Domain and Online shop hosting

**MasterAbacus** · 28th December 2011

Hi all,

Im considering creating an online shop in the new year for my other halfs new business venture.

Having never done a website or shop -appart from using ebay / paypal im a bit green on this whole thing.

Anyone any suggestions on the best route to go? Id like to do as much myself, and eager to learn.

Are the off the shelf (no pun intended) packages that already integrate with Paypal any good? I would rather just pay a one off fee for the site as I know we will have to pay murchent / paypal fees :-(

Thanks in advance

M.A.

**Lou_smorals** · 28th December 2011

Hi
yes use the free version of Magento - pretty straight forward and free.
LS

**MasterAbacus** · 31st December 2011

Ive just been looking at the Godaddy website and they seem to do a whole package for �20 a month - would anyone say thats expensive for an online shop package?

**Lou_smorals** · 31st December 2011

Hi
i thought u wanted to do it yourself? many build for you, such as vollution and similar but they blow in my opinion. if you want to do yourself your choises are magento, prestashop (which I hate), OScommerce joomla with virtuemart, zencart and a few more, but I have sites in various and I find the magento one easiest, followed by joomla/virtuemart however the latter was much harder to set up.
LS

**XBOX4LIFE** · 31st December 2011

Check out x-cart.com and www.xcartmods.co.uk... Blows the free options out of the water IMO

**Rick Sanchez** · 31st December 2011

Personally never used xcart but looks good

**Bodman** · 1st January 2012

check out http://www.ecwid.com/ I used this recently for a mates classic car business as he's a website noob. nice and easy for him to upload photos, edit, change ads etc and its free up to a point then its quite cheap.

Bod

**Goldberg** · 6th January 2012

Hi folks,

Mate of mine wants to start a site so his missus can sell some cards she designs.
He wants an all in one solution, Domain Name / Hosting and Templates.

Problem with this guys is that he wants it cheap, well when I say cheap it is almost like he actually wants someone to pay him for the privalage of someone hosting the site and supplying the Domain... You know the types, most of them are on DF!

So, joking aside... If anyone has any suggestions? I pointed him to 1 & 1 but apparently too much for him.. I did also point him to some of the flash based hosting sites but not an ideal solution, plus the Domain name will be naff.

Cheers guys.

**leerolo007** · 11th January 2012

Originally Posted by Goldberg

Hi folks,

Mate of mine wants to start a site so his missus can sell some cards she designs.
He wants an all in one solution, Domain Name / Hosting and Templates.

Problem with this guys is that he wants it cheap, well when I say cheap it is almost like he actually wants someone to pay him for the privalage of someone hosting the site and supplying the Domain... You know the types, most of them are on DF!

So, joking aside... If anyone has any suggestions? I pointed him to 1 & 1 but apparently too much for him.. I did also point him to some of the flash based hosting sites but not an ideal solution, plus the Domain name will be naff.

Cheers guys.

hi mate,

tell them to look at mr site takeaway website kit. ive made loads of websites using this software and its really simple to create a website with a shop using the wysiwyg editor (just like typing a word document) they cost �39.99 in pcworld for the one i use but you can pick these up on ebay for �20 and that includes domain name and a years hosting !

**bwendo** · 8th February 2012

Originally Posted by MasterAbacus

Anyone any suggestions on the best route to go? Id like to do as much myself, and eager to learn.

Have you had a look at openfart? It is easy to set up and suits a catalogue style set up where you have plenty of different products. Just take a picture of the product, edit it and upload it to opencart and you're away. I have a site with joomla virtuemart and it is simple to manage once all set up.

**Rick Sanchez** · 8th February 2012

Goldberg PM me and I'll sort it out

Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk

**Goldberg** · 8th February 2012

I spoke to him and he has sorted it now. It is very very very crude lol and I don't think his missus will sell anything as a result!

Thanks for the offer though, he is 'Set in his ways' and even though he requested help, he likes to do it himself and his mind wont be changed.
I really want to tell him it is shite, but again... he wont listen.

He has wasted mine and everyone else's time