Add items to another site's shopping cart

[dna7433]

This isn't specific to ASP.NET, but if it's possible I would be using ASP.NET to implement the solution.

I would like to start an affiliate website for a bunch of well-known e-commerce retailers. From everything that I've read it looks like the links used by affiliate websites only link to a 'product details' type page, and then the user would need to decide to purchase that product by adding it to their cart. I would like to be able to take several such products (all selected by the user) and place them directly into the shopping cart of the user's chosen retailer automatically when, say, the user clicks a button on my site.

Here's the (very) basic process I want to use:
1. User chooses several products, or there are pre-made groups of products the user can choose.
2. User chooses a retailer they trust
3. User clicks a link or button and the items are added to the user's cart on the chosen retailer's site.
4. User is automatically taken to, or navigates to retailer's site and goes through the normal checkout process.

[criterion9]

I'm not sure that this would work if the sites are not on the same domain/host or provide an API into their cart (read as big security hole and development mess). Additionally, do you plan to save the users details so you can "login" as the user to make sure the items are inserted to the cart? Also, most sites use a session variable to store cart data which would make it near impossible to insert items to a cart and then pass the session to a new browser...it would basically be hijacking the session and would create a huge security problem.

[LiteTest]

I would be very concerned if anyone could add items to my shipping cart from another site ;)

You can always display the other site in an iframe. It would look a bit daunting really, but unless the other site allows you to do a cross domain post, it really wouldn't work.

[sknake]

As previously mentioned this would require that eCommerce vendors provide an API to their shopping cart and trust you enough to allow you to post material. This would also then raise competition for items as you would be posting it on other peoples shopping cart and since more than likely you are trying to sell YOUR item on THEIR site they would not feel bad in adjusting the prices as you would have to pay them a comission and it wouldn't hurt their margin too bad.

This just sounds like a bad idea all the way around...