Back to Basics (***OFF TOPIC***)

Uhmm...I dont really know where to start but with a simple explination that goes pretty much like this...

I am a web designer, trying to start up my own company at the moment. I already have clients in Ireland and England and South Africa. I have studied BTech-IT, Software development at TUT before this as well as a Web design course at CTU. The reason I have taken this course, is because web design is fun, awesome, the best thing ever, more a paying hobby than anything else, and I couldn't imagine doing anything else to be honest, but mostly, because trade over the internet is already, but lets rather use the words "beginning to" become the next big thing of our life times.

I am a tiny bit confused still after going through all the documentation, links, tips etc... that we have been given so far with this course. I would have thaught that an online shop, is coding, and coding only, with some prebuilt scripts to use on your own designed site.

After following the first few steps given to us in our tutorial letters on ecommerce, it seems now that an online shop is rather Software, a package that you can edit to suit your own product needs, pricing, country, language, currency etc.. etc... etc...

I would have thaught it would be coding, or scripts that you can apply to your own designs, instead of altering the "looks" of this ecommerse software. Now I'd wanna keep this a "off topic" discussion to avoid clashing our busy days with our course, but is there any person out there that is also a web designer, doing this full or part time that knows how the basics works? Probably a stupid question seeing that this is a "basic introduction to ecommerce" course.

What i mean by "BASICS"...Can you edit ecommerce software (osCommerce used in out course for example) to look 100% like you designed the whole site..have your own HOME, ABOUT, PRODUCTS etc... sections and implement just the shopping cart, tweaking the looks to fit the rest of your site. OR do you have to chose whatever ecommerce software solution you want that would work best for you.

I have already looked into the site stucture, theres one stylesheet that i found that basically controls the whole look of the site. But it seems a bit hard to design around software, rather than making software fit YOUR site??

So basically, my question would be this:
Does an ecommerce site, involve the same steps as any other normal one would apart from the ecommerce software packages available.

(Im talking noob language so bare with me)
NORMAL SITE
1) Get a client (haha)
2) Design logo / corporate identity (if needed)
3) Buy domain name and hosting space
4) Design their site
5) Test discuss and all the yucky parts the website ( i know this happens more often than just once)
6) Upload your site to your hosting space and point to domain name (I know this is done automatically but im talking noob language)

ECOMMERCE SITE
1) Get a client
2) Design logo / corporate identity (if needed)
3) Buy domain name and hosting space
4) Get ecommerce software and tweak looks so it looks like you designed it???? (this is the main question mark really)
5) Test discuss and all the yucky parts the website (again i know this happens more often than just once)
6) Install the software package on your hosting server and upload all files??

I know there are different kinds of ecommerce software available, but this is the first time if seen the works of it (or the backend). But i have however seen it work in the practical world on numerous sites, just like everone else. And thats exactly why after looking at osCommerse, i dont really understand where the design part comes in. Its really easy to create all your products, or saving some reading time here, it seems easy to populate ur database. But it seems complicated to design the site to your clients liking.

Im listing a site here that i designed for a client in Ireland, and by this I hope to make my question bit more clear. This osCommerce software wont look anything like my clients site, even if i tweak a few images here and there, and i would need to edit the whole stylesheet to make it look even remotely close to my design.

http://www.conversemodels.co.uk/

This client obviously wont sell his models lol, but if i had to implement ecommerce software on this site, would i need to get specific type of ecommerce software design from scratch, or would it be possible to use osCommerce or any other available package for that matter and tweak it to fit my ALREADY DESIGNED site??

Or am I totally missing the bus :s?

There are VERY few companies that do not make use of software to run a shopping cart. And why would one want to spend time re-coding the so called wheel when you should spent your time on the business aspects related to selling your product? With open source software you can indeed alter your code if you have more specific requirements, but that requires some serious programming skills and knowledge. Here I refer to stuff like changing the order process etc.

But you can design your own template in oscommerce - there are a lot of tutorials available! Here is a simple one http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1524

What I want you to take from this course is to be able to advise the client on MORE than just the site - but what he should consider.

Ok ok ok ok lol....after going through the Manual for the Software thats included in our course PROPERLY, I have seen that the sofware is indeed 100% "Redesignable". All the files are generated by this software is in web coding anyway, controlled by a stylesheet.
(YAY!!! << lets celibrate ).

HOWEVER, seems we dont have permission to alter the files ( ) which I understand coz some of us might screw things up...but at least after lookin at the "behind the scenes" of this all, its really simple...all the Genius code has already been done by Super Geek , and made it really easy to just adjust the looks.

I dont wanna say too much again BEFORE reading through ALL the documentation that we have been given...but I cant seem to find any more specifics on the practical, except that we need to populate it with some categories and products etc...

Some Assignment related questions:

1) Is there a specific number of products we should populate with?
2) Does the prices have to be realistic?
3) Do we wait for further notice (guidance) before we go into the "payment aspects" of the software?
4) Its not stated in the "manual" (prac_documentation.pdf) some of the key values u can assign to a specific properties.
for example:
-Under the: Configuration/Product Listing/... Display Product Image (Value 1 = TRUE and Value Blank = False) What is the value "4" for the (Display Buy Now Column)? As any other value (1,2,3) appears the same?
5) Do I ask too many questions
6) That pic we all got...yes yes it IS assignment related lol hehe...she for sale ?

None Assignment related questions:

1) It is written, that we need a TRADE LICENCE to receive payments online. With the new laws of registering a business only if having a gross income of more than (SORRY if this isnt correct) R1 000 000, (shoot Standard Bank if this information is wrong), what and how does the trading licence influence all of this?
2) I know the answer is a BIG FAT NO, but can we see an example of what is expected of us in our practical assignment? PLZ

What you do with the practical assignment is up to you. What I want to see is that you apply what you have learned from the textbook. So if you are going to sell motor radios on your site - would that be a good idea? I'll leave such questions - and the site you present - up to you. Of course just throwing products in there is easy. But you learn from that (that adding products is easy). But I'd like to see more. That you have thought about your site, and have applied as much of the info available from the prac documentation and the handbook, to convince me to award you with a certificate. Why not more guidelines you may well ask? You need to convince me.

As for the payment section - we use to offer a "live" payment of PriceTag, a SA company, in this course. It got a bit difficult because students misused their generosity, so we stopped it. You pay them R195,00 per month + 5%, and you do not require a merchant account with a bank to do on-line business. To add that module is as simple as adding products. So we prefer to inform you about the module, and provide the company name who can host your site and do it all for you, so that you can concentrate on what this course is about - understanding the basic ins and outs of ecommerce. Like what products to add, maybe categories, maybe just rands if it is bobotie your selling...