Shopping cart question

March 7, 2005 11:07 AM

My friend has a skateboard shop he runs out of his garage. He has an online shopping cart set up but the person who did it disappeared and left no documentation. He want to update the cart but has no idea how to find out which cart he uses or where to go to find a control panel. Is there an easy way to tell which service he uses?
posted by onekat to computers & internet (6 comments total)

How about going to whereever items are added to the cart, right click, View Page Source, and search through the URL's starting with http:// or https:// . You might find a link to something like http://server.shopcart.com. Then you can visit that server or Google it to try to trace who hosts it. Also Firefox has Tools > Page Info > Links that shows you what servers are "hooked up" to the page.
posted by rolypolyman at 11:37 AM on March 7, 2005

Got a URL?
posted by mkultra at 12:53 PM on March 7, 2005

there might not even be a control panel, it could be homegrown, he really HAS to get someone with some know-how involved. that said he could:

ftp to the server and look for control panel / admin sounding file names (even then there may me password protection)

view source like rolypolyman said

it could be a package that comes with the web hosting provider, he could email them for help/information
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 1:49 PM on March 7, 2005

Was it an all-in-one shopping card and credit card processing package? If so, he could "buy" something from his site and look for company names/urls on the receipt and credit card statement.

View source is a good one. Aside from URLs, check for meta tags ("generator", especially) and/orcommented sections. Lots of companies stamp their name somewhere on the source.

<!--This is an HTML comment stating that NCM Inc. owns absolutely nothing, sadly. -->

A lot of shopping carts have a distinctive URL signature or characteristic UI. If you can give a link, someone here can probably ID the cart as long as wasn't a homebrew.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 3:21 PM on March 7, 2005

Did the missing developer have an online portfolio? Even if it's gone now, archive.org might have a copy. In which case you could check around to find out if other clients know what cart he set them up on. Probably the same all around.

For that matter, the developer's website itself may have more direct clues. It's not uncommon for fly-by-nighters to pad out the resume by naming every brand name piece of semi-relevant technology that one *cough* has ever touched for longer than 5 minutes. Likewise, if he'd handcoded a shopping cart app, that'd surely be mentioned.

Also check the old bills for setup or maintenance work. A product name could get mentioned there too.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 3:32 PM on March 7, 2005

If you give us the URL, somebody can probably tell you the score right quick.
posted by Leonard at 5:16 AM on March 8, 2005