What best practices should be followed when setting up a webshop using PHP, especially for beginners?

When setting up a webshop using PHP, beginners should follow best practices to ensure security, efficiency, and scalability. This includes using secure coding practices, validating user input, sanitizing data, using prepared statements for database queries, implementing proper error handling, and separating logic from presentation using a MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture. 

<?php

// Example of validating user input in PHP
if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {
    $username = $_POST['username'];
    $password = $_POST['password'];

    // Validate username and password
    if(empty($username) || empty($password)) {
        echo "Please enter both username and password.";
    } else {
        // Proceed with authentication logic
    }
}

?>

Keywords

Security SQL injection HTTPS session management payment gateway

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