Website/Shop

SarahPurple

Hi,


I set up my own business about a year ago and it is going really well. I work full time alongside it but I am due for maternity leave in a month. My first years earnings in my first year were 9k before tax. So I am not a huge business, but with more time and thought put into it, I think I could earn a full time wage.


Anyway I sell craft supplies, mainly kits I create myself, I source unusual items. I have been selling in bulk to businesses and schools. However I also have a shop on Ebay and Etsy that sells to individuals.


I want to create a website with an integrated shop. I am great at the design elements such as headers/logos/branding. But I can't say my HTML skills are up to scratch, I know the basics but not enough to get me anywhere near where I need to be. I want the website to have a blog type elements, where I can include tutorials, reviews etc.


So I can't decide my best option, I've seen premade sites such as MrSite etc where they take the hard work out and it all looks pretty simple. Reviews would suggest this is a bad idea.


Or a site specifically built - intergrated into wordpress etc. Which I don't know whether I have the correct skills to use after it has been built. This is a more expensive option and I am not sure how much maintenance would be needed once built.


Does anyone know where I can find great advice? or have any advice themselves.


Its not something I want to rush into as I can see money be wasted easily if I do.


My other option is to carry on as I am, I just think with the businesses etc buying from me, it looks more professional for me to have my own website. Plus Etsy/Ebay takes a large % of fees off me, so I need to weigh up the cost of hosting a website and whether it would be worthwhile. I would still sell on Etsy/Ebay as the advertising is great, products seem to sell themselves and I can add my website details in the package I post.

InsideInsurance

If you have a design that you want but just need someone to convert it into a template then post it on a Freelancing site and youll get someone overseas to do it for pennies.

You can use an off the shelf solution like Wordpress with an ecommerce module or Magento, most webhosts have this as a oneclick install option. And just get your freelancer to convert your design into a template for your chosen solution. Its then simple to upload it to your site and itll automatically apply to the parts.

A bit of reading about creating templates for your preferred platform will let you know which "bits" you can skin to ensure you design for them all - you dont need to understand/ learn the technical elements just the list of components that can be customised in look etc

GolfBravo

SarahPurple wrote: »

Does anyone know where I can find great advice?

Yes. This forum is pretty good actually. ;-)

SarahPurple wrote: »

or have any advice themselves.

Over the past few months I've developed half a dozen Wordpress-based ecommerce websites. It is a hobby of mine that has actually slowly evolved into a (small) business. And just like yourself, I started only with logos/branding/desktop publishing.

There are some great ecommerce services out there, like Shopify for example, that offer pre-made templates, take care of the payments, etc. However, when you add up their commissions, shop template price and monthly payments, they can be actually quite expensive in the long term, and you don't have 100% control over your website.

That's why I like (and recommend) Wordpress. First of all it is a powerful content management system, so it is quite customisable. You can easily create a blog (very good for attracting traffic to your website) and can also free/cheaply add ecommerce, like WooCommerce. And you have full control over your website.

From my own experience the hardest bit is setting up the shop properly before going live. You need to take care of all the meta descriptions, product categories, image/thumbnail sizes, etc. And then you can start adding products, images, prices, descriptions, etc.

The basic WooCommerce plugin is great if you have tens of products and you don't need to change your offer too often. Should you have 100's of products you can buy and install additional plugins that allow you to quickly bulk change products.

You also have a number of payment modules to choose from (you would need a merchant bank account, or use Paypal and Nochex, they charge 3% commission on all CC transactions). Plus contact forms, social media, shipping, etc.

There are also multiple SEO plugins available (free) to help optimise your website.

The first step that I would recommend is to go to themeforest.net and look at the available ecommerce themes for woocommerce. Most of them cost around US $55. Some are excellent for ecommerce and very easy to setup (eg. Flatsome theme), some are less suitable for ecommerce. To setup a shop well it normally takes me or someone experienced about 2 to 3 days (categories, plugins, menus, basic seo, shipping prices, emails, invoicing, etc.) - you can obviously try to set it up yourself (the best way to learn) and it would take at least a week. Then you need to add your products - it helps to have all the descriptions and images ready. Once you add your first couple of products it gets very easy (although product variations can take a bit of time, but all ecommerce platforms are the same). From within the admin panel you can easily control prices, stock levels, shipping costs, discounts, etc. Customers can create their own accounts or check out as guests.

Your can get your own domain name and web hosting for only a few quid a month.

For each sale you get an email notification and you can log into your admin panel to see the sale details.

So to get a nice Wordpress ecommerce you would need:
- domain name and webhosting - £20-£100 per year
- wordpress and woocommerce - free
- website template - £40ish
- merchant account (monthly subscription, around £30) or Paypal Standard/Nochex for a start - free
- professional shipping plugin (optional) - £20
- someone setting it all up for you (optional) - around 2 to 3 days of work, or you can try setting it up yourself (1 week+)
- logo/branding
- product images and descriptions
- setup social media

The shop setup is the relatively easy part - once it's live you need to take care of advertising/social media/incoming links/seo. You don't need to pay for any of this as long as you put in some time and effort into it on a regular basis. But I think since you are already familiar with Ebay and Etsy you would be fine.

It also pays to have good images, especially in your field - invest in a photo tent and lights and learn how to get good results with your camera (or even smartphone).

HTH

dwamk

I had similar idea with that kind of products, as GolfBravo said, social media and SEO is must to success in this field, if you have questions related to seo just ask , happy to help you

fishybusiness

Budget...skills.....site maintenance

You need a budget, most ecommerce solutions are budget driven.

A £100 budget will get you a domain, hosting, perhaps templates if you find something you like, and you could use Paypal to take payments.


You'll need to put it all together and make it work, that's where your skills come in. If you are good at design, great, sort out your design and fumble your way through the tech stuff.

A £400 budget will get you all the tech help you need to get up and running, and you could do the colours, banners etc yourself.

A £650 budget will probably be enough to pay someone to do everything, excepting populating your store.

There is ongoing maintenance to think about, things like site backups, that you will really need to do.

If you are serious about selling online do read a lot before taking the plunge.

I tried all the ways I could to keep costs down, and went to Bluepark for a while. Easy peasy... to set up then I realised I wanted to sell on ebay and Amazon and orders/ inventory needed centralising. Bluepark aint good at that.

Ended up with Opencart, still needed to pay for one or two extensions, and work it all out. I'm a techie person so I paid someone to sort the artwork, and did the rest myself. It is still work in progress, the hours really do stack up.

I hope I've given you an insight in to just what happens when want to jump in to ecommerce