information on: online shopping in asp .net and vb .net

[Shift838]

I am thinking about either programming or having programmed an online shopping system that people can order items, but when it calculates all it will send them to PayPal to make payment.

How hard would that be to accomplish in ASP .Net with VB .Net code behind? It will of course interface with a database that will house all items, prices, etc.

I am thinking to order all users must register of course and as orders are processed it will create a db entry for each item with a reference or invoice #. If someone orders 10 items on that one order the reference or invoice # of course would be the same. Email will be sent out, but the issue is (I think) before shipping of course since payment would be made via paypal I would have to verify the funds because paypal will not (I don't think) send anything back to the referenced website flaging payment was completed.

Does anyone know how much it would cost to have this done or should I just try and tackle it myself.. I really do not have the time. I roughly have 2000 items to post in the datbase. an admin module would need to be create to be able to add/modify/delete items in the database as well as run reports on items sold and to who, by date or registered user.

 

[Isadore]

Chris: I'm in the same boat right now though I have not pursued specifically the code for accomplishing it. I have spent some time in reviewing sites for the format that I would like and finally found the requisite style and pages (driven by aspx) at a site (of all places) called

http://www.whatbird.com/

The site uses an unusual algorithm to identify bird species. The person who designed the site happens to be a 30 year computer vetran who has written several books, inlcuding aspx. I found this out after I reviewed his shopping cart checkout schemes which I thought were near perfect and ones that I want to adopt. You might email him and ask him about this (his email is at the site). Of course there will be much on this subject on the web generally but I found his site to be particularly well done.

My guess is to turn this over to someone who has experience as I am sure it is detail intensive. It'll be interesting to see what comments you pick up here. Looking forward to it.

 

[MattSTech]

You can get the basic shopping system free directly from Paypal. They have the system already set up. I will find the link and post it here for you.

Matt

 

[MattSTech]

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_merchant-outside

 

[Borracho1]

if you only need to send a total amount you could use this, there is also an option to send your entire shopping cart but i don't use that. It's perhaps not the safest way but it's doing it for me.

sub btnpaypal_click (s as object, e as eventargs ) 
Dim str3 as string 
Dim sb As New StringBuilder() 
sb.Append("[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?")[/URL] 
sb.Append("cmd=_xclick") 
sb.Append("&business=blabla@hotmail.com") 
sb.Append("&currency_code=" & "EUR") 
sb.Append("&return=[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.yoursite/thank_you.aspx")[/URL] 
sb.Append("&item_name=" & txttitel.text) 'txtnaam 
sb.Append("&item_number=" & txtItemNum.text) 
sb.Append("&amount=" & txt2.text) 
sb.Append("&no_note=1") 
sb.Append("&invoice=" & txtInvoiceID.text) 

str3 = sb.ToString 
Response.Redirect(str3) 

End Sub