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By Joseph Go - Sun 17 Oct 2010
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Hi I need more info on Kartris products. I develop in C# and also using ADO.NET SQL Server via Linq. Can I integrate Kartris source code into my ASP and Silverlight projects? Or is it more a standalone web page that I can direct people to? Either way is fine, I just need to know more. Not clear where on your website I would find this info.
Also whether the fee--I think it was roughly $1000 a year per site--is annual or one-time.
Joe
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By Paul - Mon 18 Oct 2010
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Kartris is designed as a standalone ecommerce web site package. So once installed, it handles everything from displaying products and providing cart functionality on the front end, to managing the admin functions on the back end.
It is written in VB.net, but is compiled, so the bulk of the code-behind is not available at this point (although we hope to have developer licenses with access to this in future). The aspx and ascx pages, as well as the full css themes and .master files are available to edit. Also, all db operations are done via stored procedures through a DAL and BLL. So you have these sprocs source code as part of the database. All in all, it should give pretty good access to the data and the code that affects look and feel. You should get a clear idea of how it is structured if you download the zip from our site, even before installing it.
Regarding the price, a new license is 840 USD. This is not an annual cost - the license is good for 100 years (so effectively indefinite). It will support upgrades for 1 year (in other words, you can run kartris versions issued up to one year after the license).
Worth remembering too that the free license will work with up to 500 products with some limitations (no SSL support, so fine if using a remote payment gateway like Paypal that does not require it).
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By Joseph Go - Sat 23 Oct 2010
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Paul--this is great. I'll add you to my contacts but if possible can you provide a bit more information (at your leisure--I'll calendar to check this in a week)?
I like Kartris since it supports Google/Paypal--for me to replicate this would take 100 years ! :-)
Here's how I envision using Kartris--please correct me where I'm wrong. For example: I have coded in C# Silverlight and WCF a web app that uses a SQL Server 2008 database, stored on my web server (actually a company I rent from, but same thing), with the web methods to and from the database secured via Forms Authentication and AES encryption. Now let's say I have a client that is selling products that require a "checkout" page. Here's what I envision:
1) I have programmed a Silverlight app for a client that uses a database as stated above. I have a link in my Silverlight app that says "Click here for checkout" and when the user clicks, I redirect from my Silverlight app to a Kartris .aspx 'standalone' page as provided by your software. The standalone page is stored on my web server. Along with the redirect I send a custom cookie from my Silverlight app perhaps? Otherwise, how does the Kartris standalone app know what was ordered? (see #2 below as well).
2) The Kartris standalone page does its magic. What this magic is I'm not sure but here's a guess: I am assuming from 1) that I send a cookie with the product that is to be purchased, along with quantity and price, etc. But come to think of it, I'm not sure that's necessary. Perhaps at the Kartris stand-alone page there's room for customization where you can add products, product icon, product price, product quantity, shipping discount, etc. If so, that makes it even easier to integrate Kartris into my app, at a cost of some flexibility (for example, using Silverlight I can do animation of icons, which in ASP is harder to do). In any rate...
3) When the Kartris standalone page does its magic--whatever that magic is--an order is taken. Now where is the order information kept? (Credit card number, amount the consumer just ordered, type of product, his/her address, etc)? Is this kept on my client's database? Or a separate database? If my database, it would be a bit awkward to integrate. If a separate database (that I assume I can store anywhere, including my web server) then it's a bit easier. If a separate database, is it SQL Server 2008? 2005? Express or full blown SQL Server? God forbid, though I guess it should not matter, is in Unix based?
I really don't care about Kartris source code, as long as I can figure out a way to integrate Kartris into my Silverlight solution. It sounds like it's just what I need, and it will save me a lot of programming time.
I will check this forum post in a week to 10 days, so no rush.
Thank you,
Joe
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By Paul - Sun 24 Oct 2010
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I am not sure it would be simple to integrate kartris in this way.
The Kartris checkout is very reliant on other integrated features. This is because in the basket/cart, we don't store price, item name, etc. Instead we just store a pointer ID to the product record, and the quantity (it is slightly more complicated as we can also store options info and text customizations; but trying to keep it simple).
So any item you want to checkout with would have to be already set up in the main Kartris database.
Regarding storing order details, these are indeed stored in Kartris. But card data isn't.
The purpose of Paypal and Google Checkout is that the card authorization and billing is handled off-site by them. So the card details themselves are never entered into Kartris. There are some alternatives such as SagePay VSP Direct where the card details are entered into a secure page on Kartris, although these are still not stored - instead Kartris passes them over to SagePay to get authorization, and stores the response with the order. One of the advantages of using Paypal etc. is that you avoid PCI compliance issues, since the web site does not 'store or transmit card data'.
Google Checkout is quite difficult to integrate with, as the whole checkout process really runs on Google Checkout. Paypal is simpler. But from what you're describing, you might be better off just using the 'buy now' button functionality on Paypal, which I think essentially does what you're describing - allowing you to pass links to it to purchase particular items, and pay for them.
Kartris is more suited to running a whole site, including product catalogue, basket/cart functionality, order history, stock management and so on.
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