Start Up Advice?

[Stobbs45]

hey, I am thinking about setting up an e-commerce website selling specilist clothing. ie t shirts etc. I have my business plan wrote out nearly and now thinking of how to make a website, design it and host it. I have little ICT knowledge and my idea is to :

get BT business broadband with fixed IP address = £35 a month
Bt web hosting with e-commerce = £25 a month

But this would be £60 a month to get website up and running!!!

This comes with a WUGIWYS software, should i order this then build a website or anyone have any other companys or ideas how to create a website?

Whats the best way to go about making and hosting a e-commerce website??

Would love any help or advice Thanks Peter

[BusinessRookie]

Why use BT when you can shop around and save much more? BT provide wholesale services to many other operators so in theory you're still getting the same infrastructure except it's being "white labelled" to other businesses.

XLNtelecom have a broadband package that would be £20 cheaper per month than BT and

Godaddy dot com (who provide services worldwide and sell in pounds sterling) have amazing top of the range hosting for less than £10 per month including a free SSL certificate, 1000 email addresses, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth and a dedicated IP address is an additional £2 per month.

Get away from BT. They rely on people who have used them for the past 20 years or more to stick with them for life. They are no longer the best, or most reliable.

[HFServices]

There are many free ready made ecommerce webscripts available, Zencart and osCommerce to name only 2.

These can be hosted on any webhosting account that supports php and mysql.
As for broadband, your basic home broadband should be enough.

Post on the hosting section of this forum and somebody will be able to provide hosting at around £6 month for an ecommerce site, and some may even offer to help you setup your site.

[RBS]

Peter, check this:
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/fo...d.php?t=150479

[Stobbs45]

hey thanks for replys, not even sure what that link is about Rob thanks anyways thou. I am finding it so hard where to start. Think ill look through all the past posts for advice. Just need a WYSIWUG web programme to make my website and someone based in UK to host it. Need a static IP address so needs business broadband as I have residential at the moment with dynamic IP

Has anyone on here set a website up from scrath and if so what programme did you use to design the site and who hosts your e-commerce website?

[toastking]

Just a quick point here, I have never seen either of those abbreviations but know what they are due to knowing WYSIWYG (pronounced WIZZ-EE-WIG). Is the U just to make it more like text talk?

[Leo-InstallingIT]

Hi

Are you sure you actually need a static IP address? There's obviously nothing wrong with having one, but if your just going to be editing your hosted website you won't really need one.

You can go for the subscription services such as BT's ones, and for starting up alot of people find it very usefull. However others prefer to a package which they setup on some hosting, as you usually have more control over changes & design.

On the subscription side have a look at openmindcommerce - I've never used it personally but know many on this forum who have.

Another option are opensource packages such as OsCommerce, Prestashop etc. These are free and you would just have to host it. However you would probably need to spend a bit of money customising it to your needs.

If you going to be selling clothing will you need many "specialised" components (customisation, size / color attributes etc)?

I hope this helps,
Many Thanks

Leo

[RBS]

Originally Posted by toastking

Just a quick point here, I have never seen either of those abbreviations but know what they are due to knowing WYSIWYG (pronounced WIZZ-EE-WIG). Is the U just to make it more like text talk?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG
http://images.google.lv/images?q=WYS...N&hl=lv&tab=wi

[shopintegrator]

I am thinking about setting up an e-commerce website selling specilist clothing. ie t shirts etc.

How many products are you intending to have for sale on your website? (the answer to this will mean some solutions are more suitable than others)


Will your specialist clothing be very high value, exlclusive items where you don't expect to sell a high volume?
(the answer to this could make certain payment gateway [credit card processing] suggestions more/less appropriate)

Do you have any requirements as to how to process debit and credit card transactions? For instance, you may use PaPal to take payments online where customers who don't have a PayPal account can pay you using debit or credict cards. There is no monthly charge or set up costs and the initial per transaction charge is 3.4% (reducing fee as your sales increase). However, you may already have a business bank account and want to have a merchant account with them to take online payments, paying the set up costs and monthly charge to get a lower per transaction fee.

[FreelanceSoftwareDeveloper]

If the business is home based, regular broadband should be fine. That's what I use with a 3G dongle as backup.

Hosting would be around £5/month, SSL £15/year if requried, then get an Open Source cart installed and customised template from around £200.

So for the cost of 3-4 months with BT you could have your own store configured which much lower ongoing costs.

It depends a lot on what you are expecting from the business but BT sounds like an overpriced unnecessary hosted solution.

Feel free top contact me with further details if you would like a quote for an eCommerce solution.

What kind of specialist clothing? I wholesale Designer Clothing such as Ed Hardy, Firetrap, Armani, Evisu, Sonetti to name some of my current stock. All guaranteed authentic from the proper channels, PM me if you want to be added to my mailing list, website coming soon.

Matt