FLASH: Shopping cart application

[Cheryl Harder]

Hi, everybody


I'm attempting to build a shopping cart application using Flash/ASP/Access.

I know, I'm not the first, but haven't seen too many of them yet.  Also know

I'm spending time "reinventing the wheel" but cannot find an existing

shopping cart application I can really get hooks into to attach it to a

Flash front-end, besides THEY get all the money, and I want some!  <grin>


At any rate, I'm trying to decide how to divide the load of work amongst the

three tiers of the application and need advice.  Obviously, I will need the

database to track the store, product, sales and customer information...so I

need Access and ASP at the start and end of the transaction (search - view -

order - cart - checkout/confirm - sale is the way I see the functionality

flow, and I need the database for the search-to-view and the

checkout-to-sale parts.)  My question is, would it be better to "hold" the

cart (order-in-progress) at the Flash end and just send it back to the

database when complete?  Or should I track it in the database the entire

time?


I can see pros & cons of either way:


If aborted (computer hung or customer paused for any reason) the order would

be saved if it were being held in the database


Less server traffic/bandwidth "waiting" if on client


When sale complete, would already be on the server if on server (so who

cares?)


Could do data mining statistical analysis if all the orders were in the

database, including the cancelled ones.


Easier to build it in Flash (for me, anyway....)


Any other thoughts?


~~~~Cheri Harder~~~~~

charderawsolution [dot] com

Advantage Web Solution

www.awsolution.com



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