E-Shop Help

reddy246174

Hi there,

has anyone here got any advice about creating an eshop. My disabled wife has started making jewelery and crafty stuff and wants to sell it online. I've a little html skill so could do the design but the scripting/database/checkout stuff is abit beyond me for now (slowly working through a php and sql book)

Specifically if anyone used 1&1 eshop service (ive looked at this cause of quidco would cover first couple of months) or oscommerce.

Yours Daunted

Flexible_Friend

You could try an Ebay shop to start with at £6 a month plus Ebay/Paypal fees. You have a "captive audience" of millions of potential customers. It is also a good way to "test the water" with your products and is very easy to set up with no HTML skills required - just load your product details and photos into your shop. You can make it as basic or as sophisticated as you like.

If you opt for your own website, you could use Oscommerce that's free but bear in mind it won't work with PHP version 5.

Also, you will need a merchant account with one of the major Credit Card companies or Banks or Paypal (not recommended if you want to look professional) to process the monetary transactions and accept payments. Protx is probably the best and cheapest option.

A more stable and professional piece of e-commerce software is sold by Actinic although this is more expensive.

If you have your own website, you will need a web host that runs the right software (PHP, MySql etc.,.) and some web space.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained .... good luck with your business venture!

reddy246174

Thanks for you're reply.
If you're still there - is not supporting php 5 and a real big problem?
And I was thinking of using paypal for ease - does it look that bad? I'll check out Protx though. -So thank you again. It's all quite amuddle in my brain.

millwalll

if your stating off i would surgest using ebay or nochex as it pretty easy to use so on

Flexible_Friend

If your web host runs PHP version 4, then it's not a problem. But as soon as the web host upgrades to version 5 it won't work because of the way "global registers" need setting in PHP. It is a security risk the way that Oscommerce requires it to be set with PHP version 5 and so most host have "global registers" set off. I tried developing a site with Oscommerce and found out the hard way (but found out in the early stages of development) when my host went to PHP 5. Oscommerce might have addressed the problem by the time your host upgrades.

I've gone for an Ebay shop to start with and I'm working on my Actinic site for the long term but that will take some time to develop but looks very starighforward to construct. If you want a quick start up, try Ebay then take some time to decide your other options. I know Ebay/Paypal fees are quite high for sellers but factor these into your prices. And remember to give good customer service to encourage repeat business.

Oh yes, remember if you have your own website you have to promote it and tell people that you're there. This will take time. Ebay is already well established.

Flexible_Friend

One more thing. If you choose to start an Ebay shop, after you have set it up with its own design and various categories, I recommend that you use Ebay's own Turbo Lister software to catalogue and upload your products. It's a God send and time saver plus very easy to use. It's free - download it from Ebay's own site.