[geeks] shopping cart

[Lionel Peterson]

> From: Kurt Huhn <kurt at k-huhn.com>
> Date: 2004/03/16 Tue PM 09:13:53 GMT
> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: Re: [geeks] shopping cart
> 
> On Tue, 16 Mar 2004 21:05:51 +0000
> Lionel Peterson wrote:
> 
> > I'd like to exploit the above and make a simple web
> > page that has a "buy me" icon/link next to an item
> > description, and have that hook into a MySQL DB to
> > update inventory levels. Account management could
> > be handled by PayPal, I'll get what I need with the
> > payment notification...
> 
> This is very close to what I want to do.  I'll take
> a look at that. 

Kurt,

I just reviewed the PayPal Shopping Cart Manual, and a few things jumped out at me:

1) I don't have a merchant account (I assume the cost is trivial
   (similar) compared to personal account.

2) I see your quantity concerns issue: PayPal seems to allow
   the buyer to modify the Qty. once an item is in the shopping
   cart. You can pass the Qty. to PayPal (it seems), but there
   is no provision for an upper limit to the change. For you
   that could be fine, but for me, with my collection of unique
   items, I can't sell three if I only have one :^(

3) In my mind, the webpage with the items would either display
   a "Buy Me!" button (that adds the item to their cart) or
   shows an "Out of stock" message (the PHP script simply
   "builds" the page by scanning the inventory table and based
   on a quantity value, decides to put either a "sold out"
   message when Qty. = 0, and "buy me" when Qty > 0.

4) There is the ability to send out messages with the shopping
   cart, so I think you could send a warning message to not
   alter Qty. in the shopping cart, either delete the item or
   buy it.

I may set up a "test store" to try this out, as this could be useful...