NYCPHP Meetup

[Jake McGraw]

>  Re payment gateways, It's my understanding that the handling of credit
>  card transactions is done via the payment gateway's servers--i.e. if the
>  client has a merchant account (or pays for gateway services that provide
>  one for a fee), then all I need to be concerned with is that the
>  shopping cart can interface securely with the gateway?

That is correct, but if the shopping cart doesn't natively support
your gateway, well, then you've got some work to do.

Integration is where you're going to find the biggest headaches,
because then you'll have to get into custom module development for
Drupal, which isn't as bad as it sounds, but it is not something you
should do when you're "on the clock" and haven't tried it yet.

My first suggestion is to find out what is the MINIMUM feature set
your client is willing to launch with. It sounds like they want to
start an e-commerce store + some CMS features, perhaps the best place
to start would be:

http://drupal.org/project/ecommerce

In fact, you'll find there are  TON of well supported modules
available for Drupal, I'd hit up Google (drupal + <feature you're
researching>) before attempting to create anything from stratch.

- jake

On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 3:49 PM, BAS <lists at nopersonal.info> wrote:
> Jake McGraw wrote:
>  > Well it really depends... do you have experience doing any of this:
>  >
>  > 4. Find, install & configure shopping cart
>  >   a. Product photos
>  >   b. Product descriptions/details
>  >   c. Pricing
>  >   d. Shipping
>  >   e. Tax
>  >   f. Create/modify shopping cart templates? (Not sure
>  > if this has to be done or if the cart can use CMS templates?)
>  > 5. SSL cert (requires static IP)
>  > 6. Payment gateway
>  >
>  > Because it can be quite a learning experience (adds time) if you
>  > don't. My best suggestion is to find an all-in-one solution or a
>  > developer who has proven experience with these kind of transactions.
>
>  Re the shopping cart, not really. I did install osCommerce once as it
>  was available via my cpanel. I set up a few items and played around with
>  the shipping & tax stuff, but that was about it.
>
>  Re SSL, I've purchased my own SSL certs before, generated the keys, then
>  had my hosting company actually install them.
>
>  Re payment gateways, It's my understanding that the handling of credit
>  card transactions is done via the payment gateway's servers--i.e. if the
>  client has a merchant account (or pays for gateway services that provide
>  one for a fee), then all I need to be concerned with is that the
>  shopping cart can interface securely with the gateway? Please do correct
>  me if I'm wrong.
>
>
>  > 3. Code custom templates
>  >
>  > I haven't worked with Joomla, but I have worked with Drupal. There is
>  > a bit of a learning curve for following the best practices template
>  > design. I'd suggest getting Pro Drupal Development to help you along
>  > with this.
>
>  I'll definitely order that.
>
>
>  > 7. Find, install & configure forum
>  >
>  > Drupal can be a forum, see how they use it at groups.drupal.org.
>  >
>  > I'd put the work at the very least 80 hours. Any integration that
>  > they'd like to do between the shopping cart and the CMS will add many
>  > hours.
>
>  I'll check out how Drupal uses their forum. Thanks for the estimate &
>  warning re added hours for integration; bot are a great help.
>
>
>
>  Regards,
>  Bev
>
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