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PunkRockVideos.com

Profile
Punkrockvideos.com is a site where fans of punk rock and indie music can trade or purchase videos online. The only problem was that even though the catalog was available online, purchases had to be made via snail mail or via a disjointed interface with PayPal. The catalog itself was merely a long HTML page where new videos were simply added to the bottom of the page.

Solution
In discussing how to revamp the web site, it was decided that making the entire thing database-driven was the best solution. Doing this enabled us to create a totally customizable video catalog, where videos could quickly and easily be searched through and edited on the fly. In fact, building search capabilities took no time at all once the database was in place. Additionally, using a database to handle video and customer information allowed us to create custom views for Punkrockvideos.com admins to see what kind of people were ordering videos and to easily update their order status.

Technology
To make all of this happen we used a combination of PHP and MySQL to drive the work behind the scenes. Because PHP and MySQL are very fast, customers have been enthusiastic in how easy it is to complete their orders with very little lag time in generating search results and querying the video database for that one specific video that they are looking for.

The site itself uses a lot of automation to make things run smoothly for the admins and for the customer. As an example, when a user completes his or her order, two emails are generated: one to the customer as a receipt of sorts, and another to the admin with information regarding the latest order. Also, when the order is shipped, the admin only has to add a United States Postal Service tracking number to his/her customer management screens and an email it generated whereby the customer is notified automatically of the shipping status of their order. Previously, it was a contest of locating the email address of a customer in an old print out of an order and then having to hand type out a "sent" notice to the customer.

Conclusion
Essentially, we have rebuilt the site from the ground up - the graphics, UI, the underlying shopping cart code and the order tracking system among others. And in this way, Punkrockvideos.com is leaps and bounds ahead of other comparable sites out there that cater to this customer base. By utilizing the amazing PHP and MySQL technologies available for free over the internet, we were able to create a unique and cost-effective solution for one of our customers.

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