PHP 5 E-commerce Development Book from PACKT Publishing

22. Feb, 2010 0 Comments

Late last week I receive a fresh copy of one of the latest published book from PACKT Publishing, the “PHP 5 E-commerce Development“. I run a quick scan of the book’s chapters and it boast my interest to read and digest it. You can view the books table of contents here.

What you will learn from this book

Plan and develop a flexible, scalable PHP framework with emphasis on e-commerce
Implement the Model-View-Controller architecture within the framework and learn how to use the registry design pattern to centralize core features
Allow customers to customize their purchase by selecting product attributes, uploading files, and supplying custom text
Offer attractive incentives to your customers in the form of discount codes
Protect your e-commerce framework by keeping and maintaining regular backups
Structure an extendable framework to build a custom e-commerce web site
Add features such as product ratings and reviews from customers to enhance user experience
Maintain your site using campaign monitor and CAPTCHA tools
Create a shopping basket, manage its contents, structure the checkout and order process
Filled with useful marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and customer retention tips
Create a PHP framework to power your web site with a range of e-commerce features

This book will show you how to create your own PHP framework that can be extended and used with ease, particularly for e-commerce sites. Using this framework you will be able to display and manage products, customize products, create wish-lists, make recommendations to customers based on previous purchases, send email notifications when certain products are in stock, rate the products online, and much more.

This book helps you build a Model-View-Controller style framework, which is then used to put together an e-commerce application. The framework contains template management, database management, and user authentication management. With core functionality in place, e-commerce-focused features are gradually added to the framework including products, categories, customizable products with different variations and customer input, wish-lists, recommendations, the shopping basket, and a complete order process.

At the end of the book, you will have an e-commerce architecture that will take you from viewing or searching for products, and adding them to your basket, through the checkout process and making payment for your order, to your order being dispatched. Focus is placed on flexibility, so that the framework can be extended as the needs of a particular store change, as illustrated by one of the appendices, which goes through the process of modifying the store to sell downloadable products, as well as physical ones.

Supplementary information, such as how to market and promote an online store, as well as take regular backups and perform maintenance is also covered, ensuring you have every chance of success with you own e-commerce framework backed store. (book details form packtpub)

Soon I will be posting a review about this book here in this blog. But you can grab your copy right now!