The Shopping Cart
This product is best for catalogs of less than 100
items. For larger catalogs, performance and manageability can be an issue.
Description
The Shopping Cart program allows visitors to your on-line
shopping site to collect items in a virtual shopping cart. They
may view the contents of their shopping cart at any time and
may add or delete items at will. The program automatically
calculates the subtotal, sales tax, shipping charges, and
grand total. When a visitor decides to check-out, the
order information including the buyer's name, address and
billing instruction is e-mailed to your order department (or
whomever you choose) and a receipt is sent to the shopper.
Features
- Mails order to one or two e-mail addresses
- Sends receipt to customer
- Accommodates up to four types of shipping
- Allows owner to predefine sales tax based a specific
state
- Tracks purchases even if user clicks the back button
- Tracks each customer by Shopper ID (SID) (does not use
cookies)
What This Program Does Not
Do
- It cannot keep track of a visitor if the visitor leaves the site
- It does not calculate exact shipping costs. It can calculate a
base rate plus an additional charge per item, based on up
to 4 different shipping methods that you create. However, it
cannot calculate shipping charges based on weight,
size, or zone.
- It does not perform on-line payment. It can be integrated
with an on-line payment program such as Cybercash or
First Virtual, but these are not included in the Shopping Cart
script.
- It does not securely transmit credit card payment
information. You can use our SSL server to safely transmit
the credit card and order information from the customer to
our computers, but the resulting order that is e-mailed from
the Shopping Cart script to the person(s) you specify is not
secure. You may wish to have users print the generated
order form and mail or fax it to you.
Implementation
The Shopping Cart is actually quite easy to implement. You
do not need to know PERL or any other
programming language and you don't need to be an expert
webmaster. Just follow the simple steps outlined below and
you should be up and running in no time.
- Install the Shopping Cart software
- Edit the configuration file
- Create your product list
- Modify your web pages to include the
shopping cart feature
Note: You may wish to print out this page so you can follow
along as you work through each of the steps.
Hassan
Consulting's documentation
1. Install the
Shopping Cart Software
To install the shopping cart software within your web site:
- Access your account Control Panel
- Select Shopping Cart
Generator
- Click the YES button to install files
CAUTION! This will cause any
existing version of this shopping cart to be over-written.
The installation will create a subdirectory within your web
site called /shop
which contains several HTML files used in a demonstration as well as a /lists directory and a /tmp
directory which are used by the Shopping Cart program. A
shopping cart script
(shop.pl) and a configuration
file (shop.cfg)
will be placed within your /cgi-local directory.
After installation, a prompt will appear to refer you to the newly
installed
demonstration within your web site.
Demo files inside /shop/
Use these files as an example.
You may delete them when you
create your own pages.
--------------------------------
cdrom.html, done.html, email.html, harddrives.html, list.html,
modem.html,
shop.html, tapes.html, product_list.txt, /picts/ (images used in
demo)
2. Edit the configuration
file
2a. Download the Configuration File
Use an FTP program to download
the newly installed
Shopping Cart configuration file
(shop.cfg) to your
computer. The file is located in your
/cgi-local directory.
Be sure to download the shop.cfg
file in ASCII transfer mode (not binary
mode).
After the configuration file is downloaded to your computer
you can edit it with any text editor of your choice, such as
Notepad, WordPad, or TeachText. Just remember to save
your edited version as a 'text only' document and make
sure you keep the file name the same.
2b. Specify to what e-mail address(es) you want the order to be sent.
As mentioned, the Shopping Cart script has the ability to
mail orders to one or two e-mail addresses. These
addresses are specified within the shop.cfg
file in a section titled '# mailing info' as shown below:
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# mailing info
$admin = ''; # who to mail the order to $admin1 = ''; #
second person to mail the order to
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Type the e-mail address of the person to whom you want
the orders sent between the pair of single quotes following
the $admin variable names as in this example:
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# mailing info
$admin = 'johndoe@john.com'; # who to mail the order
to $admin1 = 'janedoe@jane.com';
# second person to mail the order to
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To specify a single email
address, merely leave the second variable empty.
IMPORTANT! You MUST keep the single quotes
surrounding the email addresses.
2c. Specify the Sales Tax Rate for your
State.
The Shopping Cart script will automatically calculate the
Sales Tax for an order provided you specify the two letter
postal code and tax rate for your state. If the two letter postal
code in the billing address of a user matches the postal code
you specify, then the appropriate sales tax will be added
to the order according to the tax rate you specify. The sales tax
is specified within the shop.cfg file in
a section titled '# current tax rate and states' as shown
below:
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# current tax rate and states
$tax_state = "FL"; # State in uppercase $tax_state2 = "fl";
# State in lowercase $tax_rate = ".06"; # 6 %
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Change the "FL" and "fl" in the $tax_state variables
to the two letter postal code for your state. Change the ".06" in
the $tax_rate variable to the current sales tax rate
in your state.
For example, if your sales tax is 5.5%, you
would edit the
$tax_rate variable to read: $tax_rate=".055";
2d. Specify the Shipping Charges you wish to use.
The Shopping Cart program can accommodate up to four
types of shipping charges
that you specify. Each of these charges is calculated using a
simple base charge plus an additional charge for each item
ordered. The shipping section is located at the end of the shop.cfg file as shown below:
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# Set your shipping cost here # # set to
"" to turn off shipping # set to "" to
turn off one kind of shipping
# values for shipping types $shipping1
= "upsground";
$shipping2 = "upsred"; $shipping3 =
"upsblue";
$shipping4 = "international"; # labels
for shipping types
$shipping_label{$shipping{1}} =
"US Mail";
$shipping_label{$shipping{2}} =
"UPS Red";
$shipping_label{$shipping{3}}
= "UPS Blue";
$shipping_label{$shipping{4}} =
"International";
# descriptions for shipping types
$shipping_desc1
= "Regular US Mail"; $shipping_desc2 =
"Delivery in 2 business days";
$shipping_desc3 = "Next Day Delivery";
$shipping_desc4 = "International Delivery";
# default
shipping type $shipby = "";
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If you only want 2 shipping types:
$shipping1 = "upsground";
$shipping2 = "upsred"; $shipping3 =
""; $shipping4
= ""; These appear on the order email Change
these to whatever you want your ordering department to
see on the form as the shipping type These are the
choices the customer sees on the order page. Change
these to whatever you want the customer to see as the
shipping types. Use one of the shipping 'values' $shipby =
"upsground";
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The actual shipping 'base' and 'rate' charges are specified
at the end of the shop.cfg file as
shown below:
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$shipping_base{$shipping{1}}
= "6.51";
$shipping_rate{$shipping{1}} =
"<font
color="#FF0000">.49";
$shipping_base{$shipping{2}} =
"18.31";
$shipping_rate{$shipping{2}} =
"<font
color="#FF0000">.69";
$shipping_base{$shipping{3}} =
"8.66";
$shipping_rate{$shipping{3}} =
"<font
color="#FF0000">.59";
$shipping_base{$shipping{4}} =
"100.00";
$shipping_rate{$shipping{4}} =
"<font color="#FF0000">50.00";
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The first two lines determine the first set of shipping
charges, the second
pair of lines determine the second set of shipping charges,
and so on. You
only need to change the dollar amounts within the quotes for
each pair of
base and rate shipping charges. Use the following examples
as a guide to setting
the shipping charges.
Single charge of $10.00 for total
order:
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$shipping_base{$shipping{1}}
= "10.00";
$shipping_rate{$shipping{1}} =
"<font
color="#FF0000">0.00";
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Flat rate of $5.00 per item:
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$shipping_base{$shipping{2}}
= "0.00";
$shipping_rate{$shipping{2}} =
"<font color="#FF0000">5.00";
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$5.00 base charge plus an additional $2.50 per
item:
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$shipping_base{$shipping{3}}
= "5.00";
$shipping_rate{$shipping{3}} =
"<font color="#FF0000">2.50";
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$15.00 for first item plus $4.00 for each additional
item:
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$shipping_base{$shipping{4}}
= "11.00";
$shipping_rate{$shipping{4}} =
"<font color="#FF0000">4.00";
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The last example is a little tricky. The first item would be
charged $11.00
plus 1 x $4.00 = $15.00. Each additional item would add an
additional $4.00
to the shipping charge.
Note: this program cannot calculate shipping charges
based on weight, type
of item, zone, country, or shipping tables.
2e. Upload the Configuration File
After you have finished making the necessary changes to
your configuration
file and have saved it as a plain text file, use your
FTP
program to upload this file
(shop.cfg) back
up to your /cgi-local
directory.
Be sure you keep the file name shop.cfg
when you save your changes.
Be sure to upload the shop.cfg file in ASCII
transfer mode (not binarymode)
[To
continue configuring your shopping cart, click here to goto Steps 3 & 4]
BIGSEA
A metaphor. A philosophy. A way of doing business.
Copyright 1997-2001 - Last update: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 at 2:08:19 PM
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