ForumSage
SubscriberHi all,
My wife is looking at creating a web site for a small online (at the moment) retail business - selling garments for kids. I dont know the first thing about web site creation and hosting so I was looking for some basic pointers and advice.
She would like online Credit card purchases/paypal but could live without it initially I suppose with just issuing tax invoices on orders and doing bank transfers.
It would need to host a heap of photos but otherwise is pretty basic.
Should I try to learn to use a web design program and build a site, or just grab one of the many templates from a good web hosting site and they basically do all the tech stuff. If I designed it myself is it a case of a domain host?
Any recommendations as to building and also complete web hosting would be greatly appreciated. The ability to add to the items for same - ie new garments - is a must.
Cheers
SysAdmin (Owner)
basically you need
a domain name
a hosting provider
ecommerce software
ssl cert for secure online transactions
credit card merchant facility or a payment gateway like paypal, paymate etc etc
there are out of the box solutions available from the likes of harvey norman but they take a bigger cut of the sale.
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ozscott
Perhaps you should contact incisor direct and see if he can help you at a cheaper price than harvey norman. He might not take such a big cut out of the sale
.
Master
I've done a few sites with hosting & domain name rego via Web City. I'm sure there are cheaper options out there but tech support is 24/7 and I've had very few problems.
If you are going to DIY I'd look at something built with Joomla or Wordpress as they offer plenty of options for templates and ready made ecommerce modules that are free/low cost. Both have a large support base and using Joomla there is nothing I haven't been able to resolve just using Google and a bit of reading.
Good luck with it. It can be a frustrating & rewarding process at the same time.
You don't need an ssl cert if you use a payment gateway. That is taken care of by the gateway? I'd use pay pal for credit cards as you can accept pay pal payments as well. You then don't have to set up a bank merchant account either. The cc payments are deposited in your pay pal account. I agree that joomla or wordpress would be the least hassle.
Master
My domain is hosted by Lunar Pages in the states. Very good pricing (costs me under $100.00 per year, depends on options). They also have a wide range of applications that can be installed via a control panel.
If you decide on DIY to test the waters they are worth a look.
Wizard
If you buy a domain and space on a hosted site, you will still have responsibility for the configuration and security of the software you install.
Drupal is another option for the site management environment and cart software such as Ubercart - both free/open source.
eway (not ebay) offers a CC payment gateway at a reasonable price and they are Australian. Depends on who you bank with as for the merchant account to recieve payments from the gateway.
You could always look at a fully hosted e-Commerce solution such as Volution or any number of others out there... some Australian, most overseas.
I have been running Hardrange.com on Drupal and UberCart for almost a year now, mostly ok but have gripes with the GST module often wanting to apply GST to international purchases and the Aust Post shipping module oftens undercharges me on postage.
Of course I have been told that the next version of Drupal and Ubercart will fix these issues, but I have my suspicions this is what is termed "vapourware"
Willem on this forum does this stuff for a living, perhaps drop him a PM...
Cheers, Paul.
My toys, projects and write-ups at PaulP38a.com
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