Websites!

[raspberrybloom]

Hi everyone,

Woah! The sunshine is finally here.

I need some advice about websites and CMS.

Our current website is fab and we love it but the deisgner could not provide us with a CMS (Content Management System) so we could upload/remove our own products and make adjustments to the site. Therefore our web designer has to make all the changes for us.

As our portfolio of jewellery grows we feel we need to take control of the website and be able to make changes instantly. Therefore we are looking to move web designers in order to achieve this.

We have be looking at moving to an oscommerce shop, which has an administration panel. I know there are a lot of shops that use this template.

My web designer has suggested that she would redesign the website (as we want to make changes to the layout) and I should then enlist the skills of a developer for the CMS system. I fear this will be costly!

I am really looking for some recommendation from you who have websites and upload you products etc yourself. Money is tight and therefore its going to have to be a reasonable cost.

Any advice is appreciated!

Sorry its a long one!

Lou

[Craft Cellar]

We use 'shop factory' which is a moderate initial outlay but once up and running you have complete control to change, upload or do what ever you want. I'm sure it would still be cheaper than getting your web site designer to change it every time.

We modify our site nearly every day and add/take off products that are in or out of stock etc.

Having said that you do need a pretty good understanding of these programmes (my OH does the technical side) to get it going.

Hope this helps

[Bea]

There are some all-in-one solution like ekmpowershop, easywebstore, etc, but you may find some limitations along the way.
Check on startups.co.uk, I think there was a thread still active discussing this.

[utopiapoppy]

I must be incredibly cheap (or skint). I design and run my own website, upload and download my images direct from my host server, and use Paypal merchant services for my shopping basket!

This probably doesn't help if you have had someone design the site for you, but there are good shopping basket solutions out there (and if you look hard enough you'll find free ones where you have to upload the shopping basket software to your host server). At least this way you can add items, and delete them, complete with images anytime you like.

This is something I would like to do eventually, but at the moment I'm too busy to get round to it!

Oh well, good luck and I hope you find something suitable.

Fiona

[0103media]

I love the design, It really shows off your items..

Is it just the items you'd like in a cms ?

If so then it wouldn't be to costly ..

Web is what I do ... www.0103media.co.uk

[raspberrybloom]

I love the design, It really shows off your items..

Is it just the items you'd like in a cms ?

If so then it wouldn't be to costly ..

Web is what I do ... www.0103media.co.uk

Ive PM'd you!

[Belscrafts]

hope this helps

Hi Lou
Don't know if I'am to late with this but here goes we have a web site with webfusion and one of the facilities there is the web tools which allows you to upload pages in a few seconds.
Please let me know how you get on or if you want any other information about it.
All the best Jez Coulson

Hi everyone,

Woah! The sunshine is finally here.

I need some advice about websites and CMS.

Our current website is fab and we love it but the deisgner could not provide us with a CMS (Content Management System) so we could upload/remove our own products and make adjustments to the site. Therefore our web designer has to make all the changes for us.

As our portfolio of jewellery grows we feel we need to take control of the website and be able to make changes instantly. Therefore we are looking to move web designers in order to achieve this.

We have be looking at moving to an oscommerce shop, which has an administration panel. I know there are a lot of shops that use this template.

My web designer has suggested that she would redesign the website (as we want to make changes to the layout) and I should then enlist the skills of a developer for the CMS system. I fear this will be costly!

I am really looking for some recommendation from you who have websites and upload you products etc yourself. Money is tight and therefore its going to have to be a reasonable cost.

Any advice is appreciated!

Sorry its a long one!

Lou

[carolinemhannon]

hi

i use dreamweaver for my site

my boyfriend does a bit of webdesign on the side and helpped me with i, he's kept it simple for my so i can change the content of it myself

i fear your webdesigner is trying to keep your business

maybe in the long run it might be good if you could do a part time course in webdesign so you can run your site yourself?

just an idea

[raspberrybloom]

Hi,

We have decided to keep the site as it is for the time being, as we have had so many nice comments about it.

My web designer is definately not trying to keep my business. She charges me a annual fee - £60 to make all my changes. She has to work hard for it too!

I spoke to her about moving to another company and she was cool with it. But at the moment we are sticking.

Thanks for all the advice everyone.

i fear your webdesigner is trying to keep your business

maybe in the long run it might be good if you could do a part time course in webdesign so you can run your site yourself?

just an idea