Beginning E-Commerce: with Visual Basic, ASP, SQL Server 7.0 and MTS

E-commerce is one of the major concerns taxing the minds of business people everywhere, but such is the nature of the Web that any organization, large or small, can participate in this new business paradigm. This book will show how you can build a fully functioning e-commerce site, which will support selling over the Internet, by following the development of an example Web site for a small business. During the book, we fully discuss all the practical steps needed to build the site. We describe building the supporting database, the Visual Basic code needed to enforce business rules and control transactional processing, and the ASP pages that will present the site to the visitor. In addition, we outline the new marketing strategies you'll need to implement in order to move a business from being a retailer to becoming an e-tailer accessible by a worldwide customer base. Who is this book for? This book is for VB programmers, with a grasp of ASP and SQL, who want to leverage their skills into producing high quality, low cost e-commerce solutions for small businesses. This book will take you from application development to ISP-hosted solution deployment. To get the most from this book you'll need Visual Basic 6.0, SQL Server 7.0, and either PWS or IIS. What does this book cover? • Introduction to the concept of e-business • Designing a Web based application for online selling • Creating a database suitable for supporting commerce • Building VB components to support order processing • Using commercially available services for facilitating credit card transactions • How to deploy your site to an ISP • Customer support in an online environment • Making use of Web technologies in advanced marketing