RE: OT: Off the shelf online order processing

["Mark Hetherington \(egroups\)" <mark.egroups@xxxxxxx>]

> Thanks for that lot Mark.

np :)

> You pretty much confirmed everything I thought
> about search engine listings and I will reinforce this with the
client. I
> think that they are unlikely to ever have their own server, so a
secure
> environment is probably going to have to be third party. I will check
out
> some of the suppliers to give a ball park figure, but I'm really
> don't think
> that they will be doing any online processing for some time.

If they do not have their own server I assume it is all held on a hosting
company at the moment. If so, it is likely that they can add a free SSL
server option to the hosting package so that your client can still manage
all his own resources at minimal cost. Alternatively moving the site to a
host that does offer it is an option. Quite often you can get hosting
packages very reasonably priced which will include the secure server and a
shopping cart. But if you have the access, sourcing a shopping cart is not
a
huge cost.

One of my Web clients provide hosting packages with SSL server options and
the CartIt Shopping cart as an option. Quite a cheap and cheerful cart but
very powerful. I think the standard price is around $300 for the software
but with my client being a CartIt reseller they may get a discounted rate
so
I will check with them. You basically just put it on a web site supporting
CGI-BIN and then tell it where the secure server is. It will also work with
ISP shared certificates. Adding to the cart is done via simple forms and
hyperlinks while the cart software itself handles account management (past
customers just logon and recall their address etc without having to re
eneter it). It will perform a basic credit card check and can be linked to
validation services or you could merely validate the numbers localy after
grabbing them from the server. One neat thing is that with the Unix version
the cart is all plaintext perl and has hot spots for drop in code to
perform
customisation for many areas. Most of the style is in stylesheets so it can
be made to look like the main site.

> If
> you do have
> any names of potential thrid party transaction processors that
> would be good
> to look at, the please let me know.

OK I will dig out my list and let you have it. Worldpay seems to becoming
very poular here but it not particularly user friendly. They do not insure
against credit card fraud and it costs quite a lot.

If you can create a draft of what the eventual aim is likely to be and
need,
I can probably put together a variety of solutions that he could use to
demonstrate the pros and cons of each and likely prices. Things that will
affect it are current hosting Environment (NT or *nix), the current web
hosting provider, whether he plans to oursource web sales completely (it is
possible to outsource the cart, the payment handling and the packing and
deleivery of stuff but obviously each adds a startup fee plus ongoing
transaction fees for each thrid party involved). Things like that. I should
be able to put together a good range of suggestions within a day or so of
getting the information if that would be helpful to you.

HTH.

Mark.


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