Creating a shopping cart with additional information

[Cloverfield]

Hello everyone. Was just wondering if I could get a bit of help...I hope this is in the right section. Basically, does anyone have a tutorial, video or anything else on how to create a shopping cart which will then be taken to PayPal? All the ones I have read are pretty complex and a bit confusing. I need a shopping cart where when you choose one of the items you want to buy, you are then taken to another page where you can specify exactly what you want. For example, a Subway site, you choose the sub you want to buy and then on the next page you can choose all the salad you want on it, whether you want it cheese and toasted and THEN you are taken to your basket which says exactly what you have in there at the current time and how much it will cost and when people are happy they are then able to checkout and pay for it. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am very new to PHP and dynamic content like this so please go easy on me. Many thanks.

[mlseim]

There's way more to this than just that part of the transaction.
If I were you, I would install a pre-existing shopping cart script such
as CubeCart, OSCommerce, or ZenCart.

With those, you upload the photos, descriptions, prices, shipping, and options.
So each item might have several options (color, size, etc).

Those scripts handle all of the inventory control, customer ordering, invoices,
shipping, notification, and the actual credit card gateway to PayPal.

The customer does everything on your site except entering their personal name,
address and credit card info ... they are directed to PayPal's secure site for that.

Once the transaction is complete, it automatically goes back to your site and the
order info, confirmation number, inventory, etc. is adjusted and sent to you ... you
also have an administration panel to work with.

Using an existing script will not only save time, but it will give the user a bit more
confidence and you'll have a record of sales, inventory, etc.

And finally, PayPal has a free developer system where you can set up a "fake"
PayPal account to test your shopping cart. It processes everything just like a
real transaction, but the buyer, seller, and credit card is fake:
https://developer.paypal.com/

That PayPal developer is the key to testing and programming your shopping cart.

[Cloverfield]

Thanks for your reply but I think you are missing a part of my thread. With this 'installation' carts that I can download, will I be able to make this new page inbetween that I was telling you about? I already have the images and the price.

[sea4me]

Maybe....

why don't you do some research on which one is good, then play around with it to get familiar with PHP and then change it to what you need....

[mlseim]

With some of the shopping carts, the options are drop-down selection
boxes on the same page where the item is displayed along with price
and quantity selection. That puts it all in one place for the customer.

With your method, they have to deal with an extra page, and you have to
deal with remembering (cookies?) ... in case they hit their back button.
Could be a confusing mess.