Best source for setting up online shop

klim

I run a wholesaling business (bags, scarves and accessories). Am now looking to set up a new arm for this selling direct - one part of this being an online shop.

Has anyone got recommendations for a starting point for this? I have relatively good website building knowledge - I have built flash and html for the current business, but need a platform to work around for the online shop. Wondered if anyone has any recommendations for this or titbits of info that will help me out please....

zenmaster

There are a number of open source shops available.

The biggest and most used is OsCommerce. Zencart is another popular solution.

Both of these can be installed 'out of the box' but to really make any sense of it you would need to become familiar with PHP (not difficult) but they both have excellent support forums,

There are many other similar packages but I would suggest sticking with either of those two simply because of the established user base.

HTMLHugo

i agree with the above post but thought i'd throw another option in

NopCommerce which is an asp.net open source shopping cart

i used it this weekend to create my new site bobbleheadsuk

depends on your level of IT knowledge etc but the requirements will be some hosting / a database and one of the carts.

do a bit of a research into it 1st either way.

charityfundraiser

Wordpress has some ecommerce plugins. I'm not sure which are good and which aren't but it's certainly worth looking into. If you haven't used wordpress before it's free, open source and very easy to use. There thousands of free plugins and themes also available. Even if you go with a different ecommerce platform I recommend using Wordpress if your website has a blog/news section.