Can anyone help? - Including a shopping cart into a new site

[randelld]

Hi,
I've just been given my first e-commerce/shopping cart site to do and it's starting to look boggling.
I'm starting to get a bit confused as to which order of processes I should take.
Should I just design and build the site and then plug the shopping cart into? Or is a shopping cart package a whole e-commerce site?
What is the way you guys would go about it? I don't know php.

Thanks for your time
Dean

[cyanide]

Hi Dean,

There are many different types of ecommerce type of shopping scripts. Some are very simple and some are quite complex. The complex ones have tons of features and in most cases no other pages are needed.
Although, you could add more static pages if you wished.

I would advise that you do some research and maybe even test out the open-source shopping carts, since this is your first go. It can be quite the learning experience if you haven't done this before.
And it's more to do with operating the cart than it is designing or customizing one.
payment processing, full-fillment, logistics, taxes... etc, etc

[Easy Web 4 U]

Hi Dean,

You can go either way. Site first, then shopping cart or both at once.

There are some simple out of the box shopping cart programs available. Since this is your first time developing an ecommerce website, you might want to look into those.

Best wishes, :)

Teresa

[randelld]

Thanks for your tips guys, Could you recommend any of the simple ones for me to have a look at please.

Cheers
Dean

[roban]

I use Cube Cart and I am happy with it. One important thing to consider is support. I have had negative experiences with OSCommerce but am thrilled with Cube Cart's support. I can't stress enough the importance of a good support site especially as if you say, you don't know php.