Building an E-commerce Website?

[Lizza]

I am trying to figure out how in the world to build my own website to sell my crafts.

I checked out the yahoo small business hosting and website builder (which I downloaded and played with) but was not impressed at all. I then downloaded dreamweaver and I just don't know if I can manage to figure out how to program my own website. It seems like a full time job in and of itself and I know next to nothing about html or building a website.

I did like monstercommerce, does anyone have any experience with using them to build your e-commerce site?

Any other suggestions?

Thank you very much for any help!!

[Alice In TX/MO]

I know nothing about this, either, so I probably ought to take my fingers from the keyboard.

That said, wouldn't it be easier to have an eBay store?

My thinking is that's where folks go to look for items they want to buy, and you'd be easier to find.

[Lizza]

Well, my stuff really doesn't sell well at ebay and I'm trying to also sell wholesale and I need someplace to put on my wholesale brochures for them to check out. I also want to market my site and I just don't think ebay is the right spot for me. Everyone else seems to do good at ebay but for some reason it just doesn't work for me.

Thanks for the suggestion though, I too, obviously, don't know what I'm doing

Originally Posted by Rose

I know nothing about this, either, so I probably ought to take my fingers from the keyboard.

That said, wouldn't it be easier to have an eBay store?

My thinking is that's where folks go to look for items they want to buy, and you'd be easier to find.

[WindowOrMirror]

You might look into a hosting environment (ISP / webhost) that has a script installer and osCommerce or ZenCart. That would let you set up your own site in short order.

R

[afrikaner]

Originally Posted by Red Devil

You might look into a hosting environment (ISP / webhost) that has a script installer and osCommerce or ZenCart. That would let you set up your own site in short order.

R

I second this. It may cost you $10 a month for the hosting, but is well worth it. Check out hosting services such as bravenet and godaddy. Make sure the package you choose has OS COmmerce. Bravenet has easy to use "Wizards" that help you set up your site - I've set up a few bravenet sites and it is easy to update the sites. They have "affiliate" schemes as well - so your site gets promoted on other people's sites.
Ebay works for some stuff, but may not for others.

[CraftyDiva]

Do you just want to wholesale or sell retail as well? If retail, check into etsy.com , it's a website for selling homemade crafts and only homemade. The listing fee is ten cents an item and is good for a six month period. You could put something in your profile page about contacting you for wholesale.

It's on the same order as eBay, you get a store to list your items, you have your own URL to put on flyers, business cards, etc. They use Paypal as a means of payment, but if you have a merchant account, you can post that as well.

The good thing about etsy.com, it's all crafts and homemade items, you set the price, it's not an auction site and people who are looking for crafts are going there, unlike eBay where everyone is just looking for the cheapest bargain they can find, mass produced or handmade, they want cheap.

Check it out.




.

[CraftyDiva]

Sorry about that, gave the wrong name, here's a link...........

http://www.etsy.com/index.php

[pookshollow]

Oooo, thanks for that link! I want to set up a site to sell my "vintage fur" teddy bears and that looks promising.

[patarini]

Oscommerce == its free, easy to learn, fully customizable as you grow,and handles any payment gateway u want to use.
Dont use a free site to host, look for speed and traffic, i buy blocks of 10 at a time, runs about 100 a year.

[Lizza]

I don't want a free site, I want to find something to pay for a decent site. I do want to do retail for the website and have something for wholesale people to check out (that isn't really rinky ----).

Thanks for all the suggestions!!

[unregistered6474]

I love etsy .... it is kind of like ebay for crafts only listings are just 20 cents. You could set up a web site and then link to etsy for the store part.

I use Yahoo for my candle web site and it's very easy to set up - but there are a lot of ways to tweak a site and sometimes I find that frustrating. But for the basics it is pretty straightforward.

[CraftyDiva]

Check it out..................

http://www.bluehost.com/tell_me_more.html

[WindowOrMirror]

Nice one!

[donsgal]

You cannot beat http://www.mals-e.com for putting together a cart for you. It is free and it is as good or better than anything else out there IMHO.

Get a good WYSIWYG web authoring software (Trellian is a good one and free at http://www.globalshareware.com/Web-D...et-Studio.htm).

After a little practice you should be able to put something together. Just remember, for those of us with dial up - no huge pictures, and no flash. For those of us who hate annoying websites, no Javascript and no music!

Good luck

donsgal

[Mel-]

marketworks. you can also list to ebay from your inventory database. fees are semi complicated but 29.95 a month or 1% of ebay sales and 3% of website sales with minimum of .20 per transaction WHICHEVER is greater. if you don't sell on ebay then you would have to sell more than $1000 on your webstore before your fees would be more than 29.95.

there is also wahm shoppes. I'm not sure of the url but you can google it. have heard good things about it. also prestostores, shoppal, citymax.

[morrowsmowers]

We use Hostway to link to our ebay store. They can do as little or as much as you require and will help you grow your business. Our account rep. has even called and talked with me on the phone trying to help us get ready to expand beyond using an ebay store -- unfortunately our ebay selling is going very poorly right now so the expansion may have to wait a year of so.

Ken in Glassboro, NJ