Basic startup help needed

Posted on: Tue, 29/05/2007 - 15:46
Basic startup help needed

Hi All
I am in the planning stages of my company which will be selling some gift items online and I am stuck with some basics that I need help on:

Product IDs
I will be using an asp shopping cart which allows to handle all the payment side of things online. The shopping cart uses microsoft access database in the backend which can be upgraded to mysql. This requires unique product IDs for products. I have never been involved with retail linked items so I dont know how I should create unique product ids.
1. Should they be something that can help me identify where the product is from and who supplied it (they will come from different countries) so I can reorder?
2. In cases where products are items like handicrafts which will mean new products everytime I order, do I keep assigning new ids to them or reassign old ones?
3. Does having a bar code make it easier rather than trying to create an id with numbers and letters everytime?

These are some of the questions I am very unsure about. I will really appreciate it if anyone can help - apologies if this is really basic stuff but if there is somewhere on the web or books that can help overcome this problem, please do let me know.

regards, jkk


Posted on: Sun, 03/06/2007 - 20:18 #1
Product ID's

Hello jkk

Easy one this. I suspect that every product you buy in will have a product code from your supplier, I suggest you use this code. Also input the bar code and purchase a barcode scanner. Now you need to think this out backwards! Group your products into families, in order to sell them. E.G. For selling purposes all the bath soaps from all six suppliers are on the same page, 'the soap page'. For buying in and stock control each supplier has their own page.

Then for your buying in purposes you could then work on pack sizes, minimum or free delivery size/amount orders from your suppliers. In the perfect world you would have enough stock to satisfy demand without overstocking and your dead stock would be minimul. Dead stock could form part of a when it's gone it's gone sale.

We use this system down to minimum and maximum stock and at what point we re order. Dead stock, fast sellers, buy in for certain clients and when we anticpate they will come in and purchase same.

Kind regards

Harry R Smith

Harry R Smith

Posted on: Wed, 13/06/2007 - 00:29 #2
If you need a hand...

Hi JKK,

I am new to the business side of things but I have been employing databases in my websites for years and if you are doing them yourself and need any help with them then please dont hesitate to give me a shout. I am always willing to help.

Admittedly I am an SQL person but I think the basics are the same.
John

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