Website set-up

[MelanieH]

Hi all,

I would like to set up a website for the sale of various products & have no idea where to start. All I have so far are powerpoint slides showing how the website should look.

1) What is a quick, cheap and professional way to start-up a website? How much would it cost?
2) How do I organize the payment side - where is my first point of contact - the bank? Paypal?

Is there some way to do all this myself or do you recomment to hire someone?

Thanks for any advice!
Melanie

[Sunlust]

1: Depends on your shops needs, the cheapeast way is to get a shopping cart like Zen Cart and a template for it and then input the products and set it up, cheapeast is not professional thought, the professional way is to pay a web designer to do it for you, maybe even design a custom template for you and set the shop up for you, so that you only have to setup the products.
2: You either use your on site facility and use a secure server (problematic) or just use Paypal as everyone can pay into paypal (not only paypal members).

There is NO WAY you can do it yourself, I'm not being harsh, just stating truth, I've setup 3 online shops and really, without experience you won't achieve anything.

Describing whole process of getting a shop online would take me like 30 minutes of talking/typing so imagine how much work is involved ;-)

Try to find a freelancer/a web design company in your area preferably and ask them to quote you.

Prices really vary, they depend on what you already have, how many items/categories/features will the shop have etc, usually I only give a quote after an initial agreement, otherwise clients just keep on coming up with new ideas which ads 50% more time then estimated at the begginning.

Anyway, good luck with the project, e-commerce is worth it if you have the budget.

Regards,

Sunlust (google me)

[Sunlust]

Get a quote from few companies in your area, explain them (or maybe first find out for yourself) what kind of a shop you want, compare quotes, pick the best one.

If you don't have any experience with web design it's best if you just pay a company and save yourself hussle.

Problem with E-commerce is that you need quite a big budget nowadays to promote it and to get it right,
- hosting free (that;'s nothing),
- domain registration (nothing once again), but then you get the
- shop setup (sometimes around 400£ - depends if you input the products yourself),
- shops design (once again depends whether you use a ready made template or a custom design - latter more expensive),
- Search Engine Optimization -a proper one, not one of those "included in price" as some companies say
- PPC campaign - monthly expenses + a fee so that someone can set it up for you - price depends on how wide range of keywords you want to rank for.

Good luck Melanie,

Sunlust

[collateit]

I agree with what sunlust has said but in addition you may want to consider the following:



Speak to your local Business Link or equivalent and tell them what you would like to do. They should be able to send someone out to help you go through the buying process and recommend approved suppliers. You should also be elidgable for government grants. I do quite a bit of work which is grant funded here in the North East and my clients get between 40% - 100% funding!
Is this just a toe in the water exercise or will this be your main source of income?
I have a document Preparing to Sell Online which may be of some use in helping to understand the requirements. If you would like a copy just let me know stuart[at]collateit[dot]net. You should also checkout the Business Link website from the link above.

If your even half serious about this I would advise setting out a mini plan with your required goals and cost projections. This will also help with the selection process for the suppliers. The more detail you can provide the better fit you will achieve when the project goes ahead.

Make sure that prospective suppliers have good reference sites, can clearly demonstrate their software with the required features and understand your requirements. If not just walk away.

From a personal point of view we use 2 different eCommerce systems depending on our clients requirements but we typically charge £4000 upwards and provide everything to get the client up and running. It usually takes 3 months for our projects to complete. This may seem like a long time but the design process is about 4 weeks then about 8 weeks to gather product information (some of your stores have 40,000 products!), configure/modify store, link to payment gateway, test, document process and do the training.

[awebapart.com]

Hi Melanie

I would like to set up a website for the sale of various products
You really need to be more specific about what the products are that you want to sell, as the appropriate solution will depend on the product. For instance, the following products would all have very different solutions:

1. second hand goods
2. cars
3. houses
4. holidays
5. digital download music

Whilst these are extreme examples, even other products which are new and can be put in a box and shipped out, will have different requirements and solutions depending upon:

1. the type of product and price
2. the market competition
3. how you intend to market the website
4. do you hold the items in stock
5. where do want to sell to
6. are you the owner of the products, or are you acting as the facilitator, just as ebay acts as the facilitator when people sell on ebay, or sites like loot.com act as facilitators
7. are you a wholesaler selling to retailers or a retailer selling to the public
8. how do you want to charge for shipping
9. the type of look you want for your website
etc

So the more information you can provide about your products and business, the more appropriate a solution we can recommend. There is no best ecommerce solution (http://www.awebapart.com/home/faq/Best_ecommerce_solution) it depends on individual requirements. You are welcome to email your powerpoint slides over if it helps to provide more information about your requirements, our email address is in the contact us section of our website.

[fisicx]

All I have so far are powerpoint slides showing how the website should look.

NO!

This is the absolute wrong way to approach the project. How can you possibly know what the website will look like until you have the product ranges, the descriptions, images, prices, options, categories and know your target audience as well.

90% of the design work takes place before you decide on a layout. What happens if you decide on a design and discover thay you sudeenly need a new feature that doesn't fit on the page?

You can do it on the cheap but all that means is you will end up with same site as everybody else.

[bizman99]

Powerpoint is a good place to start, but not for design. I use powerpoint to build up what I call the wireframe structure of any website I build. plan out the features, widgets, overall architecture. I then use that to base the design/look and feel on. Working in powerpoint allows you to play about with the layout, heirarchy, prominence of different page elements, without getting hung up on how they look yet.

Great for getting a feel for page flow.

In terms of where to start, thats what I'd do.. but if you have no experience in this area, I would really reccommend working with an expert to get you up and running. If you really want to make some money and present yourself correctly online, working with a pro will guide you through the learning phase and should allow you to avoid the common pitfalls that many people who are new to e-commerce make.

Hope this helps.

[fisicx]

Powerpoint is a good place to start, but not for design. I use powerpoint to build up what I call the wireframe structure of any website I build. plan out the features, widgets, overall architecture.

I use a stonking great white board and lots of coloured pens.

Do you watch whiteboard friday over SEOmoz? It's a very rewarding 5 minutes.

[birches]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, and I suspect you are all going to shoot me now because I am going to say something controversial!

I'm not sure that Melanie couldnt use software such as Ekmpowershop or similiar to meet her needs. I'm no real fan of this software - but it does serve a purpose, and could act as a testbed for her to see if her products sell + give her a bit of insight into running a e-commerce site without the pain of self-hosting. And there is very little outlay - 20 quid per month and free to cancel anytime.

I think the question is whether she just wants to get something up and running, or put more of a financial investment into it - because as you rightly say it's going to cost a bit to get someone else to develop it. If you have a customer base from say ebay then moving them over to a website - even it is rubbish in design - will be relatively easy.

Last point - it also depends what the market area is - some sites need to look good, others just need to sell.

Rgds

Karen

[ezybuzz]

Hai MelanieH
I think you have done the great job by having a powerpoint slide show as a guide for your future website looks like. This is your first step because all of your ideas and concept is there. The next step is how to implement it into your website and of course you need an expert to do this. Like if you want to build a house, you can draw a scratch plan in a piece of paper, and then the architect will help you draw a full picture. I've already message you for your next movement. Thank you.

Kindly Regards
Azwan
Ezybuzz.com

[Basement_Studios_Ltd]

have a look at www.i612.net the chap mark hall that runs the business is excellent and produces top sites, monthly payment, fully supported with CMS....

worth a look!

[Jimmi]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, and I suspect you are all going to shoot me now because I am going to say something controversial!

I'm not sure that Melanie couldnt use software such as Ekmpowershop or similiar to meet her needs. I'm no real fan of this software - but it does serve a purpose, and could act as a testbed for her to see if her products sell + give her a bit of insight into running a e-commerce site without the pain of self-hosting. And there is very little outlay - 20 quid per month and free to cancel anytime.

I think the question is whether she just wants to get something up and running, or put more of a financial investment into it - because as you rightly say it's going to cost a bit to get someone else to develop it. If you have a customer base from say ebay then moving them over to a website - even it is rubbish in design - will be relatively easy.

Last point - it also depends what the market area is - some sites need to look good, others just need to sell.

Rgds

Karen

Makes sense. I've seen sites that are very popular and look terrible.

[fisicx]

Makes sense. I've seen sites that are very popular and look terrible.

Spot on. It's too easy to be taken in by the look of a site and forget it's usability. If the content and navigation meet the visitors needs then they will forgive a poor layout. But if they can't find what they want then it doesn't mater how good the template then the site will fail. Not might fail, will fail.

[Birmingham]

hi melanie, what types of products will you be selling?

[OldWelshGuy]

Spot on. It's too easy to be taken in by the look of a site and forget it's usability. If the content and navigation meet the visitors needs then they will forgive a poor layout. But if they can't find what they want then it doesn't mater how good the template then the site will fail. Not might fail, will fail.

Boo.com :D

[fisicx]

Boo.com :D

That's a nice site.

[OldWelshGuy]

That's a nice site.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I was talking about the ORIGINAL boo.com the one that ... oh well read on ;)

http://www.tnl.net/blog/2000/05/19/boocom-goes-bust/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/1720044.stm

[Mat_D]

Front end is technology

One of the biggest failures at Boo was to assume that the front end was not a technology issue. Up through launch and beyond, the front end team was first reporting to business development and then to marketing. This was a capital mistake that I kept fighting over. A web site front-end is interface design, it’s not a marketing exercise. It should include people who are versed in this and not just people who know about pretty colors. Ultimately, I think this was one of the big failure factor in the company.

(from the boo.com link)

[fisicx]

Ahh. I get it - I'd forgotten all about that story.

[fisicx]

A web site front-end is interface design, it’s not a marketing exercise. It should include people who are versed in this and not just people who know about pretty colors.

Hence my point about usability, content and navigation - give the punters what they need rather than what you want them to have. The front end is part of the design process but not your starting point, that's all I've been trying to say.

[Jimmi]

Boo.com looks ok not overly fancy more like functional. What birches said resonated with me the beauty about the net is you can try out almost anything for very little money. If you paid a savvy designer to skin zencart for you you would have a unique site then you just have to get it hosted. So you try it out for very little money.

[PointandStare]

original boo.com? I was offered, (and turned down), the first project manager job on that.

One decision I don't regret!