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hadi
Starting Member
USA
37 Posts |
 Posted - 16 August 2005 : 21:04:44
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Hi guys,
I am trying to set up an auction/bookstore like website, where students from various schools can trade their school books, and I am looking for a free script (PHP or ASP) to run this website.
Here is exactly what I am trying to do:
Each visitor would go to the main page and select a school. After selecting a school, they can either browse books by subject or by searching (search should retreive only results for selected school). Once you have located the book you want, you can bid for it and the contact information for the seller (person who has the book) is revealed to the top bidder (person who wants the book). Furthermore, to promote sharing, I want each registered user to have a starting amount of virtual money and this money is used to make bids offers. So, for each additional books you trade, you get more virtual money.
Also, I want a form to upload new book info (like listing auction items) and a form to register.
Finally, the information collected on each item listed on the site would be like those displayed in a bookstore (such as title, author, ISBN,etc.) and those displayed in a auction site (such as min. bid, time offer expires, bid history, etc.).
So, can anyone help me out on how to approach this? I can manage the interface and the html aspect of such a site but I don't have the experience to setup such a database and make it more automated.
thanks in advance for your help,
Hadi
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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
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hadi
Starting Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 18 August 2005 : 15:51:12
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thanks pdrg,
I did not know about this commerce starter kit. I was searching for some free template at other places but I think this one seems like the perfect one for commerce. The only thing that remains is a free host site and a way for users to list their own products (auction style) instead of me adding them.
thanks again for your help.
Hadi |
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AnonJr
Moderator
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 18 August 2005 : 16:01:55
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A "Classic" ASP solution can be found from DUWare. Their setup is fairly bare-bones - but you can let anybody add products, and it has an add-on to link directly to Amazon.
The only thing that worries me (I had considered using thier portal for a different project - but I digress..) is that they haven't updated anything in the last year. I haven't seen any updates or anything remotely close to the community that exsists here. If this doesn't bother you or you are feeling brave, I think it could work. |
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hadi
Starting Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 18 August 2005 : 16:12:24
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AnonJr,
I will try to see if I could use certain codes or features. But you are right in that it looks plain and limited. Also, no updates also signals potential problems in the future.
thanks,
Hadi |
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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
Posted - 19 August 2005 : 04:55:19
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yep - I think you're right to be aware of the risk factors involved when you have any kind of 'bidding' (cash, pojnts, etc) as it makes systems attractive to attack, so you have to work twice as hard to lock it down. Using something freshly maintained ought to help :D
For the listing, you could write yourself an 'upload pending approval' page (to stop idiots, basically) with ISBN, user details, etc, so you get your data in the right kinda format, and can just copy the appropriate ones into the ibuyspy db. That way you can also offer a 'buy it at amazon' link or somesuch too, in the hope of a bit of affiliate commission. Don't know any good free .NET hosts though :( |
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hadi
Starting Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 19 August 2005 : 20:58:45
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pdrg,
I totally agree with you about the upload thing. A little revenue is not a bad idea either. Also, being a newbee in everything programing related, I might ask for your assistance further in the future. I hope you don't mind.
best regards,
Hadi |
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Ghostnetworks
New Member
95 Posts |
Posted - 21 August 2005 : 18:48:41
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IBuySpy is definitely worth your time.
There are a bunch of portals/carts based on it too. A lot of the hard work is not so hard with this one 
If you need a pure auction site, then take a peek at XCent. Looks basic, but you can customize it as much as needed.
But I'd go with a full shopping cart like osCommerce so you won't just be stuck with auctions. Trust me, there's nothing quite as painful as upgrading once your site code is hard set ( Think concrete ).
You can maybe try Xoops for the front end of your site.
You can tone down a lot of the features until you have a slim setup with just what you need.
While you grow, you can slowly add/enable features as needed.
The initial osCommerce setup isn't really my cup of tea, so you can maybe browse a few templates from 7Dana.com |
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pdrg
Support Moderator
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
Posted - 22 August 2005 : 03:32:56
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Hadi - of course, anytime :) Beware though, I'm proper rusty now (syntax-wise at least, certainly ASP & .NET) but I'm still razor-sharp on my SQL Theory ;-)
GNW - looks like a list of great options there - excellent response :) |
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hadi
Starting Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 20 September 2005 : 19:49:29
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sorry to trouble everyone again but does anyone know of a free PHP host so that I could test out this osCommerce package?
Obviously, I would like 50MB or more storage space, a decent badwidth, mySQL, etc. |
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Astralis
Senior Member
USA
1218 Posts |
Posted - 20 September 2005 : 20:44:48
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| Not asp, but Rapid Classifieds would let anyone add their products and prices. No auction-style though. They can, though have a "OBO (or best offer)" and let people contact them. It's free. |
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