need suggestion for shopping cart based on these requests

Humvee wrote:

 > Running my own e-commerce store and have been going since '97 without
 > any scripting other than formmail. My priority has been basic coding
 > to help with search engine placement. I have a main products page
 > listing the categories. Going to the specific category page lists all
 > the model numbers, brief description and our price. Clicking on the
 > model number goes to a product-specific page with the image and a
 > bulleted list of specs. This is where I want a BUY link to a shopping
 > cart. I'll just need a link to the shopping cart from the category
 > and products pages.
 >

The type of system you are looking for is one that uses Server Side Includes
(SSIs) to place the customer's shopping cart; a product 'shelf' and an
individual product in your existing HTML pages.

You then have the freedom to provide the remaining HTML content as you see
fit (either custom or template based).

 > Here's where I run into my question.. I want to be able to add new
 > products through an interface (based on an HTML template, but without
 > the need to manually input everything). Everything will be based on
 > the model number. I want to paste the model number and have it fill
 > in the MODEL.jpg and a Title/Header, paste the specs in html format
 > and have them put in the standard spot, input the price, and I want to
 > be able to paste keywords separated by commas and have them put in the
 > META section and in a spot near the bottom of the page for the
 > engines. All of this to build the individual product pages.
 >

In practise you would just place a short SSI statement in your HTML mark up
where you wanted the ecommerce elements to appear - and specify text and
images to be stored/referenced by the database in a 'back-end'.

I'm not sure you would get your META keywords supported this way though.
AFAIK few of the main search engines now use these elements in their
algorithms due to past misuse - and those that still do change their
algorithms so frequently that it makes no sense to store them in a database
when they are single page specific and easily modified by hand.

 > I would also like the category page to have the prices changed at the
 > same time as the individual product pages have changes made. This may
 > make it much more complicated I assume.
 >

Wrong way of thinking for this solution. Update the database and your
changes will be immediately reflected in your Web pages via the individual
SSI calls.

 > What is the best solution as a server side database (on the fly)
 > driven method seems to block out search engines as the data is only
 > brought up when it is called for by a user? ? (not sure on this)
 >

Many search engines won't index .cgi pages which are obvious scripts; and it
could well be the case that some may not index .shtm or .shtml files either
(which is the traditional way of denoting a file containing SSIs). However,
most modern servers are set-up to expect an SSI simply on the basis of a
standard .htm file having its execute permission set.

 > Ideally, I have a list in Excel that contains the Model #, Spec info
 > in HTML, My price, and keywords if there is a way to copy and paste
 > and have it put in the respective areas automatically.
 >

You might have to write a small script to perform this database
initialization yourself - or modify your Excel file (given the keywords
field).

 > From my research, webgenie.com and Miva's tool seem closest but still
 > not exactly what I want. Any suggestions appreciated, please post
 > replies to the group.

I suspect you are in the US (so I won't bother pointing you at our downloads
section which is EU specific). Instead, I'll supply you with a link to a
page in our product's online manual which explains how to use ecommerce Web
page objects that have been engineered from the SSI/Database technique.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.cybergrafx.co.uk/products/cyberstore/objects.htm" target="_blank">http://www.cybergrafx.co.uk/products/cyberstore/objects.htm</a>

We've also a short MS IE specific online presentation to show their effects
at:-

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.cybergrafx.co.uk/clients/cyberstore/web_page_objects/Cyberstore" target="_blank">http://www.cybergrafx.co.uk/clients/cyberstore/web_page_objects/Cyberstore</a>
objects.htm

(Sorry about the space in the last .htm target).

HTH


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 >> Stay informed about: need suggestion for shopping cart based on these requests 

On 21 Jul 2003 18:15:13 -0700, azhummer.RemoveThis@hotmail.com (Humvee) wrote:

 >What is the best solution as a server side database (on the fly)
 >driven method seems to block out search engines as the data is only
 >brought up when it is called for by a user? ? (not sure on this)

Howdy,

The best solution is a complete Ecommerce Server such as BIZyCart
(www.bizycart.com). It runs as a *server* instead of needing to install a
bunch of scripts. To match BIZyCart's assets, you would need over 500 Kb of
scripting, which would kill most host servers.

If you are running BIZyCart's dynamic mode, changes entered via the web
management interface immediately take effect, wherever that item appears on
your site.

We've just added a static mode to BIZyCart. To avoid problems with the web
crawlers that haven't been coded for dymanic pages yet, you can set up
buttons to regenerate regular HTML pages after updating your catalog base.

Chris <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.bizynet.com" target="_blank">http://www.bizynet.com</a>
BIZynet Coordinator cgunn.RemoveThis@bizynet.com

P.S. BIZyCart is also the only solution that is robust enough to put the
whole thing up where you can exercise it and review the entire manual
on-line.

Hit <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://bizycart.com/BIZyCart.asp?ACTION=Manage&CLIENT=Demonstration" target="_blank">http://bizycart.com/BIZyCart.asp?ACTION=Manage&CLIENT=Demonstration</a> and
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 >> Stay informed about: need suggestion for shopping cart based on these requests