Looking to start an e-commerce website for my business

[dannyboy]

Hi all,

I've just started a photo engraving business up, i've got a page on facebook but i'm only doing it local. I want to be able to sell worldwide. I'm sick of ebays fees now, so was thinking of starting a website up. I'm pretty clueless these days so i'd probably pay a company to do it.

I've been quoted from a local company for them to do a complete bespoke design and a full e-commerce website with shopping feature. They quoted me a starting price of £1000. And if I require hosting £80 a year.

Is this the going rate? I haven't a clue the kind of price it would be, so not sure if this cheap or expensive. Any recommendations too?

[akimba]

Get someone from here to host it for f*** all and this ecommerce package is free ;-)

http://www.oscommerce.com/

[brumbino]

Actually I'd get Wordpress hosting and the use Woo Themese eCommerce which is free. You may need an SSL certificate for security.

What you need to be a ware of is the payment gateway and banking costs. I'd suggest Paypal and go for their business option as you grow.

Web Design is what I do - it's about the going rate tbh.

[brumbino]

Dropped you a PM

[Bald Bouncer]

No hawking for business

[CzarJunkie]

It all depends on what you want to achieve, what your business is, how serious you are and if you want it to be a success. Prices range from £0 to £millions.

Site speed should be a consideration, any longer than 3-5 seconds for any page to load (desktop, longer for mobile but don't go beyond 8-10) and you'll negatively affect conversion rates. Google's pagespeed service is free and gives you some good guidance on what to do to speed up any website. Even if you don't use it yourself, it gives you good ammunition when speaking to any company who builds a site for you.

You should also look at the costs for you to market your particular products using Google Adwords and Google Product Listing Ads (PLA's). Also ask yourself if you're going to manage your digital marketing in-house, or outsource. Don't dismiss outsourcing because you think it's a cost you can't afford. If your in-house skills aren't there you could see much better growth by outsourcing to a digital agency.

One last thing, don't forget to install Google Analytics. It's free and if you learn how to use it properly it will give you valuable data on how your website is performing and where you can make improvements.

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
http://www.google.com/analytics/

[Mule]

So, is the intention that people choose an item from your online catalogue then upload a picture to be engraved on to it? Different prices for different sized images etc?

[Larrylakes]

For starring of theres free ecommerce sites much like blogger, really simple to use. You can put your own website name for a monthly fee. As already mentioned there's loads of free WordPress themes and plug ins to use. These will get you started for little outlay. Some hosting companies like go daddy offer hosting and ecommerce sites. Start with a simple clean site and work from there. As your business grows so can your site.
A
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[consoles]

just be careful with wordpress theme's, some have more back doors than a Amsterdam shore house.

[dannyboy]

Thanks a lot everyone, i'll look more into all the suggestions the weekend.

Mule: Yes more or less. I'd have all the different sizes and shaped pendants with different prices. Any image or logo added would be free, but if they want text or another photo added on the other side it would be extra. I was thinking of just letting customers email me the images they want, but would be better if it could be included in the whole checkout process if thats possible.

[daven]

I started a commerce site about 3 years ago (hence why I'm don't get to post much). I did it myself using wordpress and OpenCart (open source) and as yet (AFAIK) there is not a way of customers including a file during checkout. It is quite easy to setup and run (others solutions I tried took quite a bit of time). The hardest bit is setting up the postal rates but once you get the hang of it....

Paypal works out cheaper than Sage, WorldPay etc until a certain point where PP percentage rate fees become greater than other payment services fees but it's a good way to start plus you don't need SSL as such.

As said - make it look good but funny enough I had feed back on mine that it looked quite professional so the fees would be expensive (I mainly do commission work).

Best
Dave

[Mule]

£1k is a lot IMHO. Get a cheap host that does free e-commerce installs. Then you can fiddle with it to make it exactly to your liking (you're going to have to learn how to work the admin side of the site anyway). The customer being able to upload files and/or enter text during checkout is definitely an option in some free software. You need to have a try on your own first because before you do I don't think you'll really know what work you need doing.

[neilb]

I started a commerce site about 3 years ago (hence why I'm don't get to post much). I did it myself using wordpress and OpenCart (open source) and as yet (AFAIK) there is not a way of customers including a file during checkout.

There are several plugins that will let customers upload files, if you're using woocommerce on wordpress there's uploadmyfile for one and for opencart there's several including this.

[daven]

There are several plugins that will let customers upload files, if you're using woocommerce on wordpress there's uploadmyfile for one and for opencart there's several including this.

Thanks - had not found that, will have a look. This does highlight the fact that you have a choice - pay someone to do the legwork for you who has more experience or in my case I couldn't afford it so had to make some compromises. I tried oscommerce but the learning curve was a bit steeper than CubeCart or OpenCart and as I needed to spend more time selling than setting up OpenCart won! I have registered as a Limited company this year so must be doing something right

Cheers

Dave

[CzarJunkie]

Paypal works out cheaper than Sage, WorldPay etc until a certain point where PP percentage rate fees become greater than other payment services fees but it's a good way to start plus you don't need SSL as such.

You will need a SSL certificate if the customer is inputting any personal details via your website, such as a name, address or email address and you are storing it in a database. Presumably you don't do this? If so, how do you remember customer details/accounts?

[daven]

I agree CJ it is recommended but not required if payment details are handled by Paypal - (according to http://www.sslshopper.com/article-do...y-website.html unless this is wrong?) All I need is the name and address which is provided by email. This is all I keep for my accounts which is not stored online.

[theodotcom]

You will need a SSL certificate if the customer is inputting any personal details via your website, such as a name, address or email address and you are storing it in a database. Presumably you don't do this? If so, how do you remember customer details/accounts?

You only need SSL if you are processing payments on your site, if you are using paypal where it directs to paypal you do not need ssl, paypal do have a more expensive option where you take the card details on your site and in that case you would need ssl. If you use sagepay it can be set to use an iframe to communicate with the sagepay server so while it looks like your site is taking the payment it is actually sagepay taking the payment so again you dont need ssl.

[CzarJunkie]

Personally I wouldn't dream of shopping at an e-commerce store who didn't protect my personal data. It's more about confidence and trust than anything else. You'd be surprised how much it can affect conversion rates.

[Larrylakes]

PayPal is a good starter plus customers have confidence in it. Some will not have a clue who someone like Sagepay are.

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[akimba]

Personally I wouldn't dream of shopping at an e-commerce store who didn't protect my personal data. It's more about confidence and trust than anything else. You'd be surprised how much it can affect conversion rates.

If using Paypal why do you need to capture any personal data on the site? just let Paypal control all that info and use paypal to do invoicing etc.