Question
I am gathering pricing data for an e-commerce site that is dependent on the previous selection. For example:
Product selected (29 choices ) > type of coating (6 choices) > size (12 choices) > sides printed (3 choices- 4:0, 4:1, 4:4) > quantity (15 choices) > PRICE. Then, shipping (6 choices).
I know it seems pretty straightforward, but because it's a tedious job gathering all of the information, I don't want to find out there's a better way to do it or a better format when I hand the spreadsheet over to my developer. What do I need to be mindful of when gathering dependent data that will be dumped into a database and fuel an e-commerce site?
Answer
Start with a LAMP Stack - Linux + Apache + MariaDB + PHP.
Be sure to use latest Ubuntu (Linux) as your OS.
Be sure to use latest MariaDB rather than MySQL for your database.
Hire someone who's written a truckload of SQL over decades.
Have them design your database, based on how products will be accessed + searched for, as this will determine speed of your system.
Can't tell you the number of clients I've taken on in my private hosting company, where years worth of code + database design has to be scrapped because it was done incorrectly.
Hire an expert to do this right... the first time + you'll save yourself a huge amount of time + money + you'll be able to sleep well at night.
