Persist shopping cart to database, instead of using session

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The shopping cart selections are currently stored in the Session. There are 
several reasons we favor shifting to storing each cart in the database instead:
 * Minimize unnecessary complexity
 * Ability to monitor cart abandonment
 * Making way for upcoming features
 * Will make the eCommerce module easier to customise

Possible cons:
 * slow DB connection / large DB could be a bottleneck
 * Number of reads/writes could be a burden for large-scale sites ...but you'd probably be employing an enhanced infrastructure to deal with this anyway on a large site.
 * Need to to routine cleanups for abandoned carts

This work is very much open to discussion still, please comment on the ticket, 
or join the user group discussion via link below.

Here is some discussion on NZ PHP user group:
http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug/browse_thread/thread/93e00d939f536a5b/26c
a40b3bea779b4#26ca40b3bea779b4

Original issue reported on code.google.com by Jez...@gmail.com on 23 Aug 2010 at 12:59

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Original comment by Jez...@gmail.com on 23 Aug 2010 at 1:00

• Removed labels: Priority-High

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This is just about finished in its own branch, but some testing will be needed.

Original comment by Jez...@gmail.com on 21 Sep 2010 at 12:38

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Original comment by Jez...@gmail.com on 21 Sep 2010 at 12:38

• Changed state: Started

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Original comment by nfranc...@gmail.com on 29 Nov 2010 at 4:35

• Changed state: Done