Setting up an online shop

hemophobic

My dad owns a jewellery shop and wants to start selling on-line. He has asked me for his help. I stumbled across these 2 websites:
https://www.volusion.co.uk
http://www.ekmpowershop.com

I know the basics of HTML & CSS but I am trialing volusion at the moment and it's very easy.

The most basic is £15/pm and then he just needs an SSL certificate, he already has a domain. It's a lot cheaper than having a custom built site.

Is this the best starting point for us? Is there anything I should know?

bluesnake

I would look at what your competition use, and how it compares.

Open up their web page and click on edit to see the source code. Often the design company will display copywrite and contact details in the code.

Personally I am not a big fan of subscription payments for products.


Did try the http://www.john-christian.com page, did load a it slow. The left flash item did not open, but that was my security setting.

Mr_Snowball

I've just setup my second version of my online shop using EKM Powershop. I did a lot of research and had previously used Mr Site. The key for me was a site that offered quick intuitive designs but had the ability to take all of the stress out of order management and integrating with payment sites like PayPal. Their customer service when I have been stuck is fantastic, a world apart from the India online chat from Mr Site which was just painful to deal with.

The only slight catch I found was they charge to a one off fee to use your own domain - about £23 I think. Apart from that they've been great. The SEO tools have really helped as well.

coe90

There are many open source shopping cart CMS but to use these you need to have some idea how web development farms use them. For basics(without much coding and web development idea) I thinks choose from these with ready made but compare the features, theme availability and price and lastly if possible check code standard. The one with web 2.0 standard/ SEO friendly is good for marketing strategy.

Jims163

I would suggest you to hire a programmer, if you are not experienced in creating sites.

mark_rush

Find a decent host and use magento... its easy to install and theres some great free themes. should get you up and running with a good looking enterprise shop really quickly!

chunter

very odd. spam imminent?

voucherforit

Magento is a pretty powerful solution. But it's a pretty slow beast out of the box. To theme it, and operate it at a reasonable speed you'll need to shell out for a decent server, plus spend money on a Magento expert. Personally, unless you're planning on putting serious high volume orders through your shop (north of 10k visits a month, say), I personally think it's overkill.

I've worked on some projects for shopify and found that really good. It's hosted, has some great themes, and is pretty easy to theme yourself. I've also played around with the woocommerce plugin for wordpress and that was pretty good. It basically lets you turn your wordpress install into an online shop. I've generally found wordpress does really well for SEO, so having an online shop based on this could be a good bonus to make it easier for your Dad to get new customers.

Just my 2p - hope it helps!

Mr_Toad

hemophobic wrote: »

My dad owns a jewellery shop and wants to start selling on-line. He has asked me for his help. I stumbled across these 2 websites:
www.volusion.co.uk
http://www.ekmpowershop.com

I know the basics of HTML & CSS but I am trialing volusion at the moment and it's very easy.

The most basic is £15/pm and then he just needs an SSL certificate, he already has a domain. It's a lot cheaper than having a custom built site.

Is this the best starting point for us? Is there anything I should know?

Nothing puts people off quicker than a poorly designed or generic website. It makes people think you can't really be bothered.

Remember that the web site is the front door into the business, it's the only thing they'll see. Think about some of the shops you've seen and how appearance plays a big part in drawing you in in the first place. Then there are the badly laid out shops you've been in where it's impossible to find stuff or move about in comfort, the sort of place people visit once and vow never to come back.

I'd get a proper developer to work with you to design a bespoke site that works.

Find out if there are any web design/developer students in your area. They need to showcase their skills and you need something people will like and remember.

BJV

When it comes to opening an online shop there are no and I mean no quick and easy steps to jump.

That is unless you want to spend lots and lots of lots and lots of pounds on advertising.

The internet is a very complex shopping environment. With organic ( free advertising) and paid. When it comes to actually getting someone to part with their hard earned cash it is all about trust and confidence. So yes you can use a generic template and customise it but in the long term it will cost you more.

It would be far better to get a customised website built and invest in getting it right. It will save you money in the long run as correctly done it will help you get more free advertising than a off the shelf flash based system. They are not as expensive as you think ( contact a few designers in your area and get some quotes ) esp when you consider that this is your shop window the only reflection of you and your business that a customer will see.

Get it wrong and you will be spending a fortune of ads with customers not even getting close to buying. Get it right and it really can work.

Do not think that you have found a short cut by build your own you have not and massons advice about
'get a proper developer to work with you to design a bespoke site that works.

"Find out if there are any web design/developer students in your area. They need to showcase their skills and you need something people will like and remember" can not be done from a template.

Good luck I really hope it works out for you.