About MetaCart2 for VeriSign's PayFlow Link

Overview
Hardware/Software Requirements
Credit Card Processing
Installation/Setup
Support/Add-ins
Browser-based Administration
The MetaCart Demos

Overview

The MetaCart2 eCommerce Shopping Cart System for Small Businesses and Developers contains many, but not all, of the new features implemented in the recent release of MetaCart2 for SQL Server. As with our other e-Commerce software applications, MetaCart2 for PayFlow Link's HTML code remains fully customizable for easy integration into your web site. To customize and integrate the application into your own site, you will need to know basic HTML and have some familiarity with Active Server Pages, VBScript and MS Access databases.

With MetaCart2 for PayFlow Link, your electronic storefront will have the same capabilities and functionality as MetaCart2 , including:

• Catalogs and products are fully searchable from every page by category, product name, product description, or price level.
• Database administration and order processing is accomplished through an integrated browser-based interface.
• Processed transactions can be archived through the same administrative interface.
• Automatic application-based customer, shipping, and warehouse e-mail notification using Microsoft's Collaboration Data Objects (CDONTS).

In addition, MetaCart2 for PayFlow Link allows for:

• real-time credit card processing using VeriSign's PayFlow Link,
• in-state sales tax calculations,
• automated inventory reporting and updating,
• calculation of shipping charges based on weight,and
• support for subcategories under main catalog listings.

MetaCart2 for PayFlo Link is a web-based shopping system based on Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technology hooked to a Microsoft Access 2000 (*.mdb) database.

After installation and setup, the system readies your site for eCommerce. Customers can peruse your catalog of products and add the items they wish to purchase to their "shopping basket."

The customer then enters shipping and payment details and submits his/her order, which is then processed and posted to the database.

Hardware/Software Requirements

To use MetaCart2 for PayFlow Link, your eCommerce site will need to be hosted on a web server that supports Active Server Pages, such as Microsoft NT Server with at least Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0 or Windows 2000 Server with IIS 5.0. The application uses a DSNless connection to the database.

You will also need a good website design and HTML editing program (such as FrontPage 2000 or Visual InterDev 6.0), and Microsoft Access. MetaCart2 was developed using FrontPage 2000, Visual Basic 6.0, and Visual InterDev 6.0 on a Windows 2000 platform using Visual Studio 6.0 with Personal Web Server and Windows NT Option Pack 4. The MetaCart2 demo is hosted on a Windows 2000 NT Server. 

For MetaCart2 to work properly on your local Windows NT or Windows 95/98 machine, you will need to have Microsoft Personal Web Server 4.0 with Windows NT Option Pack 4 installed. You can download the option pack from Microsoft's web site.

The only requirement for your customers is that their machine accept cookies since the application uses browser-based session cookies for some features. The cookies expire when the user session expires. No cookies are permanently stored on the customer's computer.

Credit Card Processing

The application assumes you will do real-time credit card processing using a subscription to VeriSign's PayFlow Link credit card processing system. To use MetaCart2 for PayFlow Link for real-time credit card processing, you will also need an online merchant account with a bank.

For a complete rundown of accepting credit cards online, see the article, "What You Will Need - Plain and Simple."

Additional Installation/Setup Instructions

Additional installation and setup instructions, as well as the End-User License Agreement, are included in the README_DSNless.txt file and , in the MetaCart2 for PayFlow Link eCommerce application download package. Use of MetaCart2 for PayFlow Link is governed by the terms of this Agreement.