What is eCommerce?

e-Commerce is a term for "electronic commerce" meaning sales made over the Internet. eCommerce can be deployed in a number of different ways and isn't restricted to physical products (such as clothing or computers) or virtual products (such as e-books).

e-Commerce can also be used to sell services (such as jobs or remote assistance) or acting as an sales facilitator (such as an online auction house).

What existing systems have Beebware worked on?

For our clients, we have adapted/enhanced the following eCommerce systems:

Interchange

We adapted the Perl based Interchange system for a major industrial tools supply company to help increase sales, improve the search engine visibility of the site (by changing dynamic links with query strings to "static" links) and help improve the general usability of the site.

Noah's Classifieds

Using the PHP based "Noah's Classifieds" software as a base, we constructed a basic "Jobs board" system for a Welsh based recruitment company allowing them to quickly get their name recognised and grow to become the number 1 recruitment website servicing the Cardiff and South Wales area.

osCommerce/ClickCartPro

We have installed and modified the popular PHP eCommerce systems osCommerce and ClickCartPro for a number of customers (ranging from "white goods" appliance retailers, dancewear retailers and childrens clothing online sales) to either accept additional payment systems, improve the search engine visibility or to help tweak the systems to work as the client required.

What experience has Beebware got of eCommerce development?

These are just a few of the e-Commerce systems we have developed from scratch:

Pet Insurance Ordering system

Developed from scratch using PHP, this system allowed customers to enter their post code (which would then be looked up to pre-fill their address) and allow them to enter in details of their pets. Once completed, the customer would then be able to enter their bank details (which will be looked up and validated in real time by the ordering system) before processing the request.

Pay by Text Message ordering system

Utilising a third party SOAP XML based Text messaging system, this PHP driven website allowed customers to place an order online and then pay for their internet web hosting using SMS technology. The system assigned each customer a unique 6 character code which had to be "texted" in to the third party gateway which then notified the 99phost system.

Dedicated Server ordering system

Written from scratch using PHP, MySQL and GPG (GNU Pretty Good Privacy) allowed customers to select the specification of their dedicated web hosting server hardware and the system would check for hardware compatibility in real time. Once the selection had been finalised by the customer, their credit card details were taken and encrypted using GPG in a secure manner before being passed to the sales staff.

Online Support Portal

Integrating with "LogMeIn Rescue", this PHP powered system integrated with a major UK web hosting company allowing their clients to select what assistance they required from their cPanel control panel, take payment via Paypal or Worldpay, and then create the appropriate "LogMeIn Rescue" link.

What payment gateways/systems have Beebware worked on?

We have worked with Paypal, Worldpay and the Protx gateway systems (along with Epoch/PayComEU) to help integrate and enhance clients online websites to accept payments.

Featured Project: eCommerce Sales Reporting

Pulling in information from a remote Microsoft SQL database Server (MS-SQL) and a remote PostgreSQL database server, this application allowed for online sales figures to be viewed for the two eCommerce systems in operation (previously there was no sales reporting information available) and for the information to be compared between the systems.

Written in PHP, this system utilised the Yahoo! YUI Javascript library to enable online graphs to be displayed and interacted with - along with allowing output in web page (HTML) and CSV (Comma Seperate Value) file formats for importing into Microsoft Excel. The system, due to the confidential nature of the data, had a strict user authentication system which used Active Directory network logons and PostgreSQL's user management faciltiies.