[...]... Whether to Go Online Although there are hundreds of possible reasons to go online, they tend to fall into the following motivations: • Getting more customers • Making customers spend more • Reducing the costs of fulfilling orders We’ll look at each of these in the following sections 1 Darie-Watson_4681C 01. fm Page 2 Tuesday, August 9, 2005 3: 51 AM 2 CHAPTER 1 ■ STARTING AN E-COMMERCE SITE Getting More Customers... Darie-Watson_4681Front.fm Page xvii Thursday, September 22, 2005 5:26 AM Introduction W elcome to Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 E-Commerce in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional! The explosive growth of retail over the Internet is encouraging more small- to medium-sized businesses to consider the benefits of setting up e-commerce web sites Although online retailing has great and obvious advantages, there are also... work in offices because they can indulge in retail therapy directly from their desks Skillful e-commerce design can encourage your customers to buy things they wouldn’t usually think of You can easily update your site to suggest items of particular seasonal interest or to announce interesting new products Darie-Watson_4681C 01. fm Page 3 Tuesday, August 9, 2005 3: 51 AM CHAPTER 1 ■ STARTING AN E-COMMERCE. .. through 11 show you how to • Build your own ASP.NET (Active Server Pages NET) shopping cart • Pass a complete order through to PayPal for credit-card processing 8 213 592a 117 456a340854d18cee57603 Darie-Watson_4681C 01. fm Page 7 Tuesday, August 9, 2005 3: 51 AM CHAPTER 1 ■ STARTING AN E-COMMERCE SITE • Create an orders administration page • Implement a product recommendations system in the form of a “customers... of getting your site up and running In the second phase of the book, Chapters 9 through 11 , you’ll create your own shopping cart And in the third phase, Chapters 12 through 17 , you’ll start processing orders and integrating external systems Chapter 1: Starting an E-Commerce Site In this chapter you’ll see some of the principles of e-commerce in the real world You’ll learn the importance of focusing on... about how they will come to your site in the first place You should consider the following points before you start to visualize or design the site, and certainly before you start programming: 3 Darie-Watson_4681C 01. fm Page 4 Tuesday, August 9, 2005 3: 51 AM 4 CHAPTER 1 ■ STARTING AN E-COMMERCE SITE • Getting customers: How will you get visitors to the site in the first place? • Offering products: What will... techniques used to build the site, you should have some previous experience programming ASP.NET 2.0 with C# Having a reference book such as Beginning Visual Web Developer 2005 Express: From Novice to Professional (Apress, 2005) on hand is highly recommended This book may also prove valuable for ASP.NET 1. x, ASP 3, PHP, or Java developers who learn best by example and want to experience ASP.NET 2.0 development... actively encouraging customers to buy more by implementing product recommendations Again at the end of this phase, you’ll have a fully working site that you can go live with By the third phase, you’ll have the site up and running, and doing very well During this phase, you’ll look at increasing your profit margins by reducing costs through automating and streamlining order processing and administration,... start to design and build your web site (assuming you get the contract, of course) 9 Darie-Watson_4681C 01. fm Page 10 Tuesday, August 9, 2005 3: 51 AM Darie-Watson_4681C02.fm Page 11 Tuesday, September 20, 2005 4: 51 AM CHAPTER 2 ■■■ Laying Out the Foundations N ow that you’ve convinced the client that you can create a cool web site to complement the client’s store activity, it’s time to stop celebrating... thing you need to do before launching the e-commerce site is enable credit card processing In this chapter, we’ll look at how you can build this into the pipeline you created in the last chapter You’ll learn how to process payments through DataCash and using the VeriSign Payflow Pro service Chapter 17 : Integrating Amazon Web Services In the dynamic world of the Internet, sometimes it isn’t enough to . September 22 , 20 05 5 :26 AM Darie-Watson_4681Front.fm Page xvi Thursday, September 22 , 20 05 5 :26 AM xvii Introduction Welcome to Beginning ASP. NET 2. 0 E-Commerce in C# 20 05: From Novice to Professional! . x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" Beginning ASP. NET 2. 0 E-Commerce in C# 20 05 From Novice to Professional ■■■ Cristian Darie and Karli Watson Darie-Watson_4681Front.fm Page i Thursday, September 22 , 20 05. Watson Darie-Watson_4681Front.fm Page i Thursday, September 22 , 20 05 5 :26 AM Beginning ASP. NET 2. 0 E-Commerce in C# 20 05: From Novice to Professional Copyright © 20 06 by Cristian Darie and Karli Watson All rights