shopping cart and database clarification(long)

Hey All,

First of all, thanks to all who answer my questions. I'm very confused right now about databases and shopping carts, and it will be a big relief when I understand.Please bear with me.

Ok... My Dad has a website, and the shopping cart and database is handled by a certain company. So what he can do is log into his account, and see everyone who has ever ordered from him, and their info. Also, he can change the product info,price,picture,etc dealing with his shopping cart through a very easy to use interface.

I see this as a viable solution to making ecommerce sites, because the program is already written.

My first question is, what are the pros and cons of using a service like this compared to learning asp.net, and database stuff?

Next,let's assume that I'm going to learn how to do it myself.

1. Do the major database programs (SQL Server 2000,etc.)have a simple user interface to input changes to a specific products price, image,description,etc., so if I design a site for a customer, and they want to change the price,etc, they can do it easily by just logging in to their database account?

2.How do I get the info in the database to load dynamically on my web page- is that what SQL is for?So I can just create a placeholder in a web page, tellthe browser where to get the info, and then it loads it?

3.Let's say I build a shopping cart with asp.net, I'm assuming that I can upload the info to a server using SQL?

4. And finally, when someone pays with a credit card, is it just a script that capures the info, sends it to the credit card processor?

I know that's alot of questions, but I'm confused. I appreciate any help you can give.

Thanks, Steve.

The shopping cart stores its data in the database, letting someone else keep your shopping cart info is not a good idea. Most people use third parties to only proccess the credit card or bank transactions. Try the link below everything you need is there but prior programming knowledge required. Hope this helps.

http://asp.net/CommerceStarterKit/docs/docs.htm