Book Image

Django 1.2 E-commerce

By : Jesse Legg
Book Image

Django 1.2 E-commerce

By: Jesse Legg

Overview of this book

<p>Django is a high-level Python web framework that was developed by a fast-moving online-news operation to meet the stringent twin challenges of newsroom deadlines and the needs of web developers. It provides an excellent basis to build e-commerce websites because it can be deployed fast and it responds quickly to changes due to its ability to handle content problems. Django with its proven strengths is all you need to build powerful e-commerce applications with a competitive edge. <br /><br />This book explores how the Django web framework and its related technologies can power the next leap forward for e-commerce and business on the Web. It shows you how to build real-world applications using this rapid and powerful development tool.<br /><br />The book will enable you to build a high quality e-commerce site quickly and start making money. It starts with the ambitious task of using Django to build a functional e-commerce store in less than 30 minutes, and then proceeds to enhance this design through the rest of the book. The book covers the basics of an e-commerce platform like product catalogs, shopping carts, and payment processing. By the end of the book, you will be able to enhance the application by adding a fully-functional search engine, generating PDF-based reports, adding interactivity to the user-interface, selling digital goods with micropayments, and managing deployment and maintenance tasks.</p>
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Django 1.2 e-commerce
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
Index

Chapter 7. Data and Report Generation

The needs of every e-commerce application can vary widely when it comes to reports, metrics, and data exports. Some businesses will want to capture detailed profiles of their customers and what they are purchasing in order to optimize promotions and marketing activities for their particular needs. Others will be interested in making data available internally, to provide the boss updates on how many jars of cranberry preserves sold in December last year versus this year.

In this chapter, we will discuss a toolbox of Python libraries and Django applications to assist with whatever reporting needs that may arise. These topics include:

  • Serializing and exposing data

  • Tracking and improving search engine rank using sitemaps

  • Generating charts and graph-based reports

  • Exporting information via RSS and Atom feeds

  • Salesforce integration

We will be using a variety of tools, many builtin to Django. As in other chapters, however, we will discuss some third-party libraries...