Mark Hensler — Sat, 16 Dec 2000 09:40:17 +0000

I think I must mention upfront: I have not yet done any e-commerce related work.

But I do know enough to give an educated opinion. And my opinion is this: unless you have the resources (time and/or $$) and the patience (this will take some time), I would recommend selling through another party.

fairhousing — Fri, 15 Dec 2000 22:03:21 +0000

i'd suggest something like ccnow.com if ur not looking to pay any $ upfront.

good luck

is e-commerce e-asily done?

japhy — Fri, 15 Dec 2000 15:38:46 +0000

You have to look at all the things that come into play:

form of payment... credit cards? you'd better have a secure connection so that misfits don't intercept the customer's CC number and wreak havok. cash, money order, check? you'd better hope the person pays, or you're giving away stuff like crazy
interface... "shopping cart" stuff? do you want to use cookies, or would you rather have it stored in a database somewhere?
management... a database IS the easiest thing -- learn to deal with them. Perl's DBI module is a serious help (or you can use Win32::ODBC if you're on a windows box)

I recently finished building a rough e-commerce site for one of my college courses. We used Cold Fusion and Perl and Win32::ODBC to get the job done. Don't stay away from SQL because you don't know it. Learn it.