Database driven website.

I have a client that wants a website that can take 4000 products.

Following is what the client requested:

1. The client wants a website that is not e-commerce that can take 4000 products with search and results and then browsers must be able to request products from the client that I'm building the site for via email to order what they have seen on the site.

2. Same website just e-commerce. I have the super suite package the only problem is that I'm in South Africa and our currency is Rand and you don't have the 'R' sign in the e-cart object(is there a solution for this because I don't know how the coding works- what I mean is: if I change the '$' sign to 'R' in the e-cart object if it's going to effect payments over the net?).

The customer wants quotes on both that is why I showed the 2 options.

So here is my question. It's my first time doing something like this. How do I go about?

Then I want to find out is there a quick way to load the products or do I have to load every product myself and charge the client a per hour rate?

Thank you for your help.

Daniel.

See the eCommerce tutorial series for details:
http://www.webassist.com/tutorials/eCommerce-Overview-eCommerce-Series


this series will walk through how to create a product catalog, add eCart add to cart functionality and the checkout process.

for the first store that is an email order, use the eCart checkout wizard and select the mo gateway option, and check the option to send an email with the order info.

for the second store, select the gateway you wish to use for order processing.

eCart does not have an option for Rand, you can change the currency code in the eCart object, but you will also need to edit the code that processes the transaction through the gateway on the confirm page to change the currency code used there

Thank you for your help and advice. I will do it like that then and let you know how it went and speak when I get stuck.
Another question: Is there a qiuck way for inserting 4000 products or do I have to insert everyone of them individually myself?

if the product information is saved in a CSV file, you can use the phpMyADin Import feature to import the CSV file.

a Google search for:
mysql import csv

should give you lots of examples of the process.

Okay thank you very much.

you're welcome.

Hi Jason I'm still busy with the e-commerce tutorial...

I'm at this point at the moment:http://www.webassist.com/tutorials/Add-dynamic-product-options-I-eCommerce-Series('Populate the select list').

The issue is with one of the products option group(when I have to choose colour). The problem is in the database. The reason why I'm saying it is because what I saw was in the products table(I'm using the database provided by webassist). The productID in the product table for each item is unique:
Cotton T-Shirt = '1'-productID
Los Angeles = '2'-productID

Then in the 'productoptions' table the 'ProductID' column only has '1'(Cotton T-Shirt).

When choosing 'Los Angeles' in website under products and then choosing a colour from the list it doesn't give me the option for a product colour.
What is the solution for this?
Hope you understand my question?

the product options table is a linking table used to create the options that are available for each product.

take this for an example:

Products:
+-----------+----------------+
| ProductID | ProductName    |.....
+-----------+----------------+
| 1         | Cotton T-Shirt |
+-----------+----------------+
| 2         | Los Angeles    |
+-----------+----------------+


Options:
+----------|------------+
| OptionID | OptionName |.....
+----------|------------+
| 1        | Red        |
+----------|------------+   
| 2        | Yellow     |
+----------|------------+
| 3        | Blue       |
+----------|------------+
| 4        | Green      |
+----------|------------+
| 5        | Black      |
+----------|------------+

ProductOptions:
+-----------------+-----------|----------+
| ProductOptionID | ProductID | OptionID |.....
+-----------------+-----------|----------+
| 1               | 1         | 2        |
+-----------------+-----------|----------+
| 2               | 1         | 4        |
+-----------------+-----------|----------+
| 3               | 2         | 1        |
+-----------------+-----------|----------+
| 4               | 2         | 3        |
+-----------------+-----------|----------+
| 5               | 2         | 4        |
+-----------------+-----------|----------+
| 6               | 2         | 5        |
+-----------------+-----------|----------+

this defines 2 products and 5 color options.

in the product options table, it assigns the color options: Yellow, and Green to product1. and assigns the color options: Red, Blue, green, Black to product ID 2.

in the product options table, you need to create a record for each product option combination

Okay thank you for your help.

You're welcome.