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desperately seeking e-commerce advise

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randa bott

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Mar 8, 2009
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I have a shop front retail .I would like to have a go at online sales.I already have a website with no sales.Any advice on the best package to get me started?Someone mentioned X Cart?I dont have the money to pay a genius to do it ,and I have IT-phobia:redface: ,soI need a simple to follow system.
Any suggestions welcome

randa
 
Try vstore.ca there great costs is very little i used them at the start try them if you need advice im here for it!
hope this helps they also are compatible with other merchants i offer websites already built

visit GM-Wholesale.com
 
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It's not only the web engine and its features but also the web pages that describe the goods you carry. If you have some way of analyzing the traffic, you can find the weak areas of the store to improve. Popular search engines have tools for this purpose some of them free of charge and you only need to spend a bit of time to set them up. There are shopping carts that also include features for web traffic analysis and there also tools if you search over the web.

Once you determine what is missing from your store you could decide if your current shopping cart s/w has the necessary features or you can check for alternatives.

For low budget startup businesses I strongly recommend going for open source shopping carts and spend some time to study the catalog and administrator capabilities (if you have lots of time then you should get involved with the shopping cart framework too). You can take a look at sourceforge.net there are lots of open source e-commerce packages. Most come with installation instructions, if you do not know how to configure a server on your local PC, just set them up on another folder or sub-domain on your existing server so you can examine them. Some of these packages have communities and lots of info that should help you out.
 
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Have a look at www.tigercommerce.co.uk. Its really easy to use and the great thing is they have video tutorials that you get a link to every day on your 7 day free trial showing you how you can change certain elements.

Hope this helps.

Thanks
 
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Hi Randa,

We offer a service where we can promote your products through various shopping channels such as Amazon, Shopping.com, & various price comparison sites.

Some of these sites drive the orders to your site, but others will take the payment for you - you just need to send out the order.

These can be a great way to test the water to see if people will buy your products online, as well as generating sales from other avenues.

If you need any more information, PM me or contact us through our site.
 
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quikshop said:
Its common courtesy to declare an interest if you are repeatedly promoting a service ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I often have menntioned in previous posts my relationship with this providor. However I prefer to use this forum as a way of exchanging business/technology advice rather than a feeding ground for new business. But thanks for the suggestion nonetheless ;).
 
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mattlast005 said:
However I prefer to use this forum as a way of exchanging business/technology advice rather than a feeding ground for new business.
Click to expand...

We all promote our own businesses through offering advice, links to help pages and so on. It works even better when you're up front and honest about it :D

You've recommended the company you work for a dozen times in less than 30 posts without declaring an interest. It says a lot about what a customer should expect from a service from the behaviour of its employees ;)
 
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Hi there I have just launched my online shop and am using a solution from daily.co.uk, the system is easy to use however it is not the most search engine friendly solution its a question of what you want to achieve. Look at my website at claude-celeste.co.uk it will give you an idea on what the solution look like.

Alex
 
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Well as you are all busy plugging your services, can I join in?

op. I have a site from Quickshop and am very pleased with the setup. David is very helpful. I can get you a setup discount if you pm me.
 
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randa bott said:
I have a shop front retail .I would like to have a go at online sales.I already have a website with no sales.Any advice on the best package to get me started?Someone mentioned X Cart?I dont have the money to pay a genius to do it ,and I have IT-phobia:redface: ,soI need a simple to follow system.
Click to expand...

Take a look at AgoraCart which is completely free. (I'm new here so cannot post links so try www DOT agoracart DOT com)

Apart from the initial setup which I helped him with, my friend who is a complete technophobe has been using this just fine for years.

It's one of the best recommendations I've ever given as in 5 years he's only bothered me twice regarding using it and I think both times it was because he'd lost/forgotten the passwords. :)

Hope this helps.
 
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You mentioned x-cart. I use it a lot and it is one of the best I have seen. Once you buy it, it is yours for life even if you change shops and URL's. All you have to do it change it in your registration panel. You are also covered for upgrades and security fixes for life. Not bad for the price it is quoted at. In the x-cart forums there are people who run it with 250,000 products and say it copes quite well. Using PHP and MySQL ,most hosts will run it. The server power will determine the size of your shop.

It has two major advantages The first is that is has two seperate units. The engine which does all the hard work and the skin which is the bit that is viewed in the browser. You can change the skin with minimal HTML and Smarty understanding. I taught myself how to code the skin. It is a bit tricky and some patience is required or you can buy a skin for well under £100. The skins slot in easy and you can swap skins over for seasonal or a refresh with ease. There are several on the market from both x-cart and third party suppliers.

The second advantage is the engine itself. It has so many functions that really in some cases are suited to really big stores.
It has a built in newsletter, login profile and several modules included that can be switched on or off inside the admin section. Postage and courier costs can be added to suit the package. It handles most merchant and paypal facilities.

The are third party modules that cost nearly nothing if you want added functionality.

It is not 100% perfect, but I am building 3 sites with it and I am yet to find anything that comes close to it. You can have a copy on your PC and build the site there and then FTP it up to the domain. products can be loaded via CSV files. The current version went a bit backwards in this and I prefer doing it using the earlier format.

I know of three x-cart programmers if you want to chat with them to see what the cost will be to professionally modify a skin. Message me anytime.
 
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imageonline said:
Well as you are all busy plugging your services, can I join in?

op. I have a site from Quickshop and am very pleased with the setup. David is very helpful. I can get you a setup discount if you pm me.
Click to expand...

Lol, now dont hog all the limelight hehe, I say s0d the shop and just buy pretty things from us two instead :D

In all seriousness my shop is also with Internet Retailer (Quikshop) and I'm very happy with the service and have been with them for 5 years.
 
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