Arty farty website

[Mattlock]

Hi folks,
I',m ready to start an e-commerce website selling art (cant go into too much detail), i've used moonfruit to create previous websites for my day job which have really worked. I'm a bit shy when it comes to this sort of thing though, my question is, is it worth handing this over to the professionals or are there some good self builders out there that would enable me to have full controll over my site? It will be show casing various forms of art (in quite a few media formats - this is where i may come unstuck)

 

[Faevilangel]

The problem with moonfruit sites is that they are flash based (along with most web builders) which means the sites are generally slow, unresponsive and you have limited features.

I would always recommend going to a pro, even just for advice on a platform which you could build on (WordPress etc).

It depends on what functionality you want from the site, that will decide what platform would be recommended and how much it will cost.

As an average, an ecom store created by a developer will run into the thousands.

If you wanted to start slowly, then a hosted ecom store such as EKM powershop will give you a great platform to kick from for only £25 a month.

You can get a designer to skin it so it's really good and not have to deal with the issues of building your own ecom platform.

 

[WolfStores]

good self builders out there that would enable me to have full controll over my site? It will be show casing various forms of art (in quite a few media formats - this is where i may come unstuck)

Hi There,

Have a look at Prestashop which is an open license, free to use, professional ecommerce platform. It is fairly easy to manage your online shop yourself with Prestashop and you would definitely be in full control of it

I am not quite sure what forms of art you have in mind, but just to give you an example we recently installed an addon (module) for one of our clients in a similar line of business as you, that allows you to add a Gallery to the online shop for works of art that are not for sale, i.e. these are not listed in the ecommerce section of the shop but only the Gallery as examples of the artists' work.

I agree with Faevilangel that if you get a developer to design your site from scratch the project could run into thousands but with Prestashop you also have the option to purchase a 'premium' template for your shop, at a much lower cost, to make it look more professional. You could have a look at Templatemonster or at the Prestashop Templates for a premium template.

I understand from your post that you cannot openly disclose too many details but please feel free to PM me if you require any more help or free advice with this.

Hope this helps

Best Regards,

Tim

 

[PeterCooper]

Yes I agree , Prestashop is a solid platform, easy to use and very reliable. Avoid flash on any website anyway!
Flash is not supported by many platforms anymore as it's an old and buggy technology.

 

[Alan]

How many items are you likely to be selling and what sort of formats might you be listing?

 

[Mattlock]

Hi roibot, I would be starting off very small probably about 15 units on the landing page but then introducing wav files and mp3 files ,hence i may need a powerful engine to run this
Thanks very much for your replies, very helpful

 

[Alan]

Sorry, forgot to ask, what sort of sales volume to you antipicate and teh average download sizes. These would of course factor in to how much bandwidth you would use.

 

[Quickpacksupplies]

Go for open cart they have a lot of flexibility and allow you to customise with some flashy websites.

Take a look at ours WWW.quickpacksupplies.co.UK

Message me for info on types of themes you can get.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[antropy]

Go for open cart

Agreed, as long as you know how to set it up on a hosting account or are willing to pay someone who does.