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November 30, 2020
COVID-19 is changing people’s shopping habits.
For example, 73% of grocery consumers in the U.S. are shopping less in person, according to a study by C+R Research. Payments technology company Visa had similar findings. Eight in 10 global consumers have changed the way they pay for items, with 45% saying they now shop only online because of the pandemic.
As more and more people visit e-commerce sites instead of brick-and-mortar shops, businesses face more pressure to launch digital storefronts. Now is the perfect time to offer your products and services on the cloud!
Here’s how we built our online store app template on Caspio and how you too can launch your e-commerce app without coding.
Want to quickly deploy your e-commerce app? Request our FREE Caspio online store template now.
With Caspio’s online database platform, it’s easy to transition to the cloud or even start a digital business. Here are some benefits of building your shopping cart app on Caspio:
All your information is hosted in the cloud, from store details, products and pricing, to special offers. Caspio’s online database platform makes it easier to access your store’s data on most devices, without infrastructure or connection restrictions.
Caspio lets you create a custom admin portal to track your online store’s performance in real-time. Need to make on-the-fly adjustments to your online inventory? Check your reports and dashboards and be more responsive based on how your current offerings perform.
Building your shopping cart software on a cloud database platform gives you the flexibility to integrate your data with other e-commerce solutions. Planning to launch an email marketing campaign for a holiday sale or special promotion? Integrate Caspio with Mailchimp to easily create email lists with automated send-outs and replies. Integrate Caspio with Shopify for more customization options for product listings.
Caspio connects with more than 5,000 popular web services via Zapier.
Dealing with credit card and online payment data? Keep your business and your customers safe from data breaches and credit card fraud. Caspio complies with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, which enforces controls to keep credit card information safe.
It’s no surprise that Caspio customers love our free online store template. It’s easy to deploy and works for any industry. Here’s a detailed guide on how we built it. Take note that these steps apply to any custom app development project on Caspio, too.
If you’re new to Caspio, go ahead and start a free trial first to gain access to all the features you’ll need to create this shopping cart app.
Time to get started!
Keep your development sprint on-spec by drafting a clear outline of your goals. Feel free to use any format but make sure it includes user roles and app features.
Begin with only the essential functions of your online store. Simply update the document and implement app improvements later on. Focusing on core features will allow you to complete your task faster.
For our online store template, we settled on the following user roles:
We also identified these core functions or app interfaces:
As it is, our design document promises a complete shopping cart app with self-managed interfaces for visitors, customers and administrators. We encourage you to add or take away any functionality to tailor the e-commerce app based on your unique business needs.
The first elements you need to create inside the Caspio platform are your database tables. They serve as the foundation of any Caspio-powered app you deploy in the cloud.
Shopping cart software come in a variety of shapes and sizes, so you might find yourself designing your own database structure. However, the tables and views below will provide you with a great starting point. Note: to standardize our naming convention, we used ECM, which stands for E-Commerce Management.
Caspio also allows users to design table relationships and “view” criteria using drag-and-drop tools. Views are considered virtual tables that don’t really hold any data; they function as permanent filters that either restrict a subset of fields or combine related tables.
The next thing you need to do is set up user roles. Our free online store template has two users aside from public visitors: registered customers and store administrators. We built Views to filter them out into active users and active admins. Use these Views as data sources when you create your login forms under Authentications.
However, that’s not the only way you can go about this step.
You can also use database tables with fields containing the name, email and password of users. Caspio also supports login via external ID services like Twitter or Google ID. Another popular option is for companies to use their existing corporate credentials on all Caspio apps. This is done by implementing a premium feature called SAML single sign-on.
With your database tables and user authentications ready, it’s time to build app interfaces, or DataPages. Think of them as website widgets like forms, reports, charts and more that make up the entire online store. Caspio provides a quick and easy way to build multiple DataPages with intuitive point-and-click tools. Our guided development approach is designed with business users in mind, especially those with no coding experience.
When you open our free online store template on your Caspio account, you’ll find a total of 59 ready-to-use DataPages under the following categories:
All you need to do now is deploy your app interfaces online! It’s as simple as copying our generated code snippet and pasting it on your website. You have full control on the layout and design to match your unique brand.
There you have it! Your very own online store is now open for business.
With the right Caspio plan, you can also connect your e-commerce app with popular payment gateways like PayPal Express and Stripe. The Caspio platform is PCI-compliant, and can process real-time transactions in a secure and safe environment.
A full-featured online store may be the first thing you need to digitally transform your business today, but it definitely won’t be the last. Go beyond offering your products online by bringing your entire business to the cloud.
Conceptualize, create and deploy applications that raise productivity, streamline project management and improve conversions. Caspio’s no-code platform makes it possible for people with little to no coding background.
Here are a few more app templates available to download for free with a Caspio account:
Interested in Caspio’s online store app or any of these ready-to-use application templates?
Schedule a demo with our platform experts and start leveraging Caspio to digitally transform your business today.