Where to start... setting up an internet shop..who to use

[Anns_pets]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so I hope I have put it in the right place.

Basically we sell pet supplies locally and sometimes on Ebay, I'm now looking at setting up my own online shop, so that we can give our customers somewhere to go and look at the products we offer and basically expand. We would be selling pet food and accessories. I have been looking into a bit just now but my mind boggles a couple that I have come across are BT eshop and Internet retailer. Internet retailer sound very helpfull on thier website and I may give them a call, but could just do with a little advise.
Do I need my own website before I get a internet shop?
What costs are involved with setting up or is it the set monthly fee.
Who would you recommend?
Any other advise..... sorry to be vague, i'm just not sure where to start???:redface:
Any help would be appreciated

 

[crowstone68]

Hi - it depends on whether you want to take payments through your website, or just use it as a shop-window with a phone number for you to take orders.

If you just want the shop window solution, I used microsoft office live, which is free (apart from a tenner or so to buy your web address), but is quite limited. Good way to get your products up onto the web though.

To take payments, you'll need to take some proper advice. We just opened our website a few weeks back, and there is quite a lot to learn (nothing overly technical though). Fee-wise, we pay £20 a month for card payment processing (with Sage Pay) and £10 a month for the site to be hosted. All the cost is in the building of the website. If you're anywhere near Essex, I can recommend the guy who did ours, he was far cheaper and more prefessional to deal with that the others I looked at.

I should say I really am NO expert, so please take this as just being my recent experience with it. We're selling coffee, and if you look at our site - just google A1 Coffee - you'll see what a fairly modest gets you.

Best of luck.
David

 

[kerry90]

I should say I really am NO expert, so please take this as just being my recent experience with it. We're selling coffee, and if you look at our site - just google A1 Coffee - you'll see what a fairly modest gets you.

I just looked at your website and i find it impossible to believe that i could ever creat something like that. i am looking to form my own online clothes shop i have found suppliers and am ready to form my company name used this website to teach me everything i was unsure of, but i have no idea where to start in terms of advertising. has anyone got any advice for me starting up?
i know its a bold question i just need to know what kind of things i should be thinking about as i dont want to mess it up.

 

[crowstone68]

Hi - I guess that so long as you pick the right basic type of shop, you'll evolve it over time. My site isn't complicated at all underneath, but I'm hoping to add to it all the time and keep improving it as it's the shop window to my business.

You could always use a package like Office Live as it's free and you can add (virtually) as many pages as you like. It's limited though - you can take payments with it but it's a bit cumbersome, and you can't have any look you want, instead you choose from their templates. Upside is you need no technical knowledge at all (good for me then!) - if you can produce a flyer in ms word, you can make your own site with this. Have a look at www.allthingsitalian.co.uk - it's hardly cutting edge but it took me a day with no experience. Not great, but better than nothing?

 

[ORDERED WEB]

Hi

We specialise in this sort of site

Feel fee to contact us, if only to bounce arround ideas

Elizabeth
0115 845 8953

 

[los_design]

Hi

This post here on UKBF may be of use to you.

Regards
daren

 

[MH1]

You have a simple decision to make, either use someone such as Internet retailler, or build your own site using a free cart such as prestashop, os commerce etc.

Doing it yourself requires some work, but it will give you a lot of control and teach you a lot as well, it isn't necessarily any harder than using someone such as Internet Retailler.

I would recommend you take a couple of days to look around and read about the various options and then make a decision.

 

[Mister B]

I agree with MH1...spend a couple of days researching each avenue before making a decision.

Personally though, I think that you need to ask yourself what exactly do you want the website to achieve? It's quite feasible to get some good results from taking the DIY route but if you want to go for a more professional bespoke option, then it's worth shelling out a but more. Remember that it's an investment not an expense

Lots of good designers hang out around here too.

Mister B

PS Don't forget to optimise from the start!

 

[Tinamirror]

yes, research is super necessary. And before you decided to build your own e-shop, make sure that you know how complicated it will be with online payment, shipping, customer service and the whole process. If you don't have a big budget and enough manpower, a third-party platform could be a wise choice.

 

[tj49]

Hi,

Welcome to the forum...

I supposer you are at right place if you are looking to start up your online business. As majority of forum users find it very helpful. I am not sure if you are still looking for web designer. I am freelance web designer and developer and I can setup online shop for you. I will send you my porfolio if you are interested.

Thanks

 

[nickpp]

have a look at the free shopping carts magento is the best, but quite complex, prestashop, cube cart and os commerce.

Hall have an admin backend and if you need something basic have decent templates

 

[b2bmarketing]

Well you can also check Yahoo's ecommerce solution. Its easier to manage and has security features from yahoo. Not too customizable but that depends on your needs. In addition to this if you are a b2b company you can also profit from making company and products profiles on B2B marketplaces.

 

[Twentyfourten]

Alongside the ins and outs of physical e-commerce set-up consider the perceived quality of your web-site upon a visitor reaching it.

It's not just about the cart working properly, a cart for the best outlay or the payment gateway costs etc - you can have terrible click through rates and potential customers hitting the back button if once they've found you they don't 'buy into your brand' or aren't convinced.

Personally I've searched for best prices on items, visited the cheapest supplier and turned tail and gone to a more expensive one because the cheaper supplier might have looked 'home made' or the cart was styled so poorly that you can doubt the success of the payment, whether the goods will turn up etc etc.

It's what I call the "Perceived Quality" effect and is an undeniable factor in any online shops success. Your shop's styling and design has to give the user confidence to use it!

I'm all for anyone of any ability building their own web-site, but just wouldn't recommend it for their businesses.

The analogy has been made loads of times, but what do we think about high street shops who paint their own shop sign or vans driving around with hand written contact info? The lack of 'Trust' it gives out as a signal makes me not even consider them.

Get in touch with a web design company who are experts in interface design and usability, even if you have the confidence to handle the cart build yourself, put the 'front end' design part of your site at least in the hands of those who can turn visits into sales just through "Perceived Quality" know-how!

 

[highstreetsale]

hi,

you may be interested in our site HighStreetSale.com which is perfect for small businesses.

Take a look at it. its cheap and simple to set-up and operate.

 

[crowstone68]

Can anyone recommend any good b2b marketplaces? I'm already using BT Tradespace and Freeindex (is this what you mean by that)?
Apologies for the dumb question!

 

[crowstone68]

Note to Twentyforten > I do fully understand what you mean, it's just very easy to spend so much time building your site, you end up not seeing it with fresh eyes like potential customers will. If you have 20 secs spare, could you have a look at my home page and tell me if you would buy from it - any feedback welcome. I want to make it look slicker, more colourful and have more photography rather than drawn graphics, to improve the perception of quality.

Really appreciate it! thanks.
http://www.a1coffee.co.uk

 

[TopShopper]

Hosting will require a reliable host with a good reputation and 24 hour telephone support. Look for facilities like ASP or PHP. This will allow you to run your own scripts and a wider range of shopping carts. Most hosting companies are relatively inexpensive and there are literally dozens to choose from.

Need to publicize your site. Make sure your shopping cart is search engine friendly.

Accepting payments may need an internet merchant account with a bank. However you could can use one of the third part payment processing companies such as PayPal or Worldpay.

Regards

 

[guscat]

The A1 coffee site does present an image of quality and I for one would trust the site and therefore be more likely to buy from it. With websites I find image is everything, and no matter how good the content, If I dont like a website in the first 5 seconds, I will not look at it any further, yet alone hang around long enough to buy from it!

After all, with hundreds / thousands of decent competitors' websites out there, all a click away, why should customers stay on a poorly designed and cheap looking site.

It's the same as eating in a restaurant with spider webs and dirt etc in the windows - would you walk in or walk by? They may do amazing food, but would you realy honestly walk in and pay for it?

Theallthingsitalian website in my opinion doesn't cut it at this moment in time, It is a nice clean site but you cannot even click on the items to find out more about them or order them. The internet is designed to make things easy, and I (only my humble opinion) wouldn't bother to get on the phone (at extra expense and hassle) to order things, when so many other sites let you order online there and then, with no hassle. people like to have an easy life - look at microwave ovens, remote controls and mobile phones - all about speed and convenience these days, not phone in one hand, PC in another.

I guess at the end of the day - the results achieved will be the measure of an effective site.

 

[streetslocal]

Note to Twentyforten > I do fully understand what you mean, it's just very easy to spend so much time building your site, you end up not seeing it with fresh eyes like potential customers will. If you have 20 secs spare, could you have a look at my home page and tell me if you would buy from it - any feedback welcome. I want to make it look slicker, more colourful and have more photography rather than drawn graphics, to improve the perception of quality.

Really appreciate it! thanks.
http://www.a1coffee.co.uk

Green menus hide the site a little.
Menu navigation text to small and not clearer enough.
Top navigation to small.
Not an easy to use and easy to navigate site.
Sorry!!!

 

[TheSlackers]

Personally I would recommend EKM Powershop for somebody just starting out, it has it's doubters but hosts thousands of stores and is very easy to use. In terms of cost you're talking £20 per month for the shop and about the same again for a payment processor. If you want to get a professional looking design on top of that you can pay just a few hundred pounds. Other than that you can look at one of the free carts such as Zen cart, OS commerce, Magento, Virtumart etc

One thing that nobody has mentioned as yet is once you’re all set up and the site looks good you need to get some visitors! Unlike ebay they don’t just get handed to you and there is a lot of work (or money) before you start getting even 100 visitors per day. We have a couple of clients working in the pet trade and competition is very tough.

 

[crowstone68]

Thank you for your feedback, much appreciated. The All Things Italian website was only designed to be an online price list for any of our customers who wanted to check on prices, it was done by me for free in about 3 hours flat!
The A1 Coffee site is going to be given a makeover, and I'm glad that the comments I've had concur with what we want to do - namely change the left and right navigation bars to be graphics with nicer and clearer fonts, and make the navigation a little easier. Thanks for your time, it really does help.

David
A1 Coffee Ltd
http://www.a1coffee.co.uk
Coffee Suppliers & Wholesalers