New e-commerce website....FOR THE WIFE!

[SIXS]

My wife currently trades on ebay and has done for many years. I have always tried to convince her to setup an e-commerce website as I think she could double her turnover once she starts marketing with adwords etc.

So she has now agreed but wants me to do the leg work. As she wants to test the water she is not looking for something bespoke (expensive) but rather likes the idea of buying a template and then having this customised and intergrated with a shopping cart/paypal.

She is also not bothered about uploading content herself and would happily pay the going rate when she wants the site updated.

She does not like Oscommerce style templates but likes the fancy CRE (whatever this means) Zen carts etc style templates. The one's on template monster etc.

Is there anyone on this forum who could offer this type of service? She has had a couple of quotes but to be honest they are too expensive (cheaper to have a site built from scratch!!!)

So i'll open up the forum for any advice, contact names, advice on the best approach etc etc.

To start you off the cheapest quote she has had is £540, which includes the purchase of the template, which is around $160.

Look forward to all your replies.

[Fingers In Pies]

Does it need to intergrate with ebay...?

my thought's are... if she's doing alright through ebay, then it could be quite a shocker to get a new site up and running... not intergrated with ebay - and suddenly she has NO sales.

[awebapart.com]

My wife currently trades on ebay and has done for many years.

What type of products does she sell on ebay?

She does not like Oscommerce style templates but likes the fancy CRE (whatever this means) Zen carts etc style templates. The one's on template monster etc.
Have a read of my osCommerce template checklist (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=29170#postmenu_192367).

If you go for Zen cart or CRE (CRE Loaded) - both systems are improved derivatives of osCommerce - make sure you are getting template or skin files, rather than a hacked about version of Zencart or CRE with changes to underlying core base code (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=278560). Zencart and CRE both support a templating system so this should be possible to a certain extent (i.e. keeping the template separate from the core base code). Be careful with Template Monster, you might be better off looking at templates from the official CRE site.

When you are budgeting for the system, whichever system you go for, also bear in mind that there will probably be further development, module integration work (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=392604) required - and development rates are expensive.

[SFD]

I can wholly recommend www.eshopfitters.co.uk

They finished my site about a month ago and sales have been excellent since.

They have prices on the website, worth taking a look.

[Peter1982]

I'd say £500 isn't bad really and I'd be wary of paying some one else to update the site as they will never know your market (ie keywords) like your wife will.

Stay well clear of template monster! I've bought two templates from them in the past and they were both full of annoying bugs. After trying to fix them all I eventually cut my losses and bought them from Algozone instead, these worked perfectly without any messing around.

Just a little word of warning!

[SIXS]

She will keep running her ebay shop seperatly so no integration needed. She is fully aware that having a website to sell her stock will not give her overnight success and she is in it for the long term.

However she cannot justtify paying thousands on a bespoke design just yet. I have a website developed, which cost me a few bob and after 12 months of paying SEO guru's i have finally be ranked on page 1 of Google for my main keywords. So my wife is fully aware of the process and time it can take to achieve this.

As for template monster i agree i'm not a particular fan but the look and feel of the templates are of a high standard and this is what she wants. I have shown her examples of OScommerce sites and she just does not like them. She wants a fresh, modern website that has the professional feel but without the cost!

As for what she sells well let's just say it's "girlie" items.

So any other thoughts?

[kewns]

My wife currently trades on ebay and has done for many years. I have always tried to convince her to setup an e-commerce website as I think she could double her turnover once she starts marketing with adwords etc.

So she has now agreed but wants me to do the leg work. As she wants to test the water she is not looking for something bespoke (expensive) but rather likes the idea of buying a template and then having this customised and intergrated with a shopping cart/paypal.

She is also not bothered about uploading content herself and would happily pay the going rate when she wants the site updated.

She does not like Oscommerce style templates but likes the fancy CRE (whatever this means) Zen carts etc style templates. The one's on template monster etc.

Is there anyone on this forum who could offer this type of service? She has had a couple of quotes but to be honest they are too expensive (cheaper to have a site built from scratch!!!)

So i'll open up the forum for any advice, contact names, advice on the best approach etc etc.

To start you off the cheapest quote she has had is £540, which includes the purchase of the template, which is around $160.

Look forward to all your replies.


Hello bud i was like your wife started my website with very litte investment
i now have mice site after a while lol
set up by dwebs for free i paid them £70 pound for the hosting fee for the year, and i have done some of the work myself they insatall cubecart for me which is free if you dont mind javing powered by cubecart in the tag

i have it and it hasnt effect people buting from me
you can buy the license to remove it cost £121 last time i checked lol

cubcecart is basic but great an dead easy to
it has seo alreay on there can import csv files no problems

the basic templates ant that good but you can buy one from cubecart sesigns. net for £30 pound and they will install it for you

and its easy once you get the hang of it to install mods your self

i have and got most of my mods for free

please the pair of you take a look at my site

www.sportingdesires.com

and dont be like me i was con for my frist site and lost like £350 pound and got a really poor basic site so whatever you do dont pay till your happy

wish you all the best



Regards,

stephen

[Fingers In Pies]

Hello bud i was like your wife started my website with very litte investment
i now have mice site after a while lol
set up by dwebs for free i paid them £70 pound for the hosting fee for the year, and i have done some of the work myself they insatall cubecart for me which is free if you dont mind javing powered by cubecart in the tag

i have it and it hasnt effect people buting from me
you can buy the license to remove it cost £121 last time i checked lol

cubcecart is basic but great an dead easy to
it has seo alreay on there can import csv files no problems

the basic templates ant that good but you can buy one from cubecart sesigns. net for £30 pound and they will install it for you

and its easy once you get the hang of it to install mods your self

i have and got most of my mods for free

please the pair of you take a look at my site

www.sportingdesires.com (http://www.sportingdesires.com)

and dont be like me i was con for my frist site and lost like £350 pound and got a really poor basic site so whatever you do dont pay till your happy

wish you all the best



Regards,

stephen

Blimey Stephen... I know it's late, but - can you edit this post, and correct the spelling - I can hardly understand it.

:)

Jim

[cbpword]

hi Sixs,

I have had a total of 8 websites in 10 years for 3 different businesses.

I think you are right not to think about spending thousands initially on one. It takes time to get a website up and running, unlike ebay that is pretty immediate. Its a whole new ball game and one i would certainly recommend.

Ebay and websites bring about a variety of differences. They generally mean that you can charge higher prices too as ebay is so competitive. Like I say, it takes time but I think it's time well spent and i think all businesses should have a website even if its just as a calling card and they don't even need a shop.

As a shop I have used different ones and so I can help you on this quite a bit. My first was a bespoke one - one that i created a spec for and spent a lot of money on. it cost me many thousands in the first year and I would never do this again. they have got cheaper than in those days but can still be very expensive. Every single change costs and it never is quite what you really want. You still have to host it every month of course, so that is money too. I have a friend who just a year ago spent 6k on an ordinary retail site. i could not believe it. i tried to talk him out of it but he genuinely did think he knew what he wanted etc. he is bright, articulate and created a great spec but he still did not get what he wanted and months later he was still screaming for things. He is now trying to sue them and get his money back and has gone onto a system that i recommended and is doing just fine with no large outlay. He cannot get his money back because there does not appear to be any kind of contract with him outlining deadlines so one way and another he is going to probably lose his money.

In recent years I have always used an ecommerce online solution. Some are better than others. My first solution was an os commerce one, and whilst it did its job it was restrictive and i could only change so much of it. I also found the settings pretty complicated.

My latest website is the best i have used so far and comes from gocommerced.com
It is a relatively new company and they are still creating additions but so far it is my favourite mostly because you can change things quite easily and the support is great. My previous site's support was based in india and this one is uk - which suits me better. There are no large initial outlays, a small setup fee, and just a single ongoing monthly cost and one i think is well worth it - it'd take you nearly 3 years with them to spend even a thousand pounds in total. Which I think is amazing and very reasonable for what you get. You can get them to set it up for you for about £100 or so - like the general layout, colours basic design etc too.
In addition there are add-ons such as a built in emailer for marketing etc and seo is built in too (well you can only build in the basics of course). You will find them on (not sure if I can put links in, but it is gocommerced .com and worth a look.

My last website before this one cost £250 per month and was pretty good to be honest - but even though this new one is a fraction of that, its better. I must say I have previously used one of the £10-ish a month ones and not been one bit happy. Also, I don't like templates as such because they limit your scope for how it looks even though some of them are nice.

My current site being created isn't available yet but my husband went over to them a few months ago after a lot of misery with his previous site provider and he wanted to keep his site looking like his previous one, and has managed it quite easily.

Your wife will need to load all her products and categories etc and it will take time to get it right but this is true on any site she ultimately decides to use.

She will need to consider things like PPC (pay-per-click) advertising on google and/or yahoo to get the ball rolling for new customers, so it would be worth having a budget for that.

Another thing is not to worry about charging more on a site than ebay. Customers on ebay look for bargains more in my opinion than around sites, although this still happens, often website customers do not use ebay so do not know about it so much. Not everyone uses ebay even though we often think they do.

Setting up your own site using dreamweaver etc requires skills that i personally would not try to acquire if you do not already have them I can use this and do pretty well but it took a lot of time and energy and quite honestly now, i would rather leave the web building techy stuff where it belongs, with the technical guys.

SEO knowledge can be acquired to some extent but your first job is getting your site out there, then start on this stuff.

I have some other suggestions too, but i have gone on long enough so pm me if you want me to ask me anything further.




__________________________________________________ __________________
You know when people are so rich they have no respect for anything? Thats how rich i want to be!

[vip1salethebest]

you are so smart man, we only deal in one or two kinds products. we want specialize in them, so we only have one website.

[awebapart.com]

She does not like Oscommerce style templates but likes the fancy CRE (whatever this means) Zen carts etc style templates... So any other thoughts?
Most templates are usually default systems with a visual makeover, eyecandy, and once you get past the eyecandy you soon realise it is the default system behind it. For professional online shops, default open source systems aren't usually enough, since default open source systems are really only to be used as a base for developing a final system. Feature customisation is required too and this is a development task.

Have a look at www.paceretail.co.uk (http://www.paceretail.co.uk) - they provide a hosted managed ecommerce service based on their custom version of Zencart, and have various templates. Since they provide up and running and supported sites, already feature customised to provide a working system, this should avoid the extra development work (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=392604) required in going the DIY route. A hosted managed service is effectively a low cost of entry website rental service, but if you outgrow this and want to go it alone in the future when you have more of a budget, you can pay someone else to create a similar semi-bespoke Zencart system (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=278560), and since both systems are Zencart the migration should be relatively pain-free.

I have shown her examples of OScommerce sites and she just does not like them. She wants a fresh, modern website that has the professional feel but without the cost!... As for what she sells well let's just say it's "girlie" items.
The reason I asked about what products she was selling, was to try to determine if there were any special ecommerce requirements she would need. Women's items such as jewellery are fairly simple since there usually aren't any size and colour issues. Women's products such as clothing, with product option level stock control for a particular skirt in various sizes and colours (have we got any size 10 green skirts left) is more complex and requires more complex ecommerce features, features which might not be there in certain default ecommerce systems.

osCommerce sites do not have to look like typical osCommerce sites. We provide a hosted managed ecommerce service where we use our custom version of osCommerce for the online shop part of a website, and we try to make our sites look different to the typical osCommerce sites, removing the clutter etc. That was one of the reasons I recommended paceretail because they do something similar (not exactly the same) to us but use Zencart instead. Our sites are slightly different because they are a website first with an online shop section inside, rather than an online shop website first. Out of our client portfolio, we have a couple of clients selling products for women, such as bras (http://www.thebosomboutique.com) (recently launched) and ladies designer shoes (http://www.ellemoda.co.uk). We don't take a typical template approach though, because an over designed existing template has its own branding and this can conflict with and can be difficult to blend in with a client's existing logo and branding. We work from the client's branding and then customise a particular branding neutral layout to the client's branding, to exactly match client colour schemes. This might be something to consider when you go for your solution, don't go for a fancy branded template if your logo will look out of place on it, go for a more neutral branded but colour customisable template.

[L Patmore]

My advice would be to get a basic site in one of the many ways as listed in this thread. Whilst keeping your main source of customers on ebay, you can include a Compliments slip in the parcel and inform the ebay customers of the new site. Once you have transferred a few of the customers to shop direct with the web site rather than ebay, you should see a slight difference in the takings.

I have seen this done before and the person who did it kept the extra money they would of paid to ebay to one side and eventually got a decent amount of money to get a good site developed. As ebay is already a good source and is providing a living you don't really need an all singing & dancing site that will rank highly on natural search terms. This can be done at a much later date.

The key thing is, get something cheap, looks good, and then inform each customer from other sources that they can shop direct with you. Word of mouth will also help as I'm sure these customers will tell other people.

Good luck,

Lee

[My Little Customs]

My advice would be to get a basic site in one of the many ways as listed in this thread. Whilst keeping your main source of customers on ebay, you can include a Compliments slip in the parcel and inform the ebay customers of the new site. Once you have transferred a few of the customers to shop direct with the web site rather than ebay, you should see a slight difference in the takings.

I have seen this done before and the person who did it kept the extra money they would of paid to ebay to one side and eventually got a decent amount of money to get a good site developed. As ebay is already a good source and is providing a living you don't really need an all singing & dancing site that will rank highly on natural search terms. This can be done at a much later date.



This is exactly what I did :)

From start to finish it took around 8 months to ease back from Ebay and save enough to upgrade to a full e-commerce site which I launched last September. Prior to that, I had a basic site with PayPal generated "add to cart" buttons which was enough to tide me over in the interim period.

Alongside including the information about my website with Ebay sales, I had incentives such as 10% off next orders, free shipping etc to tempt people to buy direct from me / my site.

Ebay is a great starting point as people like to have the "security" when purchasing from someone for the first time but once the trust is there and you provide a good service, they will buy direct.

I occasionally have a little flurry of sales on Ebay to advertise myself to customers that may not have heard of me before but 99.99% of my sales are all website based ~ it is hard work to get it to work but worth it in the long run :D

[SIXS]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. Alot to think about. However i dont think we will go down the template route. I'll keep you all updated on what option she wishes to choose.

[L Patmore]

Another option you have open to you and I know there are a few affiliates running these sites is a Word Press site.

Word press is primarily designed for blogging, but come with lots of addons that can simply be installed. These sites are fairly simple to install (I have set one up before with just HTML knowledge), the themes and addons are simple as you just ftp them into a location, log in to the cms and enable them. With the affiliates using them I am sure there must be shopping cart addon, if it is free I have no idea, but if you want to check out this option there is information that can be found on www . affiliates4u . com forum.

To get a custom template for this also wouldn't cost much money either as they are CSS and image controlled.

Also, if you can get a half decent site set-up, running an affiliate programme may also be a viable option where you can pay the referring affiliate commission based on a simple % of the sale. This and ebay would really help sales on your stand alone site.

If you want to talk to me you can get my details from www . leepatmore . co.uk, and I'd be more than happy to explain these options further, and no, I won't be selling in any of my services to you, just a bit of advice to try and help you choose the direction you want to go down.

Good Luck with what ever you choose.

Lee

[Rain-bow]

Ok i may be a little late in on this one

but heres my ten penneth worth .....

There are 2 platforms i would recommend both open source

one is zencart the other is presta

both are basic opensource software but getting them set up and adapted by the right people is going to be the key to making these carts work for you in the way you want them to without the standard template feel

for zen-cart istallation and modification i would recommend Rob at
tjrstores
he specialises in Zen

For prestashop i would recommend Paul at
ecartservice

Both outstanding guys , very knowledgable and very very helpful :)

Feel free to get in touch if you need more help :D

Rain
xxxx

[Jay08]

Openminded ecommarce hands down. http://www.openmindcommerce.co.uk/
The back end is amazing so much things you can do, and they use Full Phat Design for the design of the site and the work is amazing.

You can also request new features which is looked at and added to the next release.

[paulomunky]

Hi!

COG ecommerce is a great e-commerce solution. Very easy to use, doesn't bog you down with features unless you want them. All very straightforward and user friendly. Hope this helps!
Paul

[wealthcreation]

Can any one give website idea on how to make one?

[paulomunky]

Hello Wealthcreation!

You need to find yourself an e-commerce program you like (I recommend COG), then you can use the standard templates it offers you or if that doesn't suit your needs then speak to the designers of that company and get them to make you a fully customised professional website. This costs about £500 for COG.

With COG they can add your own custom logo and graphics on the website for free and that might be all you actually want. I'm not sure about other e-commerce platforms but I assume they do similar things! Oscommerce, Magento, EKM are other e-commerce programs which are popular but there are countless others.

Paul

[Bruce_Andrews]

Not sure if I missed something, but I think there are two issues?
1 - you want a good template - i.e. look and feel.
2 - you want a robust platform to sit the template on.

If so, have a look at www.pearlsoftware.co.uk
You only pay for what you need as far as the robust platform is concerned, and you can use their designers, or your own, to get the look and feel.

Oh yes, I'll do the updating (but it's so easy, in reality, you'll do it yourself)

[tony84]

try http://www.gocommerced.com

I think they start at about £20 a month, they can help you ad your items to froogle etc. Have a chat with Faye or Steve theyre really helpful.