Chapter 5. Shopping Cart

In This Chapter

• A complete shopping cart system

• A text-file database

• Storing information in the ASP Session object

• A simple keyword search engine

As I write this, e-commerce dot-coms are going out of business with the same manic intensity as they burst on the scene last year or the year before. So long as your customers are other businesses, it's probably safe to admit to being in the Internet business—at least for the moment.

The case for doing business online, of course, continues to be more and more compelling, and, although large sites will need industrial-strength systems, the shopping cart system in this chapter will easily handle a few sales—or even a few hundred sales per day.

Two of the critical ingredients of business success are cost control and execution. With this chapter, you can have a shopping cart up and running in the time it takes you to put the files on your server, for the cost of a paperback computer book. Give yourself a couple of days to customize the look and feel to meet your needs and set up a database of items you want to sell, and you're in business.^[1]

^[1] Don't forget to budget time and, perhaps, money for marketing. Time is the critical ingredient. Get your site registered with search engines and participate in online communities that your customers are active in.