ideal for a sole proprietor or small business owner with only basic, in-house technical skills. Some prior knowledge of WordPress will help, but is not required. No knowledge of PHP is expected, but it will also be helpful.

Pro PayPal E-Commerce contains the most comprehensive collection of information on the latest PayPal technologies available. It takes the approach of PayPal as a digital money platform, and shows how its a dynamic service that offers far more than just payment processing.

With its breadth of technologies and APIs, the PayPal platform is a basis for development and innovation for an unlimited number of possibilities. It offers a wide range of payment technologies, but its not always easy to decipher which technology is the best choice for a web site. This book gets under the hood to show you how the different technologies work, how to choose the right solution, and how to implement the solutioncomplete with real-world PayPal success stories.

Youll learn how to integrate PayPal directly into web sites to make use of its payment technologies. This allows you, no matter what language you program in, to build shopping carts or similar channel products with PayPal as a payment option. You can also use this book to learn about the basics of e-commerce, where PayPal fits in, and how you can meet your own e-commerce needs. This book covers

• How PayPal works
• Using the PayPal API
• Website Payments Standard
• Website Payments Pro
• Instant Payment Notification
• Payment Data Transfer
• Encrypted Website Payments
• Administration
• Reporting
• Fraud protection
• Payflow Gateway

Create a flexible framework in PHP for a powerful ecommerce solution

• Build a flexible e-commerce framework using PHP, which can be extended and modified for the purposes of any e-commerce site
• Enable customer retention and more business by creating rich user experiences
• Develop a suitable structure for your framework and create a registry to store core objects
• Promote your e-commerce site using techniques with APIs such as Google Products or Amazon web services, SEO, marketing, and customer satisfaction

In Detail

The popularity of online shopping has increased dramatically over the past few years. There are plenty of options available if you not are planning to build your own e-commerce solution but sometimes it's better to use your own solutions. It may be easy to find an e-commerce system but when it comes to extending it or using it you might come across a lot of difficulties.

This book will show you how to create your own PHP framework that can be extended and used with ease, particularly for e-commerce sites. Using this framework you will be able to display and manage products, customize products, create wish-lists, make recommendations to customers based on previous purchases, send email notifications when certain products are in stock, rate the products online, and much more.

This book helps you build a Model-View-Controller style framework, which is then used to put together an e-commerce application. The framework contains template management, database management, and user authentication management. With core functionality in place, e-commerce-focused features are gradually added to the framework including products, categories, customizable products with different variations and customer input, wish-lists, recommendations, the shopping basket, and a complete order process.

At the end of the book, you will have an e-commerce architecture that will take you from viewing or searching for products, and adding them to your basket, through the checkout process and making payment for your order, to your order being dispatched. Focus is placed on flexibility, so that the framework can be extended as the needs of a particular store change, as illustrated by one of the appendices, which goes through the process of modifying the store to sell downloadable products, as well as physical ones.

Supplementary information, such as how to market and promote an online store, as well as take regular backups and perform maintenance is also covered, ensuring you have every chance of success with you own e-commerce framework backed store.

What you will learn from this book

• Plan and develop a flexible, scalable PHP framework with emphasis on e-commerce
• Implement the Model-View-Controller architecture within the framework and learn how to use the registry design pattern to centralize core features
• Allow customers to customize their purchase by selecting product attributes, uploading files, and supplying custom text
• Offer attractive incentives to your customers in the form of discount codes
• Protect your e-commerce framework by keeping and maintaining regular backups
• Structure an extendable framework to build a custom e-commerce web site
• Add features such as product ratings and reviews from customers to enhance user experience
• Maintain your site using campaign monitor and CAPTCHA tools
• Create a shopping basket, manage its contents, structure the checkout and order process
• Filled with useful marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and customer retention tips
• Create a PHP framework to power your web site with a range of e-commerce features

Approach

This is a fast-paced tutorial focusing on creating a framework and using it to build an online store through an ongoing case study. Later chapters include examples to illustrate how easily the framework can be adapted for different situations. The framework and code are enhanced and built upon with each chapter, adding more and more functionality.

Who this book is written for

If you are a web developer, or anyone looking to increase your understanding of e-commerce site development, this book is for you. Primarily aimed at PHP developers, it is suitable for any web developer interested in enhancing their e-commerce knowledge, or developers looking to move towards PHP.

Intermediate knowledge of PHP development and object-oriented programming is assumed, and basic knowledge of e-commerce principles will be of benefit too.

Build feature-rich online stores with Joomla! 1.0/1.5 and VirtueMart 1.1.x

• Build your own e-commerce web site from scratch by adding features step-by-step to an example e-commerce web site
• Configure the shop, build product catalogues, configure user registration settings for VirtueMart to take orders from around the world
• Manage customers, orders, and a variety of currencies to provide the best customer service
• Handle shipping in all situations and deal with sales tax rules
• Covers customization of site look and feel and localization of VirtueMart

In Detail

VirtueMart is a widely used component for adding e-commerce to a Joomla! site. VirtueMart covers all the aspects of e-commerce in an easy-to-use fashion and allows administrators to configure the various factors such as those of the shop, selling workflow, payment, products, and more. It also has many other features, which include managing customers and orders, so that every aspect of the shop is handled on-line for your comfort.

This book demonstrates the setting up of an on-line Joomla! e-commerce site from scratch using VirtueMart. It focuses specifically on e-commerce and VirtueMart. It teaches all the aspects of quickly setting up a feature-packed, easy-to-build e-commerce site--from basic installation and configuration of Joomla and VirtueMart through adding features step-by-step to an example web site to deployment.

The book begins with an introduction to VirtueMart with an explanation of its capabilities and how you can use it to earn money from your Joomla! site. This is followed by the necessary installation and configuration of Joomla! and VirtueMart to enable you to lay the foundation of your web site. Then it explains configuration of the VirtueMart store, which includes payment and shipping methods, configuring zones, and currencies.

The book then looks at managing products, customers, and orders, and customizing the web site appearance, all through demonstration so that you can build your own store with minimum effort, investment, and time. It also illustrates the promotion and public-relations factors such as banner ads, featured products, coupons, and more, so that you can build a wide customer base. It follows this up with examples of more advanced features such as localization and using extensions for bulk import/export of products to your VirtueMart shop, to suit your individual store needs. Maintenance, troubleshooting, and security, which are essential for running your site, are also explained. There is also an Appendix provided for configuring shipping and payment modules.

What you will learn from this book?

• Install/Uninstall Joomla! components, plug-ins, and modules; install the VirtueMart component and its modules, to start building your store.
• Configure the shop, create and use the appropriate zones and currencies, configure payment methods, shipping methods, and taxes, which form part of the most essential shop functionalities.
• Manage manufacturers and vendors, products and product categories, and watch your VirtueMart shop take real shape with the products you want to sell.
• Configure user registration settings for VirtueMart, manage users and user groups, create and use order status types, view order statistics and order details, update orders, and manage inventory, which will ease your apprehensions about customer service.
• Install and configure new themes, customize the Joomla! template, customize VirtueMart themes and layouts, and use search engine friendly (SEF) URLs to attract more customers to your shop.
• Use VirtueMart's promotional tools such as banner ads, specials, featured products, newsletters, product notifications, and more, which are important factors in determining the success of your business.
• Add further value to your shop by using different regions and region-specific taxes, multiple currencies, installing new languages, and translating the language of the site.
• Learn to add third-party extensions to further broaden VirtueMart functions for bulk import/export of products to your shop catalogue, update multiple product information at the same time using AJAX, and display slideshows with product images to spice up your shop further.
• Finally, learn to move the shop to your server, to back up and restore files and databases, and also about security, maintenance, and troubleshooting as a final step to complete your brand-new VirtueMart shop!

Approach

This is a step-by-step tutorial-style guide, which teaches you to build an e-commerce site through a complete practical example.

Who this book is written for?

Are you a Joomla! user who wants to build an e-commerce store? Do you have a Joomla! site and want to add e-commerce to it to sell products? Then this book is for you! The pre-requisites are simple. You should already know how to build a site with Joomla!, have a smattering of CSS/HTML and perhaps some PHP.