Order Taking Systems for Small Business Web-sites

If the business is only selling a few products in a relatively small volume, it may be practical enough to create its own form on its web-site. Forms are not difficult to make. HTML tags for forms are placed in the body of the HTML on the page where the form is found. Within the form, HTML tags are used to create: text boxes, password boxes, check boxes, radio buttons, menus and more. Other tags will instruct the browser to route the collected data to a target server when the form is submitted. (Ladd 235-237.)

It is important to remember that web-servers don't process form-created data; they only read the data. Data processing has to be done with other programs. The most common type of program is a CGI program (a.k.a. a CGI script.) CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. It is a standardized way that a web browser can communicate with a (CGI) program. CGI programs are usually written in the languages of C and PERL. Through the form, the customer output is sent like a file to a specified location in the web-server. Through an interpreter program, the data is processed based on instructions from a CGI program at that location (Ladd 234, 691-694, Kabir 4-21.)

These instructions in the CGI program create the interactivity between customer and seller. Form data can be instructed to do just about anything. Basic form functions come alive with the various scripts. The designer of the site can program his/her own site (if he/she knows PERL or another programming language), or find existing scripts available for free or for a small fee. Some more complex scripts help a web designer create an account for continual log-in. There are scripts (programs) that can remember what the customer did the last time they logged on to the site, reminding them of what specific pages they went and what purchases they made. Scripts can generate HTML to form new web pages "on-the-fly" that access information on a data base. Visitors can perform calculations (like a loan calculator) with the aid of a CGI program. This analysis examined the pre-maid scripts available in a book published by Mohammed J. Kabir (see Bibliography.)