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Re: eCommerce
I’d bet Zen Cart would do that – their forums are pretty helpful as well, and there are many good add-on’s available, so there is light at the end of the tunnel;-)
http://zencart.com/
And:
If you are REALLY geeky, a great choice would be eZ publish. It can be made into anything, but don’t expect it to be easy. You have to be a programmer.
http://ez.no/ez_publish/info/e_commerce_functionality
Last edited by raveoli (2005-02-09 17:46:17)
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Re: eCommerce
Hi Raveoli,
Thanks for the advice. I’ve had a quick look at zencart, and I’ve added it to my list of solutions to evaluate in detail.
I’m afraid, I’m probably not geeky enough to get on with eZ publish, programming is not my strong point.
Cheers,
James
www.cheezepie.com
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Re: eCommerce
Other choices that came to my mind:
http://www.membershipclientpro.com/
And maybe (though I’m not 100% sure they can do it):
http://www.clickbank.com/
PS: I gotta withdraw that recommendation on Zen Cart – it may not be the right tool for selling content;-(
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#19 2005-02-09 23:31:00
- zem
- Developer Emeritus

- From: Melbourne, Australia
- Registered: 2004-04-08
- Posts: 2,579
Re: eCommerce
> My client is looking to have a secure area of her site that only her paying clients can log into. So there are no products being traded; a user pays for “membership” if you like, and gets issued with a username and password that will enable them to access the private area.
> Does anyone know of any solutions that would do this?
I’ve done some custom work along these lines. Email me.
Alex
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#20 2005-06-12 08:30:14
- FireFusion
- Member

- Registered: 2005-05-10
- Posts: 698
Re: eCommerce
> ubernostrum wrote:
> I’m working on a commerical site right now which will probably use TXP; they’ve elected to go with Paypal’s shopping cart, which really makes this into a simple job.
My technique is to have products posted as articles, and use custom fields to store information about each product (price, weight, etc.) which can then be easilly passed to Paypal.
Let me know how you do that as I’m wanting to do something simalar.
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#21 2005-06-12 20:00:13
- -jw-
- Member

- From: fruitbelly, the Netherlands
- Registered: 2004-03-16
- Posts: 79
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#22 2006-12-05 17:30:40
- Ace of Dubs
- Member

- Registered: 2006-04-17
- Posts: 446
Re: eCommerce
Bumping this ancient thread as the 29digital site is gone and it seems to have been the decisive source for integrating paypal with TXP.
I dont mind getting my hands dirty with PHP if anyone would like to point me in the right direction.
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Re: eCommerce
Ace,
It’s not php, it’s just TXP. I don’t have a copy of the article but the basic idea was this:
article = product
comments = reviews
category and section = product divisions
You use custom fields to populate the articles with paypal buttons [so that each button has each item’s id#, for example]. It’s actually really easy when you get into it.
I’m not sure how much help that was, but it’s a start.
- Ben
UPDATE: Here’s an example form. This form is called “paypal_addtocart” and wherever you place <txp:output_form form=“paypal_addtocart” /> in your article form, this will place a button that has all the specific information about the item:
<form action=“https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr” method=“post”>
<input type=“image” src=“https://www.paypal.com//en_US/i/btn/x-click-but22.gif” border=“0” name=“submit” alt=“Make payments with PayPal – it’s fast, free and secure!”>
<img alt=”“ border=“0” src=“https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif” width=“1” height=“1”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“add” value=“1”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“cmd” value=”_cart”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“business” value=“email@aceofdubs.com”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“item_name” value=”<txp:title />”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“item_number” value=”<txp:custom_field name=“id”/>”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“amount” value=”<txp:custom_field name=“price”/>”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“no_shipping” value=“2”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“currency_code” value=“USD”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“lc” value=“US”>
<input type=“hidden” name=“bn” value=“PP-ShopCartBF”>
</form>
Last edited by benbruce (2006-12-05 17:45:43)
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Re: eCommerce
The info on the where you use Textpattern’s Custom Fields for price, manufacturer, etc, and then simply fill those custom fields into the PayPal shopping cart code, chich you’ve conveniently placed in a Textpattern Form. Well, it works for tangible goods, but not downloads I believe…
Other options > Joomla + VirtueMart – I used it 2 years ago, and it’s very impressive, looks good, and packs a lot of power.
But you know Joomla has a terrible templating system, lots of hardcoded stuff, making it difficult to design a site that does not look Joomla-ish.
Another option is Drupal, some like it some don’t – I myself go hot and cold on it temporarily. I love the sexy clean code of Drupal, and the module-based model, which I find very logic. But the more my project evolves, the more confused I become. Where do I change this, where do I change that…
Anyway, Drupal has a very cool ecommerce module which can do good work.
Hmm… And ZenCart – which is not very Zen. Not even sane. It’s insane. Unless you’re Amazon or WalMart;-)
ie. too big for anything less.
What would you sell Ace?
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Re: eCommerce
pS: Personally, for any small and simple project, I’d go for the PayPal-TXP model, and for tangible goods use a download-PayPal-shopping-cart script – like http://www.drtsystems.com/ipnm.php and manually input the code snippets in articles.
But of course, that’s not an option if it’s a project for someone else, not tech-minded.
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#26 2006-12-05 18:48:52
- Ace of Dubs
- Member

- Registered: 2006-04-17
- Posts: 446
Re: eCommerce
Good feedback there. My challenge is in the sale of both tangible and digital goods. The clients catalog would be over 400 products ad grows every day so its definitely not small potatoes. I am researching a bunch of solutions, but so far the strongest contenders are zen-cart, squirrel-cart, and joomla/virtuemart.
The client also wants a forum integrated and while I could always Pun it up, the joomla forum is tempting since user info can be shared in the db…
So much to learn, so little time!
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#28 2006-12-05 19:30:45
- Ace of Dubs
- Member

- Registered: 2006-04-17
- Posts: 446
Re: eCommerce
Interesting soulship…
I have a demo account with them and also like their admin…very elegant and clean. My ony gripe is that their sites run uber slow for me… at least 20 second page load on my cable modem. It may be a proxy issue since I am in Europe but whatever the case, it was enough to discourage me from using Shopify.
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Re: eCommerce
I would report it in the forum. I have had no issues like that (to date) the sites pages should have full page caching.
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#30 2006-12-05 19:45:37
- Ace of Dubs
- Member

- Registered: 2006-04-17
- Posts: 446
Re: eCommerce
Will do my friend. In the meantime, the lack of digital download support is a dealbreaker. They are apparently working on it but who knows whne we will actually see an update. My client needs solutions today, so it looks like I will have to settle for something less pretty.
A shame too, Shopify seems to have gotten a lot of things right
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