Importing custom SQL to Ecommerce

Hi everybody!

I have a potential client who sells cosmetic products in wholesale.

He has over 1.000 active products made by several different industries in about a dozen categories.

The thing is that he currently uses a custom made software for keeping track of sales and inventory, completely offline, which is great and he’s happy with it and he wants to keep it exactly as it is, especially since all of his staff already knows how to use this software and all.

Initially he told me he didn’t want an e-commerce website, that he could manage the sales offline. Later I understood that he does need a site where the user can browse through the products, add them in bulk to the cart, selecting quantities for each product, etc… He just doesn’t want to manage the sales through one of these online systems since he already has one in place… So he could make it work with just receiving a form with every purchase for example so we would only have to automate how the forms come into an email and then onto their offline system.

I am in touch with the developer who created and manages this software but his knowledge is limited when it comes to the internet, he’s more of an old school system analyst, kinda guy. But he tells me he has this database in SQL and that he could export it in the best way possible, to be determined by whatever CMS I decide to use.

In my end, I wish I knew more about coding but I’m really a designer and my skills are also very limited on this front. So here are my questions;

  1. (here’s looking at you, Webflow guys @callmevlad, @PixelGeek, @cyberdave @thesergie)

What organ of my body would I have to give up, to have you guys help me import this directly into Webflow’s CMS? I could create the CMS structure according to the database and then you could do a little magic and shazam, all the data would be instantly imported into the website I design the way I want using only my beloved Webflow. - I’m pretty sure that’s not even possible but it was worth a shot…

2 . (or perhaps one of you guys can help me out here, @AlexN, @Arthur @Waldo @sabanna @Revolution)

Is there a more appropriate tool for this particular case? Do you know if any of the other systems (Ecwid, Shopify, Paystand…) or even something on Wordpress or Woocommerce or whatever, would support this kind of bulk importing?

Thank you all so much for your time and input…

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Sorry. I cannot address the CMS feature… as (currently) I don’t use it.

If you were more interested in developing a non-static website

  • that could be developed in Webflow (or directly with Bootstrap or Foundation)…

  • then be exported and modified to use a server-side scripting language (php, coldfusion, or asp) to add
    more functionality / intelligence to the site…

  • and work with the existing (or new) back-end (MS SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle)…

then I could probably give you some direction / advice / consultation. Not sure what you are seeking.

Based on the conversations I’ve seen

  • I’m pretty certain the Webflow CMS can handle the task.

But as you’ve indicated… getting the data into Webflow is the concern.

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@Revolution

Thanks a lot…! Maybe I could outsource this part of the job to you, would you be interested? Just sent you a msg…

Hey @AlanBorger,

Were you or Revolution able to create this in Webflow? If not, what solution did you guys use? Care to share?

Cheers,

Diana

Not with webflow…

I had to use opencart and run a script to import the data from a spreadsheet…

Still think that’s something @webflow should take a look at, If we are to try to convince our clients to switch from Wordpress, they will need to be able to import their original database to the new website (CMS), even if that would require some custom code or configuring the spreadsheet according to your CMS structure…

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Thanks @AlanBorger for sharing.

I think @Webflow is working on it … like everything else. They announced that they are creating some API, so maybe after that’s launched we could do so. Hoping here. :smiley:

But you’re right. This is important now that they’ve implemented CMS … it is time for them to up the game in the backend space. Keeping the visual CMS concept but allowing more backend customization. This is necessary, especially when we need to host with Webflow in order to use the tool. Though, I would love a export feature!

If you don’t mind, care to show and tell your opencart site?

Checked out opencart, I like their dashboard and best of all open source. More customization than Webflow. How would you recommend them?

Thank you.

Cheers,

Diana

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We’re still working on it but I can share it when we’re done…

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