Forum

Websites; Getting Started
 

Like a lot of you here I have been doing various business things on and offline for years, I don't know everything about business but what I do know is that it's often very disheartening when things don't go to plan. We are obviously all here for the same reasons, we want to make a success (and money) out of our businesses.

If (like I did a while back) you made the mistake of putting all your eggs in one basket with Ebay or Amazon you are probably looking at what else you can do to avoid loosing money should you find yourself in a similar situation again.

A lot of people already have websites set up. But for anyone that doesn't or for those that are unsure where to begin hopefully this topic will help you. It would be good to have advice from others too.


Why a website?

Why not?

A website is something that YOU have full control of. Not Ebay or Amazon, or any other company. You can rest assured you won't have the worry of only being allowed to sell a few products. You won't loose customers from your website suddenly being suspended like Ebay accounts. You will be able to showcase your products, VERO or not and create a new or extra way of generating income. Ultimately stopping you having to worry about potentially loosing money because you no longer have an account to sell on.


Don't want to do it yourself?

If you have no knowledge of HTML etc and you don't want to learn or create your website yourself, pay a professional web designer/developer. Normally you can source them locally but if you search online you will have plenty to choose from.

Free Ecommerce Websites

I have tried to include as many links as possible to free Ecommerce websites. It's down to your personal preference which software you use. Have a read and see what you think about each option. If you need any help ask away and let me know if you can think of anymore.

ZenCart - www.zen-cart.com
OpenCart - OpenCart - Open Source Shopping Cart Solution
CubeCart - eCommerce Software | CubeCart
Magento - Magento eCommerce Software and Platform | Magento
PrestaShop - PrestaShop - Start an online store today with PrestaShop's free e-commerce software.

You can also set up Wordpress as a website to sell online if you are familiar with it.

All the shopping carts above can be customized in various ways such as obtaining templates. GOOGLE is your friend here!

Hosted Ecommerce Websites

You also have the option to have a hosted shop from different suppliers, I find these can be quite costly every month, but they can be convenient for an easy set up. Most of them have trials.

Please note I am in no way associated to any of these companies.

EKM Powershop - Ecommerce Software | Ecommerce Websites | ekmPowershop
BigCommerce - Shopping Cart Software & Ecommerce Software Solutions - Bigcommerce
1and1 - 1&1 Internet - Home
Shopify - Ecommerce Software, Online Store Builder, Website Store Hosting Solution- Free 14 day Trial by Shopify.

DON'T FORGET YOUR DOMAIN NAME!

Once you have chosen which platform you are going to use you can start navigating around the CMS/Control Panel. Familiarize yourself with the tools you have available, a lot of the carts have additional extensions for you to add to your site. If you encounter problems or need some extra help look for the support forums that are free to use and watch video tutorials on You Tube.

The control panel is your admin area. Upload products, prices, set user permissions, input SEO (or get some help) and gradually your website will begin to take shape. Remember you don't have to use Paypal as a merchant, you can integrate most checkouts such as Google Checkout, World Pay, Nochex, Money Bookers.

Need a Logo?


FACEBOOK & TWITTER

These are often overlooked as fantastic ways of marketing your online store/products. Setup an account specifically to work alongside your website, network, ask your friends to join the page/group and get promoting your business. You can easily link your accounts together with social widgets.

Also, if you spend time setting up these accounts you may be pleasantly surprised at how many people will purchase products off Facebook. This week alone 40% of my sales came from social networking sites.

Right,

That's it from me! If anyone wants to add anything that would be great.

Good Luck.

aspkin is THE master of websites. Nothing he does not know about this topic.

He has written a masterpiece of a web blueprint.

This thread is now in the WEBMASTER JUNGLE forum

There's heaps of info here

:juggle:

I most certainly wouldn't question Aspkins or any other persons knowledge. If it helps it helps, if it doesn't then it's no skin off my nose :)

A nice post onlinegirl - good time taken and info seems good :) look forward to further contributions

Thank you rsot :) appreciated

Yes i Agree Great Useful info :typing:

While this is a very nice post, this info is just wrong. You can NOT do what you want. You are always at the mercy of a payment processor

Obviously everyone has to adhere to legalities, or terms they have agree to when using a payment processor. I didn't mean it in the way it's been interpreted.

In comparison to the rules set by online selling sites a website can place whatever terms and conditions they desire, they can set payment rules on their website too if they offer methods of payment that don't need a third party processor.

In regards to avoiding limits, you avoid selling limits and payment limits IF you offer other methods.

The rules you make up do not matter. People can still put in disputes or charge backs and they will get their money back. Your rules would only apply if you tried to sue someone over the matter which would not be realistic in most cases

I'm really sorry but I'm totally confused.

I don't believe anywhere in this post I have said that people will be EXEMPT from charge backs and disputes? Common sense would prevail I would hope...

Common sense and online users are not a good combination.

Think over issues you may have had on ebay/paypal.

One's own website does not exclude those issues occurring.

:ranger:

It says pretty clearly that you won't lose money in that paragraph. I did not answer the post to get into an argument but if you would like to go back and forth we can do that

I understand that GreenBean, I think I should rephrase it :)

@onlinegirl, how many websites do you currently operate?

Why not share what you do too,rsot? We ask all other users to share info

We have one being created:)

I am trying to create a medical-based one soon (in the works) but not really sales - more like consulting. I am also looking at 2 other ideas but it's a bit tough to juggle work and consulting and other personal interests.

So true. Time is an issue. Mine is stretched in a similar way
:thumb:

Websites are worth negative money unless you have real buying traffic thats the key

I currently have 2 selling websites up and running and approximately 30 domain names which I intend on building websites or blogs on. I'm working on a project at the moment for a friend where she wants to sell babies accessories/clothing, I also have another project for another friend which involves showcasing his DJ business. I do find it addictive buying domain names!

Are you using any particular site for these domains?

:ranger:

At the moment I use godaddy and I also use them for some of my hosting, which in all honesty I wouldn't recommend. I will be looking at transferring some of the domains to hostgator in the next few weeks. I want a cpanel for the likes of opencart but unfortunately godaddy only offers a few solutions.

Who do you use Green Bean :)

Never have all your eggs in one basket.

Wise to have everything apart.

Not sure if you have ever had issues with a host being off line? TRAUMATIC.

I like godaddy both .com & co.uk. Also have ipage .

Special reason for that ;)

Namecheap or godaddy for domain, arvixe as host and everbody gets real 99,9% uptime and good prices :thumb:

You are right about not putting all eggs in one basket! Funnily enough today I set up hosting with Arvixe, I like that they do hosted solutions with one click install, I will see how it goes!

I was also having a look at ipage today! The price is great! You have me intrigued as to why GreenBean! ;)

In all honesty the only reason I'm a bit offish with godaddy, baring in mind I have about 30 domains with them, hosting and email, is because they don't offer a broad range of applications to install and i really dislike all the fiddling about with servers.

Traumatic is how i would describe it too. Not something that (touches wood) happens very often.

What websites do you host? Or do you have a range?

Great great post. Kudos

I think I may know why ipage is good for you Greenbean :) they've got some great services ;)

Thanks Larthia.

It seems to be a good idea to register your domain with one company and host with another . I guess its the whole not putting your eggs in one basket theory . Since I switched to hostgator I haven't had any problems

Jim when you registered with Hostgator did they approve your account instantly? I've had people telling me they had theirs reviewed beforehand even though the money has been taken?

Be good to know what other peoples experiences are.

Yes, I'm not too sure what theyd review

FOR GOD SAKE DO NOT USE GO DADDY FOR ANYYYYYYYYYYTHINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG i can't say this loud enough

:doh::doh::doh:

Go Daddy is Horrible I agree, iPage had someone at my school tell me they had no success with the features, what ever that means. Don't know much about them, Network Solutions is great and that's where I host my domain, Volusion as a shopping cart is super great, just sign-up five days ago. Volusion is great because the it provides better services than Magento, to me, my personal opinion. My sister had magento and she said, you couldn't even apply applications because she was a Go member and not Enterprise, their templates are so bad looking, and you must buy one off the store or hire an expert.

I have used bluehost to do a few sites. It's good starting out until you start getting a huge amount of traffic then getting your own server is your best option. It is expensive getting your own server but well worth the response time to your customers.

Let say if I went down the route of hosted ecommerce, what if I use one of them now and decides one day that I want to get someone to make my own site? What sort of chaos will this cause me and my manyyyyy customers(hopefully lol)? Is it just a copy and paste job of the codes or its bad??

Oh crap.

I just bought 5 domains this weekend from Go Daddy and could not believe 2 of them were available at all. Short names and dot coms to boot.

What issues do you have with them?

I have bought from them in the past and had no problems other then slow transfers.

In the past I also went with hostgator, the cpanel is rather easy to use even for us non techie people.

One of the accounts I bought was was let go by the owner from I think 1998 and was available so I grabbed it fast as I could.

Why in the world would someone not pay years ahead on the registration of an awesome domain name is beyond me.

Think GoDaddy has been a main player for so long.

Sometimes they do not deliver quite what is wanted.

Older domain names can be a big plus though.

Usual buyer beware if using any site mentioned

:juggle:

LOL

I bought a site through godaddy and today get an email that the account can not be transferred, used, etc because of one of the names in the account is copyrighted and no URL can have that name in it.

So I guess they dont even watch what accounts are not allowed but take your money anyway.

Will be calling tomorrow for sure.

I've used GoDaddy for years without problems, although I don't host with them I use hostgator.

The other half despises GoDaddy with a passion, but I'm happy.

How do you guys do the "Shipping" section when orders come in. I love eBay's easy ship option clicking "Ship your next item" or just showing all the options and prices. Very easy and it's linked to my Paypal and takes away money for fees. When you setup your websites, do you have to do the actual shipping inside your paypal account. I used to be ok with Paypals old shipping platform, but their new platform is very user unfriendly.

doing anything logged into their site is like walking thru a landmine field of ads upsells, downsells, cross sells, you gota be on point when buying crap from them or you'll be buying and paying for stuff you don't need or didn't know was added on.

just crappy biz practices like this.


you sell via your own sites as well?

do you do SEO? i have a website, but cannot get any sales at all