Learn me - Setting up a website that shows an accurate inventory & price from a QuickBooks database

Disclaimer:  I'm not a web guy, really, but I did set up some bitchin' GeoCities and AngelFire sites back in the late 90s!  I am however totally comfortable with server admin, package management, web-based control panels, etc.  I've set up apache servers and all that jazz before, but I'm not looking to self host right now!

Back story:  A friend has a hydraulics buisness that I've been running his server & computers for years..  He manages it all with QuickBooks Enterprise Edition, it's got a massive database of parts available in it, it's a ~450Mb database.

He's tried a few times to get someone to make a website for him, but no one has been able to deliver anything even slightly acceptable, and I don't have the right network to recommend.

Since I'm tired of seeing a friend get screwed over, I'd like to try to sort this out and create better site for him (he still has a basic text site that I set up, um... 16? years ago when I bought his domain for him). 

Does anyone on here know how to set up a site that looks decent, doesn't take a ton of mainteance and, most importantly, can sync with a quickbooks inventory?  Ideally, we'd like to impliment purchasing (shopping cart, etc.). 

Tl;dr:  What I'd like to do is use as much off-the-shelf, software as a service kinda stuff as I can.  I'm totally fine with paying a monthly fee if it means I don't have to manage it after initial setup.   Basically, set up a wordpress interface on a squarespace site that is more-or-less a front-end to the QB inventory, so someone can search for a part number, add it to the cart and check out.

We're happy to pay for a guide who can help send me down the path, or if one of you cats wants to make some side $$, that would work to.   Or, if you have a good guide to follow, I'd appreciate that.  Most of the ones I find online are more of a "LOL, this is why E-Commerce is good!  Click this affiliate link to try Squarespace!" or some such nonsense.

I know this is is a big one, so I appreciate any guidance or stepping stones you guys can direct me to!

Thanks!

The key to getting a good website or any contract work done is to create a good scope of work before hand. 
 

anyways.   The easy button these days is shopify I hear. 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

The key to getting a good website or any contract work done is to create a good scope of work before hand. 
 

anyways.   The easy button these days is shopify I hear. 

Aye, agreed there..  I'm sure that's half of his problem..  Which is half of the reason that I'm going to get involved now, as I at least know which questions to ask (I hope).

That's come up in some of my searches.  I'll look into it deeper, thanks!

The easy button is a WordPress site, with the Shopify Wordpress plugin, and use the already built Shopify/QuickBooks bridge to sync.

That should get you the inventory level and price sync as well as create the sales order for you. It also takes care of taxes which are a bit cumbersome due to South Dakota v Wayfair without a separate service. The thing to keep in mind is that the sync is batch based, so you won't have matching quantities of all inventory on the site at all times if you do high volume sales. The documentation seems to indicate that can be configured, however other parts simply say "Once a day."

You'll also need to have a TLS1.3 certificate on the site and have the web.config or htaccess file setup to force SSL in order to take payments. Your host can usually help with that.

Thanks The0retical!  That's exactly what I needed to hear.   I've been looking more deeply into Shopify since FbC said something earlier, and your info bridged the gaps I'm seeing, I think.

I don't think the frequency will be too bad, it's industrial hydraulics supply, so he has plenty of inventory of common stuff and most others are available to him in the next day or so.

This seems like it won't be too big of a nut to crack.

Thanks guys!

In reply to WonkoTheSane (Forum Supporter) :

It shouldn't be too difficult since much of the development legwork is already completed. My development group is currently building a 1st party Shopify integration and they tell me it's been pretty easy to work with and integrate into our system. That's pretty high praise from those guys.

On the payment front, Shopify is pretty competitive with 3rd party payment processors from what I can see, but if the organization is already using a 3rd party payment processor such as Authorize.net (which appears to be an option,) I'd stick with that to simplify the financial reporting scheme within QB.

Just as a point of reference, on why I'm recommending Shopify. One of my customers integrated our system with a Magento cart probably 5 or so years back. I'm told the website and shopping cart cost as much as our ERP system. I tend not to recommend them because of that, although my customers website, and the toolset that was built for them, is pretty slick.