How to Create a Simple PHP MYSQL Shopping Cart

CREATE A PHP MYSQL
SHOPPING CART

I am Robert Tou
I am a web developer and
share the love for
programming by giving
free presentations.
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Everyday life is like programming, I guess.
If you love something you can put beauty
into it.
- Donald Knuth

1) THE DATABASE
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» Create a database to hold the products and orders first.
» Products – Product ID, Name, Description.
» Orders – Order ID, Name, Order Date.
» Ordered Products – Product ID, Order ID, Quantity.
» You can further expand on the database, but these
should are the basic requirements.

2) PRODUCTS CATALOG
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» Create a HTML page to pull and display the products.
» Connect to the database, and use a simple “SELECT *
FROM `products`” SQL query to pull the data.
» Use a while loop to generate a table, layout the products
as you deem fit.
» Remember to attach an “add to cart” button for each
product.

3) CART ACTIONS I
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» Recommended to use AJAX to handle the add to cart.
» Use jQuery to speed up your development.
» Pass the selected product ID via AJAX to another PHP
script to handle the add action.
» Start the session, and record the cart in a simple array of
product ID => quantity.

4) CART ACTIONS II
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» Handle the rest of the actions in a similar manner via
AJAX.
» Javascript fires an AJAX request to the PHP handler.
» Change quantity and remove items from the session cart.

5) CHECKOUT
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» Show the checkout button if there is at least 1 item in the
cart.
» Similar AJAX process.
» Record cart into the database, wipe off the session, then
redirect the customer to a thank you page.

Thank you!
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For the complete guide and source code,
please visit Code Boxx:
https://code-boxx.com/simple-phpmysql-shopping-cart/

CREDITS
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Special thanks to all the people who made and released these
awesome resources for free:
» Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
» Photographs by Unsplash
» Diverse device hand photos by Facebook Design Resources