Need to set up a website

pennyless_pennies

Hello,

Im looking to start an online e-commerce business.
I'd prefer not to get my hands dirty in anything IT related as I tend to fail time and time again.
Plus I would need to get my domain registered.

The website should be able to take cards payments via paypal and other merchants.
What should I expect to pay?

Are there any web designers on here?

Any help would be appreciated, im a beginner when it comes to IT.

Thanks in advance!

terra_ferma

Hello
I've been quoted anything between £400 and £3000, it depends on what you are looking for. If you are a start-up, with a small number of products and not into the luxury market, you don't need to spend a lot of money to start with.
If you sell diamond jewellery, or are a big business then you probably do...

My main advice is not to pick someone random from the internet, but only go with people recommended to you, who have a good portfolio.
You could pick a website you like and see if you can find out who did that (sometimes you can see that at the bottom).
You don't necessarily need a website designer, there are a number of packages that offer ready-made template that are easy to customise with drag and drop, and offer hosting as well. They are simple, pretty and functional.
I used to recommend create.net for small business starting up, but it was a while back when I looked into them, but at the time it was a great price, very easy to use and reliable.
Also: http://www.ekmpowershop.com/

If you need something a bit more advanced, I found a company by chance, while shopping on the internet. They make great websites, I want one too!... I don't need one right now, but they are top of the list (no idea of costs etc, but just thought I'd share it with you because they design ace websites).
http://www.vanillastorm.com/portfolio/

If you are planning to see on other platforms as well as a website (e.g. amazon, ebay), there is a piece of software that will synch your stock across all of them, so that you don't oversell: linnworks. (works with most self-hosted platforms and a few hosted).

Hope it helps

qw3rt7

The less you want to be involved, the more it will cost.
There's no point giving a ballpark figure because there are so many variables.

However, to run an ecom business you are going to need to be involved in a certain amount of 'IT'.

Even if you pay a company to design, develop, register a domain, host the site, populate the initial products, sign up for and integrate merchant gateways etc (which will all add to the cost) you will still need to be able to edit the stock, add/change products and manage orders and refunds etc.

That doesnt even include the marketing and promotion, which will easily cost more than the initial site.

If you are willing to learn, then your easiest option would be to go for a monthly fee, established, hosted solution (eg shopify ) that will handle PCI compliance and all the other more complicated aspects.

In comparison with opening a bricks and mortar store, ecom is cheap, but dont expect to open the next amazon for 500 quid!

pennyless_pennies

Thanks.

I have been suggested to try 'shopify' has anyone had/known of anyone with any experience of using shopify?

mkooo

Shopify is like the holy grail of ecommerce, you need to get it!

terra_ferma

mkooo wrote: »

Shopify is like the holy grail of ecommerce, you need to get it!

They obviously think highly of themselves too, they are horrendously expensive....
Personally I've not seen anything that would set it apart from the competition, in reviews and particularly various online forums. For example it looks like you can't have discount codes in the cheaper plan, £19pm + 1% sales value, up to 100 skus, while many other shopping carts have this option as standard.
Overpriced in my opinion.

pennyless_pennies

Following my research - spotify v volusion - I think il end up going for the latter solely based on price.
Had I chosen spotify id have opted for the professional account $60 a month is out of my budget!

mkooo

terra_ferma wrote: »

They obviously think highly of themselves too, they are horrendously expensive....
Personally I've not seen anything that would set it apart from the competition, in reviews and particularly various online forums. For example it looks like you can't have discount codes in the cheaper plan, £19pm + 1% sales value, up to 100 skus, while many other shopping carts have this option as standard.
Overpriced in my opinion.

Don't know where you got the word expensive from. It is as cheap as chips. They have 100's free apps and support, the bandwith and disk space are included in the price, so you dont have to pay for hosting. The support is amazing and you get 100's professional themes and easy set up, £25+ per month to have an online shop is peanuts, think how much it costs to run a high street shop.

powerful_Rogue

Did you look at OsCommerce? Great free software with lots of templates and apps available.

terra_ferma

mkooo wrote: »

Don't know where you got the word expensive from. It is as cheap as chips. They have 100's free apps and support, the bandwith and disk space are included in the price, so you dont have to pay for hosting. The support is amazing and you get 100's professional themes and easy set up, £25+ per month to have an online shop is peanuts, think how much it costs to run a high street shop.

I don't have a b&m shop, so I can't compare.
In terms of online shops it's cheaper than some high-end shopping carts (e.g. http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/), but more expensive than many other.
Without counting the free opensource carts, like magento community edition - definitely not at the low end of the market -, there are many cheaper options.
It's not the just the monthly fee, it's also the 1-2% on turnover which makes it very expensive.

Hosting is not very expensive, and having all you eggs in one basket can backfire (e.g. if the shopping cart is slow you can't just transfer your existing shop to a faster host, like you would if you had a self-hosted store).
I really cannot see anything special about shopify that would justify the additional cost. If you are at the lower end of the spectrum, the £19 plan + 2% (up to 100 skus) there are many cheaper options.

digp

have you thought about an open source shopping / ecommerce package?
google softaculous to see what is available in their install packages
for your domain, if .co.uk use fasthosts, for .com etc use namecheap
do not use the domain registrar for hosting
for hosting what is your budget? then i can give you some suggestions