Webenz e3 Commerce System

Posted December 2nd, 2003 in Case Studies (Updated November 18th, 2010)

The Webenz e3 Commerce System was created by me, Chris Hope, while working at Webenz. Webenz had been utilising an ecommerce system called Intershop which was marketed in New Zealand by Telecom Xtra as "Business Builder" but found it wasn't suiting the needs of their customers, so they decided to develop their own ecommerce solution.

The Webenz e3 Commerce System

The initial two revisions were developed using Perl but these were not as flexible as required so two further revisions were created in 1999, this time using PHP and MySQL. The end result was an extremely easy to use and flexible system that could easily be customised to suit every customer's needs.

The system allows site administrators to easily manage the following, without the need for constantly referring to a web site developer or programmer:
- products
- customers
- orders
- product categories
- performance reports
- site content

The system uses a series of configuration files to track what information is stored in key database tables; these files allow every website to use a common codebase and administration area which makes upgrades and bug/security fixes easy to apply across the board.

It is no longer developed or in use

There were once dozens of sites that used the Webenz e3 Commerce System, but over time the number has diminished due to businesses closing down or site revamps and overhauls being done by new developers.

Webenz shut down in October 2004 and no longer exists, so no further development work as been done on this ecommerce system and no new sites created using it. It is unlikely that any websites are still using the system.

Other E3/Commerce systems

There appear to be one or more other ecommerce systems called "e3" (as well as the big e3 expo held once a year). The system I created is not the same as these other systems and they have nothing in common other than the name and possibly using PHP and MySQL.