Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I need to design and build an ecommerce site for my startup business selling (technically I will be renting) 3 unit "kits".  Prospective customers would gather 3 different variations of my product and place them in a shopping cart for checkout.  The kits are sold at a fixed price.   I'd like them to be able to select the products from my inventory via drop down box.  Once a customer selects three products, they will be able to checkout.

I'm looking for some guidance/advice on the below:

1) Where to host?  I currently have an account with iPage.  It is cheap - that's about all I can say about it.
2) Best service for my needs to accept credit cards (more detail on that below)
3) What to use to design the site?  I have a Mac with iWeb 08.  I own no other software.
4) What to use for the shopping cart/ecommerce portion of the site?  I would like to tie #3 and #4 together if possible.
5) How and where are people with limited/zero experience in website/ecommerce learning to to create ecommerce sites?

What I have done so far:  I started out with non ecommerce enabled website that invited customers to contact me to place orders.  The site contained two pages 1) the landing page and 2) the inventory list.  Customers were encouraged to email me with the three products for their kit and I would email them an invoice via Paypal.  I was about to release the site last month but I decided that I want to integrate ecommerce/shopping cart into the site prior to launching the business.

Here are the details on what I'm looking for in a website -

- I'm starting small, no more than 25 products to begin with
- I'd like one "landing page" that gets the concept of my business across
- I'd like one "about us" page
- I'd like one "contact us" page
- I'd like one "Returns/Customer Service page"
- I'd like one "FAQ"
- I'd like one "Inventory List" Page
- I'd like one "Order Now" Page

As for the actual ecommerce part, again I am selling, or rather renting, a kit containing 3 products.  I'd like users to be able to select 3 product varieties to build their kit. Here's what I envision from an ecommerce perspective:

- The Order Now page will be very simple.  There will be three drop down boxes that are linked to my inventory list, from which a customer can select each product variant to build his/her 3 unit kit.  There will also of course need to be an "Add to Cart" button.
- I'd also like the ability for a customer to add products to his/her cart from the Inventory page.
- I'd like to find a way to prohibit customers from checking out with an incomplete kit.  The customer must have 3 products in a cart to enable checkout.
- I'd like to address how to structure and present the pricing.  The kit price is $99.  Each component product shouldn't have a price when it's added to the cart.  Rather, the customer should see a total of $99 and be forced to have three components in the cart before it will allow him/her to checkout.
- I do not have a merchant services account.  I am looking for suggestions.  I am open to using Paypal, Google Checkout, etc. I'm also open to a merchant services account.
- I would like the ability to put a hold on a credit card for the value of the "kit", similar to a deposit on a rental car/hotel/etc, to help ensure the products are returned to me.  I talked to Paypal and I need a Pro account to do this ($30 a month + fees).

And the key part of all of this is as follows:

I don't want to sink money into a high tech website before the concept is tested and proven.  I'd like to have a respectable (I know that's an arbitrary term) site that has basic ecommerce functionality described above, and really focus on selling and marketing.  If my concept succeeds, I can invest more money in a more robust ecommerce solution.

I have no experience in designing websites.  I'd like to do this myself.  I'd like to do it for free, or very low cost.  I have read articles on entrepreneur.com and other sites referencing volusion, corecommerce, bigcommerce, shopify, etc.  I've seen joomla and oscommerce mentioned as well, among others.  I'm looking for feedback on the 5 points I mention above.  Certainly any other information/advice is appreciated.

CMac

Hi CMac,

Taking a look at your needs here, the key is really going to be your hosting. You have no experience building websites, so really an ecommerce site is probably going to be a tough one to do custom. Normally, when building a custom website I would say Adobe Dreamweaver is your best bet for the software to use. But, as I mentioned, for the purpose of ease in development, you can probably accomplish everything you need with OSCommerce. Again, the key here is your hosting. You will want a host that has something called Fantastico Deluxe installed on their server, so you can easily set up OSCommerce or Zen Cart. This software will allow you to handle most of the pages you mention as well as the ecommerce portion of your site.

So, to answer your 5 points:

1)  The cheapest service will be that I like is Blue Host (www.bluehost.com). They are the big guys around town so are very reliable and inexpensive ($7) per month. I offer similar service, but the package is a little smaller. Obviously, being smaller I tend to have more personal service though. If interested, be sure to take a look at my offerings at http://www.anvilhammer.com/others/web_hosting.shtml. I offer service for as little as $7 per month as well. Both Blue Host and myself offer Fantastico with the ability to easily install OSCommerce or Zen Cart. You can also experiment with other software like Joomla and tons more while you are in there.

2) I have checked out a lot of services for this and depending on how involved you want to get there are two good solutions. Paypal offers the ability to use their merchant account and is pretty simple to get rolling on...although slightly more expensive depending on the number of transactions. If you want to go for a custom solution that is truely your own merchant account, I found a company I like named e-onlinedata that I work with. If you visit http://www.anvilhammer.com/others/merchant_accounts.shtml you can check out what they offer and I have a link to sign up for their internet merchant account on that page.

3) As I mentioned, for what you need, the OSCommerce will be your best bet, which you can edit right through your web browser. If you decide on a more custom solution, Adobe Dreamweaver is my software of choice. Mozilla also offers a free HTML editor, but is not quite as robust.

4) Check out #3, as they are tied together

5) This answer will be a little vague. There are huge numbers of resources on the web and books galore on this topic, but really depends on the software you decide on. The good news is the OSCommerce and Zen Cart website are full of information on getting things rolling, forums, extra modules (in case you want some extra functionality) and more. This might be a good starting point.

Generally, I would suggest just getting one of the two carts I mention and getting it rolling first. You can always customize it as you go along and get a better feel for how things work. Once you feel confident enough, you can go for a more custom solution or hire a designer to take it to the next level once your budget allows. And that, as they say, is that!

Hello Mcfarlane,

I see you are looking for decent website which can handle the normal buy and pay type ecommerce website.  Let me throw out few things which might help you decide whether you want to build yourself or hire somebody cost effective.

1. Is the kits you are selling already have market or you hoping to create a market and sell in online? Meaning, you already have buyers who will buy from online or you need work on marketing? If you say Yes, you already have buyers. Then you job to market via web saves lot of time.

2. Do you better concentrate on making and selling product instead of designing and configuring? Most of the time, it is smart decision to hire handyman for things which we are not familar instead of wasting time figuring out. We all cannot do everythihng.

Keeping the above into consideration, I woud recommend you to make a decision and take your path. Eitherway, here are my answers,

1. You can use Godaddy.com which has good offers but always limited service. I use Vodahost.com for all my websites and they areunlimited in everything and only 7.95/month. I would recommend it.

2. Vodahost also offers oscommerce cart and zen cart which you can use in Joomla or drupal to configure your ecommerce site.

3. If you want to build a site yourself, vodahost has good tool webbuilder which helps to build site and also add carts using these services. You can also use paypal cart which is simple plug and play.

As you don't much about builidng website, there are lot of configurations which need to be addressed and maintained properly and safety precautions to be addressed sinc eyou are handling dollars. I would recommend to thing twice for doing yourself and hire somebody who can do it for you quick and nice.

Whichever way you decide, you can always send message to me and ask quetions. Happy to help.

Yeah, I'm thinking getting help may not be a bad idea.  If either of you are interested in discussing more and working up a proposal for me, PM me with your phone and a good time to discuss.

Thanks

Conor

Zen Cart is my preference for a free (open source) shopping cart program, although osCommerce is ok too.

Both run on Linux hosting (rather than Windows hosting).

Setting up an ecommerce site is a little more than creating the site, adding the produce, etc... there are a number of things to consider such as pricing, shipping terms, returns terms... payment processing.

As far as design, ZenCart and osCommerce have "default" layouts which are boring. So, it's a good idea to have a design created or modify a design template.. so your site is unique.

When choosing an ecommerce program you should determine IF the program can handle the minimum 3 item order scenario you mentioned. While ZenCart and osCommerce are very accomidating, from what you describe I can not tell you for sure if either can handle your product purchase/rental idea.

As far as hosting, I provide hosting - competitively priced ($82.92/year).

The other items you'll need for an ecommerce site...

 - An SSL certificate

 - A merchant account (and/or use PayPal or Google checkout).

~Roland

Hello CMarcfarlane,

I sent a message with my details. Email me or send message if you need more assistance.

Its better to contact a professional web developer rather than trying it on your own, for Ecommerce web development is not that easy. Good luck!

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Creative Ecommerce Web Design Co.

How many products and attributes will you be needing? Will you need inventory management and other order fulfillment functions?    Before selecting a web hosting firm for ecommerce business, you must decide on data storage and data transfer rates that you may need for your website. You must have the confidence regarding the security and connection of the web hosting company. You must do a little bit of research to ensure that the end-users receive the data efficiently and quickly. I think that the best solution for eCommerce is VPS The best Windows host I've ever used -- anywhere in the world -- is vpswebserver.com, Based in Chicago.It is specialized in providing Microsoft Hyper-V VPS hosting,network and OS administration experts with at least 10 years of experience in the IT field.

On the server side, vpswebserver uses two highly regarded data centers located in Chicago and Philadelphia which come with the highest amount of interconnectivity, redundancy and security imaginable plus they have 24/7/365 on-site data center technicians to ensure complete reliability. More specifically, VpsWebServer’s spacious Chicago facility, which is also the home to many of its managed dedicated server and Virtual Private Server clients, has allowed the company to effectively and competitively scale its prices.

We can build a website for you loaded with dropship products ready to sell. We have the low wholesale prices you need to make great profits online.

I need to design and build an ecommerce site for my startup business selling (technically I will be renting) 3 unit "kits". Prospective customers would gather 3 different variations of my product and place them in a shopping cart for checkout. The kits are sold at a fixed price. I'd like them to be able to select the products from my inventory via drop down box. Once a customer selects three products, they will be able to checkout.

I'm looking for some guidance/advice on the below:

1) Where to host? I currently have an account with iPage. It is cheap - that's about all I can say about it.
2) Best service for my needs to accept credit cards (more detail on that below)
3) What to use to design the site? I have a Mac with iWeb 08. I own no other software.