E-commerce Site Creation/Info Help please.

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enigmatix

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Aug 19, 2005
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  • #1
    Hi

    Im a total noob on ecommerce. I am hopefully starting a business soon but want to keep costs to a minimum. Thus i am starting online first and without premises which i hope to get once i know what im doing etc.

    I want to sell pc's and peripherals so people can browse and pay online if they wish.

    what BITS do i need to get this up and working? basically what do i need to do.

    Kind regards in advance
     
    DuaneJackson

    DuaneJackson

    Free Member
    Jul 14, 2005
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    Brighton / London
  • #5
    Hi enigmatix,

    There are a number of different 'solutions' out there for e-commerce. And as with most things in this world, the saying that 'you get what you pay for' holds true.

    However, as you're trying to keep costs low to start with you should perhaps look at some 'off-the-shelf' packages as opposed to having someone develop a system for you. usually you'd have to get involved with allsorts of stuff including getting a merchant account, payment processor and lots of other stuff you don't want to bother with at this stage.


    One of the members here runs http://www.thinkcolony.com/ which might be of use. If you contact them let them know you are a UKBF member and try and get yourself a discount
     
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    DuaneJackson

    DuaneJackson

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    Jul 14, 2005
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    Brighton / London
  • #7
    It might be worth getting in touch with them becuase i suspect they might be able to do all you ask for.

    If you have a budget of £2500+ then we could develop a system for you to suit your exact needs.

    This is actually the cost of the colony product above, i didn't realise it cost quite so much.

    I still think that if you are trying to keep set-up costs initially below a few grand you should be looking at an off the shelf system. www.oscommerce.com for example is free. You'd need a developer to help you set this up.

    It will work out more expensive in the log run if you go for a cheaper system initially and then upgrade to a better system later on as you'd be paying out twice. But the benfit of doing it this way is that you are minimalising your risk if the business doesn't work out in the way you want it to.
     
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    Stephen

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    Feb 24, 2004
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  • #8
    I believe Computer 2000 partner with an organisation who provide a generic site that can be configured with your own profit margin, design etc.

    I can't remember what it's called, but if you ask C2K I'm sure they will help.

    The main advantage is you get access to a huge range of product imagery automatically, and probably get your own virtual warehouse too.
     
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    B

    bitsnstuff

  • #9
    Hello,

    I was in a similar situation, so I used Actinic and have found it to be a great solution. I can always upgrade as my business grows, if necessary, but for now it is working for me, is easy to use and fairly flexible.

    I would recommend it as an "out of the box and off you go" type solution for a small initial outlay.

    I agree with the comment about it potentially costing more in the long run to upgrade but this gives you a cheap "suck it and see" type of solution for the short term.

    Kate.
     
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    bitsnstuff

  • #13
    I am not a wholesaler and I currently deal with over 40 suppliers - Actinic works for me and your situation sounds similar to mine. However, there are many different solutions out there, all with varying capabilities, costs, ease of use and long term function, so you will need to get many opinions and see which would work best for you.

    Kate.
     
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    S

    SuffolkDesigns

  • #14
    You need a website and some king of shopping cart.

    There are a number of open source carts around that are extremely good, as well as some others that only cost a few $'s. Most can easily be customised to fit in with your site design.

    Look at osCommerce, cubecart and zencart as a starting point.

    Cubecart and oscommerce and both be autoinstalled from our control panel used by our hosting clients


    If you need any help with customisation / configuration just give me a shout.
     
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    webit

    webit

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    Jul 13, 2005
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    Brighton, UK
  • #15
    If off the shelf meets your needs then go for it. As a comparison I spent 18 months building webit.net and that was solid work. That’s (almost) every train journey, every night and weekend and every holiday. There’s even code comments dated on Christmas Eve last year!.

    For me it worked because I was in total control of the development and the workings of the application. (To put in perspective, there quite a bit of AI in webit and I struggle to know how parts of it work without taking it apart (part of my background is AI/Natural Language search algorithms) and webit weighs in at over 60k lines of code)

    By buying in code your giving your self the opportunity to focus on the business rather than developing. You can always find people who will code your ideas for money, it’s harder to find developed ideas so best your spend your time on those.

    Build if you’re a control freak but warn your wife first!
     
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    SuffolkDesigns

  • #17
    SillyJokes said:
    Ahh, but if you do it yourself you get exactly what you want, not a product of best fit .

    Also you are not reliant on waiting for someone else to make changes - you can do it yourself.
    Click to expand...
    Valid points, but it does take time to have coded and fix bugs as well as a healthy budget to do so. In this case the person is using free hosting so I am guessing the budget is quite small, in which case an open source solution might work better to get started.
     
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    webit

    webit

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    Jul 13, 2005
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  • #18
    I agree with open source. The trap is people see the initial price, not the TCO which needs to be accounted for. We use a lot of open source, Linux, 'Solaris'. LDAP, J2EE. Just because it's cheep to get into, without the greater level of understanding you need to manage these skills it's not a maintainable solution.

    OS shoping carts yes. But understand that you'll need to get some level of skills in PHP, Apache, Regular Expressions and SQL. All do-able but you need to plan for it.
     
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    enigmatix

    Free Member
    Aug 19, 2005
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  • #19
    Hi

    I am looking to tie up many suppliers into 1 site that offers payment options. Also i need the orders need to be linked to the suppliers so they recieve them too (and i get some kind of note/order copy that an order has been placed - allowing me to chase it up etc) Also i suppose once its dispatchd etc i need to know too some how - via email/txt message (as ill be on the move alot).

    What can you recommend for this.. somebody has a site made with 80k+ Products with many suppliers linked up but they got charged 5K for it! that is too high a start up cost.. its cheaper to get a building and pay a monthly rent it would seem.


    I dont want to spend hours making the site myself - i need to be trying to get sales in and most of the time i will be doing support etc.

    I maybe getting in touch with alot of you individually to see what costs are involved.
     
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    enigmatix

    Free Member
    Aug 19, 2005
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  • #21
    My business is not site creation or webhosting.. its selling PC/Peripherals and i need to go online to link all my suppliers together ( ONCE i have them).

    it would take me long to sit here and do it myself.

    i dont mind looking after it once it is created.
     
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    D

    DarrenH

  • #22
    Hi

    Sorry but I'm going to be a little blunt here.

    You don't want to build it yourself because you just want to get on and sell...

    At the same time you don't want to shell out the necessary money to have someone slog away at it to get it set up for you.

    Sounds to me like you're just in it for the money.

    I think 5k is an absolute bargain for what you're expecting someone to set up for you.

    I'm assuming you're working on the principle of build it and they will come...

    I.E. build a website and the visitors and orders will flood in. question is, how?

    Doing it yourslef has two distinct advantages if you have the time and will.

    1. Saves you money.

    2. Ends up looking and saying exactly what you want.

    Sorry if that was a little harsh.

    Darren
     
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    astutiumRob

    astutiumRob

    Free Member
    May 5, 2004
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    London
  • #24
    enigmatix said:
    Hi

    Well business is all about money - at the moment I just cant affort 5K in one lump some. I could try it myself

    Just out of interest... how much would a site like Ebuyer cost to make?
    Click to expand...

    Over 100k.

    The real questions are ...

    * do you have a defined and detailed idea, preferably on paper of exactly what you need the application to do - if not, then you will have to take the time out to write one

    * do you have a budget for the job ? - note "cheap" is not a budget :p

    Various off-the-peg existing solutions exist for a virtual store - OSCommerce being one "free" app which most hosts have built in to their control panels for 1click installations. Paid for solutions included Actinic and others, some people love them, some dont. If possible get trial versions and test them before committing to a purchase.

    It sounds like what you're trying to do is become a "wholesaler" in the same way as misco, ebuyer, dabs etc - unless the budget stretches into the millions that could be tough.

    And even once setup why would people buy from you and not one of the others ? What advertising are you expecting to do, how well has the market been researched etc ?

    somebody has a site made with 80k+ Products with many suppliers linked up but they got charged 5K for it! that is too high a start up cost.. its cheaper to get a building and pay a monthly rent it would seem.
    Click to expand...

    5k is incredibly cheap, and wont get you very far in terms of a commercial lease.
     
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    enigmatix

    Free Member
    Aug 19, 2005
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  • #25
    100k? alot.. would be better off opening a premises..

    im initially appealing to a local market here and also i want a website for people that might wanna order online.( I am still doing my business plan).. and yes ur right.. why would people come to me? Well we are already in the post office/newsagent business.. and how many shops are there around us doing the same thing? LOADS but that dont mean people dont come to us :)

    i will look at some of the open source carts..but i think i may go with ebay as ebay just pulls people alot anyway.
     
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