Creating an e-commerce site. Help!

[Jamesac]

Hello All,

I wonder if you can help?

I've been asked (by my father!) to build an ecommerce site to help sell his shop stuff online.

Can anyone recommend a decent product/website that would do the job.

I dont mind running it, i'm fairly computer literate (I have a DTP background).

Really, i'd like to be able to accept debit cards (i.e, switch) as well as credit cards and perhaps even pay pal.

I don't want it to cost the earth because it will only be a smallish operation - at least initially anyway!

Thanks in advance
James

[Whistle Ink]

Hi,

What does your dad want to sell online?

It you don't want it to cost the earth then try www.actinic.co.uk and check that all the things you want the cart to do is covered. You can then intergate this package with Protx, PayPal, Nochex and Worldpay etc etc

If everything you want or would like is not covered then a custom solution is needed. For this speak to Rob from Matrixx or Duane from Key One / Kashflow and see what they can do for you and what it might cost.

Bye

Paresh :D

[BlackBerryUK]

am sure I came across free e-commerce systems that are reliable and used by many people.

check www.hotscripts.com and look it up there. you will find different prices and a lot of free things to use for the e-commerce site.

Good luck

[Astaroth]

The main thing to choose first of all is how you want to accept payments. You technically need 2 parts, a payment gateway and a merchant account (some solutions allow you to use their merchant account though)

There are "all in one" solution like Paypal (personally paypal doesnt speak serious business to me as a customer) or Nochex. There are slightly better ones where you can customise the payment page to make it feel like it is part of your site which nochex and worldpay offer.

The more advanced (and more professional way in my opinion) is to install the gateway on your own server (web host) and link it up to your merchant account. Worldpay and many others offer this type of service too.

There are great ranges in prices and functionality between all the different solutions so it is worth spending the time looking into it.

Depending on who you choose you may limit your choice of shopping cart system as not all can interface with all payment systems if you arent fully capable of writting ASP/ PHP etc (but if you are there wouldnt be that much point in using an off the shelf solution). The more expensive but arguably better way is to get a developer to custom make the shop and then you get exactly what you want.

[desk2web]

Go with osCommerce, easy to set up, free, and customisable.

Give me a shout if you need any help.

[Jamesac]

Thanks for everyones kind advice :lol:

Go with osCommerce, easy to set up, free, and customisable.

Give me a shout if you need any help.

I like the sound of this because it's FREE! and therefore if it all goes pear shape it won't cripple me and par!

Does it accept debit cards as well as credit cards? Can it be hosted? I don't have a host server.

Whistle Ink wrote:
What does your dad want to sell online?

It you don't want it to cost the earth then try www.actinic.co.uk and check that all the things you want the cart to do is covered. You can then intergate this package with Protx, PayPal, Nochex and Worldpay etc etc
It's mainly plumbing stuff, shower spares etc..
I'm not sure if www.actinic.co.uk is a little too heavyweight. I notice you have to run a windows program to regulate(?) it. I'll check it out too.

One company that does look ok from first impressions is www.get-trolleyed.co.uk. It seems to talk my language, i.e, nice and simple. Does anybody know much about them?

[healthymedia]

I agree, osCommerce is a great place to start: www.oscommerce.org/, though Actnic is a good solution too (just more expensive).

You can find web hosting companies that have a Fantastico installer script, which takes lots of the pain out of setting up. I've played with it using an account at www.speed-host.co.uk, though I'd recommend a bigger company for taking a site live.

Hope this helps,

David

[Astaroth]

Oscommerce is not a payment gateway so it doesnt accept any form of payment but it does intergrate into a number of existing all in one solutions for payments like PayPal.

Whilst I realise that this is your Dads business and so the comment "if it all goes pear shape it won't cripple me and par" is probably understandable you do want to make sure however that the business doesnt go pear shaped because of getting an inapporpriate package/ solution. I have no experience of using Oscommerce so not suggesting it is either good or bad.

[cinnamonsticks]

I like the sound of this because it's FREE! and therefore if it all goes pear shape it won't cripple me and par!

Just a quick reminder you will need to purchase and install a SSL certificate for oscommerce to be a secure platform.

[Early Warning]

If you are new to accepting payments online please be careful of fraudsters.

[Ravenfire]

I know loads of people that use OsCommerce very successfully and would definitely recommend starting with that.

Toni

[GDJ]

If you do decide to go oscommerce then creloaded.com (sorry not allowed to post urls until I have made 15 posts so left the www off) is a version with lots of added features built in.

[IMEX Sourcing Services]

I spent a lot of time decising whether to go for oscommerce or cubecart, and ended up with cubecart, which is a lot more flexible. You can view my cubecart store in my signature..if you need any help with it or have any specific q's feel free to PM me. Although, I would like to highlight Oscommerce is a better option if you want a lot of addons..also if you do decide to go for Oscommerce you might want to go for Creloaded or there is another advanced variation of os commerce..just cant remember the name at the moment.

Ash

[ibscom]

I use emkpowershop.co.uk and they are really good so far. They are fairly cheap at £19.99 per month and you can snap papal worldpay and Nochex payment systems into it.

[whitehart]

I use emkpowershop.co.uk and they are really good so far. They are fairly cheap at £19.99 per month and you can snap papal worldpay and Nochex payment systems into it.

Totally agree this company are great, after looking around at the others we set up our online shop with them and none of us had any previous experience. Also got us in to the top 5 of google, do all the work and lists us free on froogle and the behind the scenes stats are great.

[elixirwebsolutions]

Hello All,

I wonder if you can help?

I've been asked (by my father!) to build an ecommerce site to help sell his shop stuff online.

Can anyone recommend a decent product/website that would do the job.

I dont mind running it, i'm fairly computer literate (I have a DTP background).

Really, i'd like to be able to accept debit cards (i.e, switch) as well as credit cards and perhaps even pay pal.

I don't want it to cost the earth because it will only be a smallish operation - at least initially anyway!

Thanks in advance
James

Hi James,

I represent Elixir websolutions, We are a website design and development company based out of India. We have reviewed your requirements for setting up a online e-commerce web site to sell the product, accept online payment. We have set up many e-commerce websites. To learn more about the e-commerce solution we offer, please view the details from following on our website:

elixirwebsolutions.com/ecommerce.php

We will design and develop a e-commerce website with custom design as per your requirements. please give me call and we can discuss the requirements in details. You can reach me 512.380.1117

Regards,
Mandy

[GNU]

Be VERY careful what you do with credit card details. Try to use a third party payment system that custoers enter details directly into, as oposed to storing them on your site and passing them over to the third party.

[Surf_Anonymously]

If you choose to use osCommerce and combine it with one of the online payment gateways such as 2checkout.com or WorldPay then you would not need an SSL Cert as the customer will be diverted to the payment gateway and then sent back to your site. Therefore using there SSL Cert instead.

Cheers

Dan

[SillyJokes]

Before you spend too much time on this perhaps you should go back to basics and really think hard about why you are doing this.

Why is your Dad is asking you to create an online store, rather than taking this to a professional with a proven track record of creating online stores than not only sell but are search engine friendly?

This skill is not something that can be learnt overnight and in getting it wrong you will waste a lot of time and money for your Dad.

You have to weigh up how important this online store will be to his business. Is he dabbling, or serious?

If your Dad's shop is loosing custom (to Supermarkets and online stores) and he needs to create a useful online presence to make up the difference in order to keep afloat, getting an inexpericenced relative to have a stab at it may not be the best use of the next 12 months.

I have seen dozens of independent stores try and work a website on the side, often one done by a nephew, and many of them have come to beleive that the website is a waste of time because it never performs up to their expectations. This is because it takes an enormous amount of time and effort to get the store up and running.

I have also seen shops start a website and then close the street store to concentrate on the more profitable website when they do get it right.

Wouldn't you help your Dad better using your experience to work with a professional designer, produce a decnet website and getting the store turning over some orders more quickly? you would learna lot about web design and still be able to work on the site yourself.

It's a great way to earn a living if you get it right, but I can only guess it is soul destroying when you are faffing about with a substandard website which can't convert the few customers who doeactually manage to find it.

PS I don't design online stores. We built ours from scratch so I can't advise on packages - it is possible to create a successful online store, it just takes a lot of hours, even years.