Website development and e-commerce

This means creating scripts which run on the web server and produce pages that interact with the user, as in e-commerce, log-ins, search pages and on-line forums. This code can be complex and usually involves the use of databases at the web server.

I have worked with two popular web server/database systems for SMEs - a Microsoft one (Access database, Active Server Pages scripting, Internet Information Server) and an open source one (MySQL database, PHP scripting, Apache server) - and the latter is now my preferred system. Some of my web applications have involved using medium-size databases with millions of records.

It may not even be necessary to create the code for the application you have in mind. There are a tremendous number of ready-made, free web applications out there, particularly for open-source systems, and it could cost far less than you might think to have, say, a full content management system on your site. For more information, see the Content Management page.

E-commerce

E-commerce generally involves the creation of an on-line 'shopping basket' (or 'shopping trolley' or 'shopping cart', call it what you will) to which the customer adds goods or services. The customer then proceeds to the 'checkout' where payment can be taken, usually by credit/debit card but sometimes by cheque/PO or telephone if the store owner does not have an internet merchant account.

In the case of small sites with just a handful of products each client often has a slightly different idea about how this shopping process should work, and here I usually prefer to use my own code rather than one of the ready-made e-commerce applications.

For larger and more conventional sites where a lot of features are required a ready-made e-commerce solution is more cost-effective. In this case I would set it up and design its page templates.

Card payment integration experience includes the following systems: ePDQ (Barclays), PayPal, Protx and WorldPay (Royal Bank of Scotland).