E-Commerce Website

[Tommy7]

Which is the best and most cost effective programme to use?

 

[sanjiv]

Are you looking for a script that you install and modify?
Are you looking for a web designer?
Are you looking for a service which you pay for monthly who hosts your website?

 

[Tommy7]

Are you looking for a script that you install and modify?
Are you looking for a web designer?
Are you looking for a service which you pay for monthly who hosts your website?

Just looking for a simple ecommerce website to sell clothes on.

 

[Paul Norman]

Hi Tommy.

There is no simple answer to this! But lots of options!

You can use a 'ready made' shop system, such as Magento or similar. These are inexpensive, but do require you to patiently learn how to use them. Whether or not this is a good idea will depend on your own apptitude for that kind of thing!

You could, on the other hand, get a website company to build you one. They may use the same systems that you could, but will hopefully be more experienced and adept at making them suit you. Or they may not - many ecommerce platform companies have their own solutions, built by themselves.

If you are involving a company, which personally I would, ensure they are willing to spend time properly understanding your business, market and product before they put together a proposal. Get precise costings and timescales. Be precise about what functionality you will be getting. Ensure they understand how to create an effective online presence, and be very very sure you are comfortable with the ongoing costs of hosting and maintenance.

There is no 'guide price' here - but to some level you do get what you pay for. Cheap is not usually best. But neither is the most expensive!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

If the profit margins are good, then use ebay to aquire clients, and set up a simple zen cart store. As you aquire clients on EB, you then drive them to your store for future purchases.

 

[benjamin_c]

Personally I'm a fan of tiger commerce but magento is fantastic if you know how to use it, i would recomend looking on magento specific forums and amazon for books on it tbh if you choose to use it, but as well as tiger there's many other hosted options. I hear that actinic, EKM and bigcommerce are good but have no personal experence of them but their websites are full of info. look around the internet and find what suits you, but make sure you look at your options and the long term goals of your business before you rush in to choosing a platform as if/when you choose to expand it can be difficult from an indexing and SEO point of view.

i've found this website to be useful, http://www.practicalecommerce.com/

 

[LinkBright Media]

I sell clothing online and if you value being able to keep an inventory of your stock then you HAVE to look for a solution which will allow you to keep stock levels by product options (different sizes of the same product). This is not something that is easily found. Personally I use CubeCart v4 and I bought an add-on for $30 which allows me to keep stock inventory by clothing sizes. Otherwise you're going to be keeping your inventory manually updated every day in a spreadsheet, and that will give you a headache, believe me

 

[MartCactus]

I sell clothing online and if you value being able to keep an inventory of your stock then you HAVE to look for a solution which will allow you to keep stock levels by product options (different sizes of the same product). This is not something that is easily found. Personally I use CubeCart v4 and I bought an add-on for $30 which allows me to keep stock inventory by clothing sizes. Otherwise you're going to be keeping your inventory manually updated every day in a spreadsheet, and that will give you a headache, believe me

I'd have thought pretty much all shopping carts have stock control like this these days?

 

[LinkBright Media]

I'd have thought pretty much all shopping carts have stock control like this these days?

If you're selling one size of something then yes, they all have this. But if you have 10 different sizes of the same product then no, they don't...

 

[AndyP]

If you're selling one size of something then yes, they all have this. But if you have 10 different sizes of the same product then no, they don't...

Look at EROL. That platform has this function. And there for others for sure. X-Cart maybe? Definitely EROL though.

 

[MartCactus]

If you're selling one size of something then yes, they all have this. But if you have 10 different sizes of the same product then no, they don't...

Even our old classic ASP software has supported this since about 2003. You can have unlimited combinations of options (eg colours, sizes, styles, fabrics). You can then opt that each combination is treated as a separate SKU, so each can have a unique price and stock control. Our current asp.net software does it the same way.

As far as I'm aware most carts will let you do that - unless I'm misunderstanding what you are saying?

 

[goodstohand]

OK, Are you looking for some solution to open the new store ?
I can help you !

 

[sonnas]

magneto has the ability for stock control for each product and its variations. it takes a bit of time to learn the system but with some reading and trial and error,once you get it down its pretty simple. its a pretty good system i find. i also use for selling clothes btw.

 

[goodstohand]

Hi, we have experience in Magento for along time so we have done a lot of site magento
If you want me to share or quote something

goodstohand.com

Contact me ; YM: hongipc , Gmail: mysoft.it

 

[sadsack]

I agree that Magento is a good platform to start with. I have several sites using Magento. Customising the look can be tricky but there are lots of templates that are available online from around £55.

I've had a few issues with coding, but there community forums are pretty good, and someone always seems to have a fix.

I advise to look at a few demo sites of different ecommerce platforms.
I recommend:

Oscommerce
Magento
Prestashop

all are integrated with paypal and wont take longer then a few hours to set-up.

I'll be happy to help you out.

 

[LinkBright Media]

You can then opt that each combination is treated as a separate SKU, so each can have a unique price and stock control.

Yes that's what I meant... mmmm, looks like I should review what I've got to see if it's the best option! It has been quite a while since I chose the current platform that I have...