E-Commerce Database General Q.

[CiwanK]

Hello fellow database enthusiasts ! :)

A friend of mine owns a print shop, and business isn't going well right now. So he has asked me to develop him a website. The website's aim is to allow people to make orders for prints.

I'm stronger in ASP.NET than I am in PHP. So I was thinking I would go with ASP.NET (C#).

My question is this. Should I start from scratch ? Or Would it be better to get something e-commerce that's Open Source and tweak it to do that job ?

I await your response.

Thank You.

[debasisdas]

Better start designing from scratch and keep adding new stuff as your requirements keep on changing.

[CiwanK]

I think you're right debasisdas.

I will start with a very simple database and functionality, just to test the essentials first.

I'll show you the ERD when I'm done with it.

Thank You.

[debasisdas]

You need to keep on thing in mind , don't be too rigid on core database design. There should be enough room for addition of new features and new functionality at a later stage. Since you are going for a e-commerce application changes are bound to come.

[CiwanK]

Thanks Debasisdas.

Here is the ERD I've come up with. Could you kindly check its logic to see if its feasible or not.

http://i55.tinypic.com/314otiq.jpg

Each Customer can have many orders. Each order has a Business Card Product ID (Bcard_ID) and a Non Carbon Required Product ID (Ncr_ID).

Both of these are Nullable, cause a customer can order 1 and not the other and visa versa.

The quantity of product for each order is made by the print company and not the customer. Here is the sort of data that will be saved in the BCARD_PRODUCT table:

http://i55.tinypic.com/a1pchy.jpg

I realize that for normalisation purposes, I can put the Quantity into its own table. > I can do that later. But is the main logic of the database design feasible ?

I await your response.

Thank You