trying to creat a web-based Product Catalog. Does anyone have a template
using sharepoint and/or Frontpage?
While there are lots of free-templates out there that could be adapted to a
static catalog you may want to stop and consider the exact scope of your
project.
If your catalog is going to get very big you really need a database that
populates the catalog page. If your going to do that, then your talking
e-commerce (with shopping carts etc).
There are several classes of solutions depending on the size of your
catalog/store.
1) If you have a small/static catalog (without a database) you can use some
simple shopping cart software say from paypal. A FP specific example would
be:
http://www.auctionmessenger.net/paypal/index.asp
2) If you have larger needs you can pay someone to provide you with an
online storefront that they host for you. Microsoft does it at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officelive/FX101465131033.aspx
LeGarde does it at:
www.storefront.net And Jim Colligan does it at:
http://www.frontpageworld.com/ecommerce/
If you want ot run the storefront on your own servers or ISP you can buy
software from LeGarde, "Just Add Commerce" and what appear to be hundreds of
other vendors to do that. Before you spend too much money on them look real
hard at:
http://www.zen-cart.com/ which is open source and claims to be easy
to setup. The website is now selling a fullblown book on how to set it up.
The code is html, Php and MySql db My understanding is FP doesn't handle
Php pages very well. So you might want a copy of say "win32pad" (better
than notepad/free notepad replacement) to handle the coding portion.
I just spent the last day or so trying to put together a really
simple-minded ecommerce website. That is why I have all these links hanging
arround. If your trying to sell digital products some storefronts lend
themselves well, others I can't tell. I am leaning towards:
http://www.e-junkie.com/ if I don't use some ASP code I just found to make
it possible to secure the downloads.
I am an interested party. Talk to me and everyone else here.
Thanks,
Tom
