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Today is the day that Booksaround, an Australian Online Second hand bookstore is launched.

The CMS for BooksAround was written from scratch and utilises the CakePHP 1.2 framework for everything from inventory management through to payment processing and order fulfillment.

Why CakePHP you ask? Well CakePHP offers a strong yet flexible PHP framework to kickstart application development allowing for a shorter build time and a more affordable project for the client.

 The BooksAround CMS allows staff to Add, Edit and Remove books from the database with the ease of integrated Barcode Scanning and automated lookups to ISBN databases such as Amazon and Book Finder. The CMS also allows staff to assign a book source (or Vendor) to each entry in the database and a commission percent, upon sale of a book the application will automatically calculate how much is oweing to the vendor from that sale and apply it to their account.

Payments are processed in real-time through PayPal with their Websites Payments Standard product and the items purchased are automatically marked as sold and Order/Shipping information is sent through to a designated staff member who deals with shipping fulfilment. By using PayPal we were able to completely automate the whole order process from start to finish to ensure that the end-user feels confident in placing an order and that the Site Owner can rest assured that the funds will be cleared before the order is processed.

Nearly every aspect of the site can be modified through the CMS allowing the Site Owner to take complete control of the site and its contents, adding/removing a book, changing vendor details, generating sales reports and even editing page content in real-time are available at their fingertips.

All in all the project was a pleasure to work on and the end result surpassed my expectations on the limited budget, CakePHP once again ame to the party by offering an amazing framework to start with and followed through with a solid, speedy and self contained end product.

 So go on over and check out BooksAround.com, there are currently nearly 1,000 books available at a great price and you even receive a 10% discount by ordering online!

-Dean