How Do I Integrate My Shopping Cart with a Product Supplier and Order Fulfillment Company?

We have a client who already has a ShopSite Pro shopping cart (they were lucky and started with a good cart). For some strange reason the prior web developer dropped in some Cold Fusion web pages intermixed into the PHP ShopSite pages. The client is now having difficulties properly configuring and entering the 16,000+ products from their supplier into their ShopSite cart.

Their business model is that of a drop shipper. The inventory, product descriptions and prices can change daily from the supplier so the client needs their web site system to update this cart information nightly.

They also need their web site to automatically submit a daily transaction file of purchase orders to the fulfillment company. After the fulfillment company ships the products they will create a daily mail tracking information file that then goes back to the client's web site. From there the web site needs to send an email notifying purchasers that their products have been shipped and gives them a shipping tracking number.

We have seen this scenario before and these are the basic steps that need to be done to correct this problem and get the client's web store up and running properly.

1. Rebuild Cart (and strip out all the old ColdFusion programming)

Involves the following tasks:

• Rebuild of page templates for ShopSite.; Here we will need to use what is already there as a visual example but we will need to completely rebuild it
• Rebuild the site navigation
• Rebuild the category search function
• Rebuild of shopping cart checkout template
• Rebuild search function template
• Reconfiguration of shipping setup

2. Clean and Redo Product Info:

• First step in this process will be to make new product templates to go on the pages and make the individual product detail pages.
• Then we need to re-configure all the products to go back to their appropriate pages within the cart. Because this cart has 16,000+ products and so many categories, this is a pretty large process.

3. Write and Set Up Automated Product Update and Order Processes:

• This will involve us writing a program that will read a text file from the fulfillment company and update the cart with new product information daily.
• Because the cart configuration is complicated we will need to write the program in a way that will allow us to properly parse the data out.
• The Shipping Confirmation will involve us writing a program that will read the fulfillment Shipping Confirmation file and mailing the customers their mail tracking information.
• Order Upload will require us writing a program that will transfer daily order transactions to the fulfillment company.

ShopSite is a leading professional level shopping cart for small, medium and often large companies. However, even a top shopping cart cannot meet all of a client’s business needs especially when dealing with 3rd party fulfillment companies and suppliers providing large product inventory. Business owners often feel and are often lead to believe that they can do it all on their own once they purchase a shopping cart. The fact remains that in most cases they can’t do it all and they will need much help. Besides integrating with 3rd party companies there is also professional design considerations as well as customer management, promotion, Search Engine Optimization, e-commerce, and database considerations.

It is highly advised that a business owner looking to take on a shopping cart project or setting up a web store to first consult with a professional web development company to make sure they are getting started with a cart that will even meet their business needs. In other words… look before you leap and especially before you purchase a shopping cart. A professional web development company can help point you in the right direction and get you up and running fast.

This information is provided by Alan Dale, President and CTO at Los Angeles Web Design. For more information on the power and process of setting up a professional web store business visit: www.losangeleswebdesign.com