E Commerce website (diy)

[wellyfox]

Not sure this is the right place but hey I can only ask.

Me and my partner have a small business and we both work to.(although I am off sick long term)

Week ends through the summer we attend bike rallies and small music events.

We sell incense ladies alternative clothing and silver jewellery in the main.

AS I may not be able to return to work we need to expand our business.

So what I am really asking has anyone set up an E commerce site.

Does anyone know a good provider to use.

Also as we have limited knowledge in this matter could you help if we have problems (ie a 2 min phone call if needed )

Many Thanks in advance

[Monk]

I recently made a website using www.shopify.com. It has a monthly fee, but creating a good and robust website is very very easy. Shopify do the hosting so that saves you some techy problems. It also plugs right into payment gateways like PayPal or authorize.net too. Enjoy.

[wellyfox]

I recently made a website using www.shopify.com. It has a monthly fee, but creating a good and robust website is very very easy. Shopify do the hosting so that saves you some techy problems. It also plugs right into payment gateways like PayPal or authorize.net too. Enjoy.

Can you give me an idea of the cost but i will ceck it out and ty.

[wellyfox]

I recently made a website using www.shopify.com. It has a monthly fee, but creating a good and robust website is very very easy. Shopify do the hosting so that saves you some techy problems. It also plugs right into payment gateways like PayPal or authorize.net too. Enjoy.

Also could you give me your web addy so I can have a look.

[Saxondale]

There's always setting up a shop on eBay? A lot of people make livings doing that.

[Monk]

the website I did was for a family member who runs a herbal remedies business - the website is here

Shopify costs about £20 per month, but it does have a 30 day free trial. try it out. Volution is another similar offering, it's cheaper but not quite as user friendly.

As BornBlue says, eBay is another possibility, certainly with lower marketing costs.

Bear in mind once you have your website you still have to direct people to it. There's google ads for that, but that isn't cheap either.

If you have time to learn how to self host a website and do it yourself properly, wordpress is a good place to start http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/. This would have higher setup costs but cheaper in the long run.

[wellyfox]

the website I did was for a family member who runs a herbal remedies business - the website is here

Shopify costs about £20 per month, but it does have a 30 day free trial. try it out. Volution is another similar offering, it's cheaper but not quite as user friendly.

As BornBlue says, eBay is another possibility, certainly with lower marketing costs.

Bear in mind once you have your website you still have to direct people to it. There's google ads for that, but that isn't cheap either.

If you have time to learn how to self host a website and do it yourself properly, wordpress is a good place to start http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/. This would have higher setup costs but cheaper in the long run.

Many Thanks to both of you.

We have thought about ebay not something we want to do atm but may add it if we need too or change our mind.

As for the traffic we have hundreds of people every year asking if we have a website and we have recently set up a facebook.

So we will soon get passed around just need an easy format and get my lazzy arse into gear

[Knighton Matt]

I recently set up a website for my business that only cost £100 (plus about £10 for images). It's not e-commerce but have a look and see if you like it and I can give you the contact details of the developer.

http://www.thecommercialenergyadvisors.co.uk

You can always post a project on www.freelancer.com (this what we did) and contractors will state what they would charge to complete your specific project, then you can pick the one who has the best reviews/lowest price etc.

[danny.]

1and1 do hosted shops also - no idea on quality

nothing for £20 is going to be great, when most people pay £10k+ for a professional e-commerce site

A fully hosted system would probably be much better than a cheap freelance job (which will likely be awful) or something like wordpress though, especially if you are handing credit card payments - there is a mass of red tape associated with this and you need to be PCI DSS audited, which in't cheap.

[Mack]

75% of e commerce Worldwide is done through Ebay. You'll end up on there, even the big boys have.

[Fox92]

There's always setting up a shop on eBay? A lot of people make livings doing that.

I suggest doing this. What percentage of e-commerce is done through eBay? Well, Mack states 75%, and that is a hell of a lot. So, if I had a business (I wish I had one), I would set up an eBay shop. Why?:

. You will most probably get more customers - I cannot see people looking for specific individual websites unless your business is massive like Amazon or Play.com.

. I imagine the fees will be cheaper - arn't you looking at paying for not only website hosting, but also for someone to design it?

. It is probably less hassle - all you have to do is maintain on eBay, and not rely on somebody else and it could also be run in a spare room.

Although competition maybe bigger and better, I would still set up an eBay shop, maybe even as well as your own website if your business grows bigger. It is so easy to control. I would personally just do that.

[sphericalfox]

I thought this thread was going to be the sale of two power drills.