[dustindd]

Hello! My name is Dustin and I work for a small business and have a project with no idea how to tackle it. I'm not sure if you can help with this one or not. I'm not even sure if it would be something I would be able to quickly teach myself. I have 5 weeks to start and finish this project. Basically, there are two projects but they piggy-back on one another. I have described them below. Can you please let me know your thoughts on the best way to proceed with this. I'm not sure how "virtual / sites on the fly" would be set up. I'm not sure if it would best be handled by PHP/MySQL or ColdFusion... but I have 5 weeks to pull it off and I'm kinda nervous. Any help and advice you could provide to point me in the right direction would be great. Would a pre-built script help with this? If so we would consider buying it. Is this better custom scripted? Can it be done on a Windows server? I know Linux would be better but I can't administer a Linux server at the moment. Do you know anyone who could help? Any information you could provide would be helpful. The project specs appear below.

Dustin

The Process

Customer pays us online with their credit card through PayPal. If the payment is successful they are create a username/password to log into the members area. It should be set up so they cannot enter the member’s area if payment is declined the following month, etc.

We need a control panel or something similar where we can manually input and manage users, as about 30-40% of our customers will also be mailing in their orders with another form of payment (not credit card).

PayPal will allow us to download data as comma or tabbed delimited.

This same data needs to be fed through Microsoft Word so we can send the customer a certificate and letter explaining how the Members Area works, their web address, user name, etc. Again, this same data needs to be imported to UPS so we can print out shipping labels. This really has more to do with my end than the actual project itself, but I was trying to depict how everything comes together.

When the customer becomes a member he/she also gets their own personal bookstore selling all of our e-Book products, and access to everything mentioned below.

Members Area

After the user has signed up, they have instant access to our member’s only area web site. This content is only for members of our club. The content in this area will include:

* Newsletter
* New Monthly Product
* Misc. Monthly Content
* Sales Materials Area
* Free Advertising Links Page
* Free Software Downloads
* Computer Giveaway and Contests
* Monthly Bonus Gift
* Free Advertising Methods
* FREE Multimedia Video Presentations
* Latest Selling Tips and Techniques from marketing Experts
* Online Product Delivery System
* Drop Shipping Service
* Business Letters and Forms
* Free Merchant Account Set-up Tutorials (PayPal)
* 262+ Free Banner Ads
* Internet Search Engines Tutorials
* Company News

* Page for Customer to Administer Account Details (change password, update bookstore web site details, etc)

I need to be able to add our own content to each of the pages listed above. I need to be able to easily incorporate our content into this area as I will be updating it on a weekly/monthly basis.

The member’s area is divided into three levels- Silver, Gold and Platinum. I need to be able to log into a control panel to change people’s “level” indicator to whichever level they may be.

In addition to having a username / password to log into the members area, we need to be able to generate a custom URL for each of our customers that links to their own bookstore. I would like to have one template/theme and when the URL is typed, the users information for the URL provided would load into the template. I am hoping this would be a dynamic site. The bookstore has 250 e-book products and we will be adding more each month. It’s a Bookstore with 250 products. Uploading 300+ bookstores a day, each needs a unique URL. This URL will be printed on a certificate we mail to our customers (members). I am not sure how the URL will be assigned but we will need to be able to export/download the users information so we can mail them a letter / certificate explaining their web address, etc. I imagine this would somehow feed off of a database.

Bookstore Web Site

I need to be able to switch between 4 different versions of the bookstore web site. So I may need a checkbox in my administrator control panel that allows me to decide which version of the site the customer gets. Everyone starts out with Version 1.

Version 1 – Bookstore with 250 e-book products, no PayPal merchant account. Orders placed on our customer’s site are emailed, mailed and faxed to them. SILVER LEVEL

Version 2 – Bookstore with 250 e-book products, accepts credit cards through PayPal. Orders can also be placed on our customer’s site by email, mail and fax. SILVER LEVEL

If they sign up for PayPal or have a PayPal account, they can click a link in their control panel in the members area to type in their PayPal email address, which would then switch their site from Version 1 to Version 2 with the PayPal Shopping Cart (free) and a Buy Now link for each of their products.

Version 3 – Bookstore with 262 e-book and CD-ROM products, no PayPal merchant account. Orders placed on our customer’s site are emailed, mailed and faxed to them. GOLD AND PLATINUM LEVEL

Version 4 – Bookstore with 262 e-book and CD-ROM products, accepts credit cards through PayPal. Orders can also be placed on our customer’s site by email, mail and fax. GOLD AND PLATINUM LEVEL

I have all of the content already to go, the product images and the actual products themselves.

Here are some of the features we would like the bookstore to have:

I would really like the customer (member) to have the ability to edit (in their own control panel) his or her information that appears on their own bookstore web site. So for example, if a customer moves and wants to update the mailing address that appears on their bookstore, they could log into our members area, click on Bookstore Settings, enter their new mailing address, save it and it would be instantly updated on their bookstore web site.

Customer can change:

• Name
• Business Name
• Address, City, State, Zip Code
• Fax Number
• Phone Number
• Email Address
• Product Prices

* Pages are Centered

* Click the Book to read its description - www.ereader.com good example

* The e-books are divided into categories by topic. We would like a Pull down menu at top with category listing

* Same categories appear on left-hand side of screen in alphabetical order (number of books in category appear next to this) www.e-library.com is a good example. Need to be able to cross link books so the same book can appear in multiple categories.

* “Show All e-Books” link which appears on all pages above Categories.

* Special offer link

* Need the ability to refer to the site owners name throughout the site, such as “Welcome to ‘Your Name Here’ Online Bookstore” and “Sincerely, Your Name Here”. If it could be set up properly, this information could be updated by the bookstore owner when they log into our members site through their control panel.

* Search box

* Disclaimer link at bottom of every page

* Featured Items page – selected items appear on the main page
* Current Bestsellers page – we can choose which appear here
* Most Popular page – we can choose which appear here

It would be great if there were a portion at the end of each page where through the members area, the customer (our member) could paste in HTML that would appear at the bottom of whatever page they want. This would allow them to add their own counter, links, banners, etc. Simple links, and link HTML code would only be allowed for security purposes.)

Affiliate Links

Each one product page needs to have three affiliate links built in which will direct our member’s visitors to our special affiliate program web site. We will need to be able to track where the sales came from.

Products

Each product has its own Sales Letters Page AND Order Form Page, we also want to give the option to purchase all of the e-books together as a package, and if we can, all of the particular e-books in a category.

Here are the options we need for each product:

* Bookmark this item
* Email this page to a friend
* Product ID #
* Price (bookstore owner can manipulate this when logged into members area)
* Preset Rating

When one of our Member’s customers pays the Member for the e-Book, they need to be either emailed a link to download the e-Book, or directed to a secure page where they can download the e-book.

Would we be forced to use a set template or would we be able to use our own? How would this work? Would we paste html code into our template that interacts with the script?

That is the dream scenario. I do need a system in place where we can upload 300+ bookstores a day, and a seperate Member's Area. I was just hoping to tie the two together to make it as user friendly as possible.
Your thoughts and suggestions?

[Amadeus]

Hi Dustin,

Just an FYI that I have deleted each of your duplicate posts.

Thanks.

[duffsstuff]

WOW! Seems like a hard task for 5 weeks. I would suggest you get professional coders or something.

I have done many of the things you want in small bits, but it would take me awhile to get it all together to work like you want it too, but I am sorry to say that I do not have the time to do so. Sorry that I couldn't be of more help.

This post has been edited by duffsstuff: 21 July 2007 - 11:01 PM

[serializer]

Yup you need to seek professional help

This project has such a wide scope I wouldn't even know where to start in one short forum post. Your best bet is to approach a professional IT solutions provider, and have large amounts of cash ready. I wouldn't recommend PHP at all, it's a pretty aged technology. You want a team developing in Ruby or DOT.NET if you're gonna get it completed in such a short time. Even then, 5 weeks is pretty ambitious; you need to get proposals from a few different companies to compare and get the best deal, the thing needs to be spec'd out and developed, then tested, then debugged and tweaked further to suit your needs.

I'm sure there are lots of people on this forum who could take on a project like this, but there are other forums specifically dedicated to linking developers up with contracts, that would get you more real results.

--serializer

[snoj]

Moved to Jobs Offers forum.