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Retrofit CactuShop to an existing static web site / database catalogue
Question
I have an existing web site and I want to add shopping cart functionality to some pages that I've already designed. Can I do this with CactuShop, just by adding some simple 'add to basket' buttons to my existing static pages? Can I fit the CactuShop code onto an existing product database?
Answer
CactuShop is an integrated system consisting of a database catalogue of product details as well as the code to update, display and handle these. It is not possible to integrate it to existing static pages or to retrofit it to an existing database.
If you have an existing static site and wish to add ecommerce functionality, the best method is to setup CactuShop to run in a subfolder of your site, and then design CactuShop's HTML/CSS skin so that it matches the look and feel of the rest of your site. You will have all the advantages of a dynamic, database-driven ecommerce web site but with the look and feel of your existing web site. You no longer need to manually create pages; just add new items to the back end and the navigation and new pages are taken care of automatically.
If you have an existing database of products that you wish to add CactuShop functionality to, the best route is to export your data to a flat-file format like CSV or Excel spreadsheet, and then use CactuShop's Data Tool to import it to the CactuShop database. Rewriting CactuShop scripts to work with an existing product database that has different tables, fields and structure is simply not a practical solution - it would take weeks or months and the cost would be prohibitive.