Selling via website - eeek help!

[fruitiloopi]

I'm just about to take the plunge and set up my own jewellery business:D. I would like to set up a website to sell some of my items. Is it possible to do this myself - or is it too technical:pc:? It's the payment side of it that I'm baffled by, how do you set up an online shop?

Any help would be great... infact any advice on setting up in general would be fantastic - so glad I found this site!:p

[dichrofindings]

Hon,

Most people tend to "buy" a web site . . using one of the half dozen or so pre-built web site providors you can find on the net . . most of these have a shopping cart integrated in to the site which with a little additional information from you (PayPal email address) will automatically send payments to your PayPal account. They will also deal with people paying by credit or debit card as PayPal can accept these payments into your account without the customer having a PayPal account of their own. Google also do something similar called googlecheckout . . though it isn't quite as well developed as PayPal yet.

"buying" a pre-made web site and then tweeking it to suit your own needs . . colours/page templates etc . . is probably the easiest and quickest way of getting a web presence . . but . . most of these sites do have limits and it depends on what programme you sign up for and how much money your are willing to pay to get your web presence.

The other option is to go down the route of having a site designed and hosted by one of the web designer companies that have sprung up all over the place . . again . . there is a but . . they don't all provide the same quality of service, technical back up and other bit's and pieces.

To be truthful . . you'll need to do some research and some balancing of pro's and cons . . and you'll need to set a budget for it too.

[Craftduo]

Hi
We were not technical heads either, so we went down the Mr Site route. This is great for just starting out and really easy to follow to get a simple wedsite out there to test the water. They have an option for online shopping and so long as you set up Paypal its really easy.

Give it a go. It only costs £34 pound for the year for the simple package, which we have found is enough until orders come in.

Cheers Lisa

[Pink Giraffe]

Hello,
I use Mr.Site for my fairies.handcrafted items and Photium for my photography (photium is spe******t for artists and photographers) but they work in the same way.
They are known as template based websites, which basically means you can use their deisgn template and adjust it to suit your needs.
If you have a look at Mr.sites example websites you will get an idea of how versatile it is.
If you want more ability to change things you might want to invest in a custom designed website by a pro web designer. This is a massive leap up in price though and would depend on what you want to spend to get set up.

Other options would include etsy and ebay shops (there are a few more too), but as I have not used these myself I couldn't really comment too much.

As said in a previous post, you really need to research what it is you think you need before making a decision.

Best of luck,

Nicky

[silverjewelleryworkshop]

All good comments here.There is one other option available, depending on whether you can be bothered or not; teach yourself and use a quality optimisation program to monitor your site.
The problem with DIY sites like Mr site etc. is that, although they are a good start, it's very hard to optimise them totally for your requirements; to maintain a site high in the rankings you need to tweak them regularly to keep up with the search engines criteria.
I learnt how to create a site with adobe dreamweaver and monitor it with a program called ibp. It was a lot of hard work at first but, in my opinion, definitely worth it. There are loads of help forums on the net for dreamweaver that can help if you get stuck. What I like is I have total control over the content of my sites, unlike the DIY sites where you are limited by certain conditions.
The down side is initially it's expensive to buy dreamweaver and ibp (nowhere near as expensive as paying website designers though) and there is a lot of technical info. to learn.
In the end it boils down to how much business you think you'll be doing via the web. If you are just starting and don't want to learn anything too technical then Mr site is perfect. If you want to be in total control of the site and be high in the rankings it's worth exploring other options.

Caroline

[fruitiloopi]

Recon Im gonna try and do it myself... so watch this space, thanks for all your help.:sm:

[grinandcraftit]

I spent about 6 months learning HTML, about web hosting, a bit of PHP, a drop of javascript and built our website and shop.

I used oscommerce for the shopping cart which is one of the best supported carts I have found.

Yes you have to install yourself and there is quite a lot of configuration but it does work really well.

There is a HUGE forum on their site with all sorts of tips and help guides and add ons.

It's not a quick solution (it is the cheapest though) but we found it works well for us.

Hope this helps