I'm looking to create an app (iOS for now, but will eventually do one for Android) for our sales reps so they can place orders on the go. I'm new to writing apps and code, and I need a little direction. I'm looking to have these fields: Customer ----> Customer X ---->Products ---->Product Categories I need the sales reps to be able to put all of the products in a shopping cart and submit the order to our fulfillment department. Is this attainable with an app?

A quick solution could be to link to a hosted (you can find plenty of free ones) shopping cart solution from within your app. Use the home tabs and/or menus to link to various functions and have them load in multiple screens.

Thanks. Let me apologize for being fuzzy in my previous question. I misused the term 'shopping cart.' We already have a website with a cart and processing, and I don't want to mix the two. The app would be for a quicker ordering process and only for our reps. Would the shopping cart still be the best route? As you can tell, I'm lost as all get-out!!

You could do some custom HTML but would need to connect it to some backend for processing. My only other question would be what happens when the sales people submit the order...where does it go? directly to fulfillment?

Yes, I want fulfillment to be pinged whenever a new order is submitted. After that, we enter the order into our accounting software.

Most companies I have worked for have a SC for both their retail side and back office use (purchasing and sales) using the same solution, though they do work independently of each other. Is your current solution flexible enough to do that? I have always tried to stay away from creating too many independent systems to get something done. It just becomes a nightmare. From what you first mentioned above it seems straightforward and some custom HTML would be an easy solution but I am always for pre-packaged solutions to prevent unnecessary work.