What are some common pitfalls for beginners when creating an online shop using PHP?

One common pitfall for beginners when creating an online shop using PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, which can leave the website vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with your database to prevent SQL injection attacks.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();