advice neede on setting up website

[lab]

i have managed to talk my partner into setting me up a website to sell my jewellery.
is there anything i should consider. i have thought i should decide on postage-whether to charge a flat rate or base it on what royal mail charges, and a returns policy.
i am already registered as self employed
is there anything else i need to think about?
Thanks
Lois

[Seahorse]

Ive pondered doing my own business(all in theory)its amazing how little things can add up.
With packaging I worked out how much each box would cost (Id have to buy in bulk)work out the cost of packing(all including the price it cost me to have them sent to me)and have that as a set price for P+P.
Then say I would give an added individual price per customer location.You can do that by asking at the post office.

I think being nice to the customer helps, if they need to return something say that you will pay for postage, but only refund any orders if the item is broken.
You dont have to give a refund iof the person has changed their minds(from what I can remember from trading standards).

you could ask the same question at www.teneric.co.uk a business forum.

[Peter]

Read the small print on EVERYTHING - Pay pal, domain registration, web hosting, etc. It's always helpful (and cheaper) to semi-plagarise terms & conditions from a larger, more established site, just change the wording but keep the gist! If you're posting anything valuable or fragile, don't use the carrier with big red vans that used to have GPO written on the side................so sue me. :lol: :lol:

[Bea]

Re: advice neede on setting up website

I went for www.easywebstore.co.uk - the T&C are all written for you hehe!! Just need to adapt to your business - it's great. You can choose how you want shipping to be charged (fixed or by weight, etc) and they include Paypal and lots of other payment facilities. They also include a domain name in the price.

They're very helpful guys and the website was ready for use in minutes.

I've not launched mine yet, still adding product and testing...

[lab]

i was going to ask whether to go for a shopping mall type site such as wahmall or gaia craft
what do you all think?

[craftfairy]

my experience

I opened my own web site last May and to be truthful the traffic and sales on the site were very poor as no one knew about it. I spent at least £700 on having the site designed, which included the hosting for a year. It was not until I started to sell on Ebay last November that I saw some real traffic on my site.

www.craftfairy.co.uk

To be truthful I wish I had confined my initial efforts to ebay as it has only been by selling through them that I know that customers want what I have to sell. I would have left the site until I had a good customer base and then gone to the expense of setting up a site.

It is better to have your own sit that sell on ebay as ebay charge you for every little thing that you do, but at least people shop on ebay. Returning customers shop on my site but you have to get the customers first.

Do have a look at my site.

www.craftfairy.co.uk

Yvonne

[beadsbydesign]

I have been selling through ebay for a couple of years and then last summer opened up my own independant store using EKM hosting services. like some of the previous comments, I think the hardest thing about a web site is that you need to get traffic to your store. I can honestly say that has been the most difficult bit. you can have a really excellent store with everything anyone needs but if you don't have thousands of links then you won't get the traffic. i think that under the general word search of "beads" on google I come on page 20 +. You need to spend hours finding reciprical links and directory sites etc.

Good luck with your venture, But be prepared for many late nights, sore typing fingers and eye strain!!

[uksewing]

we set up our first edition website in 1996 when i was at uni, we have used 4 different shopping cart solutions since and i wouldnt like to advise you one way or another. im still learning every day so all i would say is jump with both feet and give it a go.

[silverjewelleryworkshop]

The key to a succesful website is optimisation. Try and learn as much as you can about making your website visible and friendly to googlebot and the other search engine's spiders, so many websites have nice content, good products and prices but just linger in cyberspace because they can't get the visitors.
Think about investing in a good optimisation program like ibp it's definitely worth it and quite easy to operate.

As for the postage; I did a lot of research when I started my site and found most people preferred to pay a little more and have the postage included in the price; there's nothing worse than wading through the payment process and then finding you've got to pay an extra amount for postage.

Have fun and good luck.
Caroline

[Peter]

This is from 2006. Thread closed.