Electronic commerce has been an important and viable part of the Internet for well over a decade now. From the behemoths like Amazon.com to the mom-and-pop online stores, e-commerce is performed in a number of ways. Despite the dozen, or hundred, of failures for every single commercial success, e-commerce can still be an excellent business tool when done properly. And yet, surprisingly, there are very few books dedicated to the subject.

Using two concrete examples, plus plenty of theory, this book covers the fundamentals of developing e-commerce Web sites using PHP and MySQL. Emphasizing security, a positive customer experience, and modular, extendable programming, this book presents tons of detailed solutions to today’s real-world e-commerce demands. Whether you’ve been creating dynamic Web sites for years or just weeks, you’re bound to learn something new over the course of the next 11 chapters.

In this comprehensive guide to creating an e-commerce Web site using PHP and MySQL, renowned author Larry Ullman walks you through every step—designing the visual interface, creating the database, presenting content, generating an online catalog, managing the shopping cart, handling the order and the payment process, and fulfilling the order—always with security and best practices emphasized along the way. Even if you’re an experienced Web developer, you’re guaranteed to learn something new. The book uses two e-commerce site examples—one based on selling physical products that require shipping and delayed payment, and another that sells non-physical products to be purchased and delivered instantly—so you see the widest possible range of e-commerce scenarios. In 11 engaging, easy-to-follow chapters, Effortless E-Commerce with PHP and MySQL teaches you how to:

• Think of the customer first, in order to maximize sales
• Create a safe server environment and database
• Use secure transactions and prevent common vulnerabilities
• Incorporate different payment gateways
• Design scalable sites that are easy to maintain
• Build administrative interfaces
• Extend both examples to match the needs of your own sites

Larry Ullman is the president of Digital Media and Communications Insights, Inc., a firm specializing in information technology (www.dmcinsights.com). He is the author of several bestselling programming and Web development books, including PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide. Larry also writes articles on these subjects and teaches them in small and large group settings. Despite working with computers, programming languages, databases, and such since the early 1980s, Larry still claims he’s not a computer geek (but he admits he can speak their language).