Hi there,
I need some help and suggestions and wanted to see what you all thought.
I am trying to create a website similar to
www.CNet.com,
www.pricegrabber.com,
www.bizprice.com, etc - a price comparison site for quilting items. This program would allow merchants to create an account and add the products that they offer to our database. The viewers would then be able to select from categories to choose a product they are looking for. They would then be able to compare prices between the participating merchants and click and simple "BUY NOW" button that would take them to the URL of the correct merchant.
I was wondering if there was something open source that we could use and modify to meet our needs.
For instance, I was thinking that a shopping cart program would work, but instead of the "Buy Now" button sending viewers to a shopping cart, it would take you to the URL where to buy that product from the specified merchant. Does that sound like something that would work?
OR....maybe just a simple catalog script with an additional script with the "BUY NOW" button taking you to the correct URL.
Some things that I know I will need in this project include, but by far are not limited to:
MERCHANT ADMIN:
1. Register User Script for merchants to open an account. (I think I can get something open source)
2. LogIn Script for merchants
3. Merchant Account Form - this would be where merchants would provide their contact information, etc. and be entered into the Merchant database.)
4. Add Products script - This would be a manual process. They would have to enter all the information about each product. This information would then be added to the Product Database. - Now, I was thinking that there would need to be a way to check for duplication of products. For instance, books are very easy to check for because of SKUs. Quilting items do not have such a feature. Merchants may call the same product by different names and there are no common identifiers among the products. Is there a way when the information is submitted, that the database checks the current product database and either displays products that are similar in name and the merchant selects the correct item? If there is not a product that would match, they can then add this product as a NEW PRODUCT, which would then take the information and add it to the database. Does that make any sense?
5. Merchant Account Information: This would be were merchants could come and log in. There would be a list of products that they have in the database. They can add, delete or modify products. Possibly, even enter that they are having a sale and this information would show up in the listings somehow. This page would also show how many hits their products have gotten to date. They would also be able to access their invoices, etc. <----BIG MAYBE!!!
USER SIDE:
1. Select Category - This can be drop down menus, link menus or option menus, which ever one works better.
2. Product View - This would show all the products that match their selection. I am trying to figure out what the best way to do the price comparison is. We could do the price comparison on another page accessed by a "Compare Prices" link. OR...we could have all the merchants listed in a field with the specific product....OR, we could each individual merchant and product listed separately (this would mean there were 3 items that were the same, but just sold by different people.)
I am going to need images for products
* Product rate & reviews,
* Merchant rate & reviews
*Pay per click system where merchants are charged per click on all of their items. This would need to count each click on all the merchant items.
* Invoicing program where an invoice is created and either emailed to the merchants or added to their Merchant Account Page
* PayPal connection so merchants can pay via PayPal.
* Search ability for looking for a particular product.
* My own Admin page where I can add, delete or modify merchants, products, etc.
* MAYBE...the option of allowing me to have the database read a CSV file and input information into the database.
* AND MAYBE MORE....HMMMM, like this is not enough.
Anyways, the reason I am posting this is to try to figure out what the best and cheapest approach to this idea is. I have already figured out that starting from scratch is WAY out of my budget. If I can get some of the individual scripts from Open Source and then have someone make small changes to them, this would be the best option for my budget...I think.
Your advise and suggestions are very welcome. Also, if you are interested in participating in this project, please let me know.
Stephanie
stephanie@usaquiltguide.com
YahooIM: cpwalton
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