Setting up an online business/website

[Mooslak]

Hello,

I appreciate this topic will have been posted a million times on here and I am sorry in advance!

I am currently thinking up ideas to set up an online retail business. It will be a second income to myself so I am not looking to make any more than about £500 per month.

I have been researching how to get a website up and running and would greatly appreciate some further guidance.

1. Buying a domain: I have looked at websites such as GoDaddy.com and the domain I am interested in is available but when going to the checkout (I am just playing around) gives me some options for web hosting - what is this and is it compulsory to buy from godaddy.com?

2. Web hosting: I will refer to answers above but what other web hosters (recommended) are out there to use?

3. can ecommerce platforms like Bigcartel, shopify etc be used as "web platforms" or are they solely for shopping cart systems? Which ecommerce platforms are recommended for somebody who ( as you would have gathered from this post!) does not have genius WEB DESIGNING skills?

Sorry if this post makes me sound completely stupid but would really appreciate the help!

Thanks in advance

 

[abbasmuraj]

1. You can buy domain and hosting from different providers, but it is better to stick with one. Very important that the domain is registered to your name and address. As a reseller providing domain and hosting services to over 150 clients, send me a PM and I will be glad to help.

2. Depending on what you need to sell, there are opensource packages like Wordpress and Opencart that will work out for you. There are free and cheap themes and modules that you can purchase and modify to make it, up to a extent, the way you want it, without the need to go for bespoke design.

 

[WolfStores]

Hi There,

Please note my advice in red below.

Please let me know if you need any further help with this

Best Regards,

Tim

Hello,

I appreciate this topic will have been posted a million times on here and I am sorry in advance!

I am currently thinking up ideas to set up an online retail business. It will be a second income to myself so I am not looking to make any more than about £500 per month.

I have been researching how to get a website up and running and would greatly appreciate some further guidance.

1. Buying a domain: I have looked at websites such as GoDaddy.com and the domain I am interested in is available but when going to the checkout (I am just playing around) gives me some options for web hosting - what is this and is it compulsory to buy from godaddy.com? Buy the domain name from GoDaddy but not their hosting.

2. Web hosting: I will refer to answers above but what other web hosters (recommended) are out there to use? We can host your ecommerce website on our servers at very competitive prices.

3. can ecommerce platforms like Bigcartel, shopify etc be used as "web platforms" or are they solely for shopping cart systems? Which ecommerce platforms are recommended for somebody who ( as you would have gathered from this post!) does not have genius WEB DESIGNING skills? We could install your ecommerce website on the Prestashop ecommerce platform which is an open license, free to use, professional ecommerce solution. No web design is necessary as you can get free templates or premium templates at a small extra cost. We will do the technical work for you and you would only need to upload your products and content of your site pages.

Sorry if this post makes me sound completely stupid but would really appreciate the help! Your questions are reasonable for someone who is just starting with ecommerce

Thanks in advance

 

[queldorei]

this is look like so easy to get £500 per month, but you got to invest to your website a summ before you start to get 500, or you got to spend lot of your time to get traffic - half of year

 

[Kevincloud]

We actually sell E-commerce online data back up sites (ready to take on clients in 2 weeks) as queldorei said you have to invest first,

cloudelephant.com

 

[RubixEvolution]

Hello,

I appreciate this topic will have been posted a million times on here and I am sorry in advance!

I am currently thinking up ideas to set up an online retail business. It will be a second income to myself so I am not looking to make any more than about £500 per month.

I have been researching how to get a website up and running and would greatly appreciate some further guidance.

1. Buying a domain: I have looked at websites such as GoDaddy.com and the domain I am interested in is available but when going to the checkout (I am just playing around) gives me some options for web hosting - what is this and is it compulsory to buy from godaddy.com?

2. Web hosting: I will refer to answers above but what other web hosters (recommended) are out there to use?

3. can ecommerce platforms like Bigcartel, shopify etc be used as "web platforms" or are they solely for shopping cart systems? Which ecommerce platforms are recommended for somebody who ( as you would have gathered from this post!) does not have genius WEB DESIGNING skills?

Sorry if this post makes me sound completely stupid but would really appreciate the help!

Thanks in advance

Hi Mooslak,

1- Re: Domain: I recommend GoDaddy or 123-reg but you can buy from anywhere. The important thing is that the name of the domain.

2- Re: Hosting: I've been quite happy with eukhosting and 123-reg so i can recommend those two. What i don't recommend is GoDaddy hosting

3- Re: Platform: I always recommend Magento, it just covers everything you would need on a ecommerce platform but do check others as well. If you need any recommendation any help with setting up the website, drop a line.

I can sense that you would be asking many other questions, feel free to shout and good luck with your plan.

 

[templateagreements]

My experience with Shopify has been good. You can choose from a number of templates then customise them. It's not just a shopping cart solution, you can create pages, write a blog and integrate with other services like Twitter and Facebook. The admin interface is easy to navigate and use, and tech support is not bad.

 

[Bart Simpson]

Hi Mooslak,

1- Re: Domain: I recommend GoDaddy or 123-reg but you can buy from anywhere. The important thing is that the name of the domain.

2- Re: Hosting: I've been quite happy with eukhosting and 123-reg so i can recommend those two. What i don't recommend is GoDaddy hosting

3- Re: Platform: I always recommend Magento, it just covers everything you would need on a ecommerce platform but do check others as well. If you need any recommendation any help with setting up the website, drop a line.

I can sense that you would be asking many other questions, feel free to shout and good luck with your plan.

Thanks for the mention RubixEvolution.

You can buy the domain as well as hosting from us(eUKhost Ltd)

Our hosting supports all popular platforms like Magento, opencart, prestashop, Zencart & more.

If you need help with any of these we would be glad to assist.

 

[cartsie47]

try arvixe.com

you can get a free .com domain and 1 click to set up opencart, and other shopping carts this gives you a web site ready to list products for sale

unlimited bandwidth and you can have another 6 domains added later

you will have to do all the work yourself uploading images, product listings etc.

but at the end of the day it will only cost you $7 month (about a fiver)

took me 2 weeks to get the site ready to go live for my self.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Hi Mooslak

You will need to implement a payment gateway and Merchant account to enable you to actually receive payments for your sales, and that means getting PCI Compliant..

We can assist you with this whole area, and we can work with the majority of the carts that have been recommended to you so far.

Alternately start out with PayPal as you wont need a separate merchant account, but you will pay a lot more in fees, but once you are trading successfully then you can move to a conventional merchant account/payment gateway and improve your operating costs considerably.

BY the way what are you planning to sell ?

Rgds

Mark

 

[Amasty]

1. Godaddy is a good registrar for domains.
2. Hosting - it will depend from the eCommerce software you will choice. For example for Magento you will need good hosting. In my opinion elief.com will suite for ecommerce site.
3. What about eCommerce software, you can try different but all your process will depend from your personal skill. Magento is a professional eCommerce platform will a big powerful potential. Lots of word wide shops use Magento.

 

[quid]

2. Depending on what you need to sell, there are opensource packages like Wordpress and Opencart that will work out for you. There are free and cheap themes and modules that you can purchase and modify to make it, up to a extent, the way you want it, without the need to go for bespoke design.

Wordpress is not exactly a e-commerce platform. You can enhance it to be so using plugins etc., but still. Opencart is a good one.

you can get a free .com domain and 1 click to set up opencart, and other shopping carts this gives you a web site ready to list products for sale

Be careful with such "free domain" offers - there's a significant risk of getting stuck with the registar because of him actually owning the domain name. I can't post the direct link at the moment, but here's the quote:

Instead of taking the freebie offered by some hosts and developers, it is best to just pay for your own domain. “Why wouldn’t I want to save a few bucks a year?” you may ask. Those free domains sound like a good deal, but there are strings attached to it. If you do not purchase the domain yourself and allow someone else to provide it for you, they will own your domain, not you. You can always move your site to your domain, but without control over the domain name, you will not be able to forward your traffic.

Your host or developer will own your domain. That means you are stuck with them for life, unless you purchase the domain from them. Rest assured, if you decide you are going change hosts, your present host will not sell the domain name to you for a cheap price. You will pay dearly for it. This pitfall can be avoided by simply purchasing your vital domains yourself.

Even if you decide to allow the host to provide disposable domains for free, it is possible that the domain that they provide for you will be successful and you will be faced with the same dilemma of someone else owning your domain name and in the long run, they will be the beneficiary of the traffic you develop.

There are legit offers though, so that was generally a good advice, but you have to doublecheck.

 

[quid]

UPD: here's a similar story: ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=298871

 

[rashisree]

Hi, There are many open source shopping cart software available to create your store, & i suggest to check Zeuscart which is the best advanced open source shopping cart software with a lot of features.

 

[rockingdeals]

The most important part in online business is its marketing. You will need to do some efforts toward that also.

 

[LauraBrighton]

Hi Mooslak,

I recommend you try Create.net - you can build a shop/website through there and they also provide hosting. The customer support is excellent and can assist with any questions if you're not a technical person but it's pretty straightforward to use.

You can buy your domain separately through organisations such as 123.reg and you own that domain. Beware because not all platforms are like that, some of them try to own your domain then make you pay if you want to move on!

It's worth checking out the e-commerce platforms as they are cheaper than a build from scratch and have a lot of back end features that help with orders and the running of your shop. The platforms get updated with new features as well which helps as you don't want your website to age. If you went to an agency they'd have to eventually come back and update or rebuild your website to keep it up to date so that incurs extra costs...

Good luck with your web build!

 

[Shelly Watson]

You can establish your online store based on some ecommerce platforms, such as shopify, joomla, etc. For online businesses, another important tool is Comm100 Live Chat, which enables you to track and engage visitors in real time. It has been used by most e-commerce websites to improve customer satisfaction and sales conversion. http://www.comm100.com/livechat/

 

[iancowli]

I am using a company called JSC Digital to assist me with the building of my web business at present.
They will take care of the Domain & Hosting plus you have someone on the end of the phone for support, which I have found very useful.
I am using wordpress at present for the first time and I have to say it seems to be working for me at present

 

[quid]

They will take care of the Domain & Hosting

Once again, it makes sense to doublecheck that you're the one who owns the business domain name.

 

[whichfan_com]

3. can ecommerce platforms like Bigcartel, shopify etc be used as "web platforms" or are they solely for shopping cart systems? Which ecommerce platforms are recommended for somebody who ( as you would have gathered from this post!) does not have genius WEB DESIGNING skills?

Personally I would go with Magento, superb ecommerce store plus loads of addons and plenty of templates out there.
Also depends on what you want to do, my website has Joomla as frontend, Magento for store and Wordpress for blogs!

Goodluck