I’m hoping you can help guide on how to best use Daylite to manage the order information downloaded from my online retail store.

I switched from PC to Mac last fall and then started using Daylite early this year. I’ve written a PHP script to take customer information from MySQL and convert it into a text file that I import into Daylite using a profile I set up. With DMI and Apple Mail, the order information that comes in an email from my shopping cart is at least linked to the customer in Daylite, but that doesn’t provide enough searching and reporting capabilities.

Now I want to take the next step and actually import the order items (item code, description, price, and quantity) from MySQL into Daylite so that I can run reports like purchases by customer (summary—total and by order--and also detailed with individual items). I also want to be able to calculate total sales of each item in weight and in dollar sales (and preferably within selectable time periods). And most important, I want to be able to use SmartLists to identify customers who have purchased a particular item and have never ordered again as well as those customers who place frequent large orders.

After looking at the messages here, I am still wondering what is the best way to handle this with the primary options that I am considering being Forms (applied to Contacts) and Opportunities. I want to handle this with a daily data import that automatically links the order data with the customer.

Here’s some additional information:
Number of products: about 800 (some sold by weight and some sold by piece)
Number of customers: about 2000
Number of items in each order: averages around 10 and ranges from 1 to a hundred.
Daylite: version 3.7.4 (single-user)
OSX: Tiger 10.4.11

What are the advantages of each method? Which option offers the best searching and reporting capability? How do you automatically link imported opportunities to the customer? Should I be considering products? Is anybody else using Daylite in this way or is it just too cumbersome to do this in Daylite? What additional information do you need from me that would help clarify what I want to do?

Thanks,
dimo

Your issue sounds like a perfect use of the FileMaker Connector. Have you considered licensing FileMaker Pro and importing your shopping cart data into it?

Since you seem to be a guy that is comfortable with MySQL (and similar type databases) you'll probably have some prideful resistance to something like FMP. However, as someone that has done both, I would say that you might be pleasantly surprised by it. And it certainly seems like it will do everything you are asking for and more.

Now, OpenBase might be more to your liking, and since it is the system that Daylite uses for its data container, it would probably be a better fit philosophically for you. However, Marketcircle does not make a Connector for it. Too bad, I like OpenBase quite a bit.