Need advice for those with Online Retail design experience.

ZeroXD

Hello there, I'm looking for some ideas / suggestions / advice on designing a online retailer website.

Although I am pretty experienced with computers and windows environments, this WILL be my first time creating a website, so I want to start off on the right foot.

Basically, my biggest question revolves around which languages and technologies are most practical and secure for online retailing (while still being relatively new user friendly)?

There's so many possibilities it's kind of daunting, html, xhtml, php, css, ajax.. I don't know where I should start. Any advice is welcome.

rockacola

since you are using a php webhost, I'm gonna assume you are ruling out ASP, Ruby and other non-PHP as server side language.

HTML + CSS is the basics if you want to build a professional looking website. Using only client-side pages, it'll be much easier to develop and you can setup a form that asks your customer to email you.

if you want more than static website, you will need at least HTML + CSS + PHP to provide the usual features you see on a normal shopping site. eg/ shopping cart, user-management, product-management.

On top of that, you may use javascript to add some rich interaction with your customer, include user experience on your site.

GB

I agree. XHTML + CSS is the way to go. It's clean, backwards compatible if you're careful and easy to update. PHP will give you your shopping cart capability. Good luck with your new site!

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