Need Info on setting up my own web site with cart for selling my work

[Breck Whitworth]

I need info from those of you who have and maintain a web site with the ability to sell your work on line. Times are changing so quickly I feel the need to research some of the new companies/methods that were not available years ago. I have learned over the years that experience is much more valuable than just knowledge, thus I am asking for personal experience and advice from those of you who have done the ground work by trial and error. I am a retired high school teacher of 35 years so cost is a factor but still I want it to be as professional looking as I can afford. Thank you ahead of time

 

[Bill Boehme]

Google web hosting reviews for good information, comparisons, and cost which ranges from free to around $20 per month.

 

[Douglas Ladendorf]

I like http://www.squarespace.com/ for the combined hosting and content management system, ease of use, and available modules to cover a variety of needs. While it's easy to use there is a learning curve. Their training videos help with that.

Doug

 

[Mark Levitski]

Go Daddy

Have a look at Go Daddy. We recently went live with a website, albeit not with a store. It was pretty easy to design the site, and reasonable too.

The result: http://www.heartwoodcreations.net

They have really good phone support.

Mark

 

[robo hippy]

A web site, and a web site with a store are two different things, with the store being the more complicated set up. You should talk to your bank. I have a square reader for taking credit cards at shows, and can take numbers over the phone with it too. The web site is hooked up with stripe (?) which is affiliated with my bank. I don't do Pay Pal. I had some issues with them some years back and you couldn't call up, only e-mail, and I got FAQ responces that had nothing at all to do with my questions, so no more with them. Some accounts are through Pay Pal, and they can operate the other cards through Pay Pal, but I had another 'experience' with that. If you have good computer skills, you can probably do it. I had mine done, and I think Go Daddy is part of the host set up thing, but really have no idea. If my computer skills were on a level with my turning skills, I might have attempted it. Oh, some card services will only take US cards, and nothing from out of country. Check that out as well.

robo hippy

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

I could not pass along anything on the store, but Robbo seems to have done a good job on that. I am webmaster for our club and have to get help from our provider some time. GoDaddy may be the easiest option for self handling, but our webservice went thru them and it locked up and gave an error they could not or would not fix. He then set up thru someone else. So it is not difficult to handle day to day maintenance or adding photos. If you have a problem you will need to find someone to help. I believe that it is best to find a local service to handle the setup for you and they will also handle annual domain renewal.
You could probably do a Google search for web service and then follow up.

 

[Mark Hepburn]

Hi Breck:

All the above is good advice indeed. One of my side tasks for the company I work for is our website. I do the content and work with our IT guys on the database, .php and other stuff. Because of our size, we deployed a server-side ordering system tied into our inventory and blah blah blah, so I've had to grapple with some of the issues.

I'm not going to make a specific recommendation on a provider but thought you might want to consider a few things:

As Robo said, the store part is quite a bit different and you want to consider how you plan to accept payments. There are several turnkey solutions that you can use and PayPal is a good one to consider (not to contradict Robo, but I've personally had great experience with PayPal). Set up an account to take payments and you can link off of your website through their service and they process it for you (Doug Thompson, D-Way and others use PayPal and that's how I pay them). Still, a Square reader will definitely work and you might want to just take orders over the phone and that will eliminate the cost of an ecommerce site.

Knowing how you want to take payments is one part of the puzzle. Also, you have to consider how many items you may wish to sell at a time. Sites like SquareSpace an GoDaddy have tiered pricing that allows you to price it more to your needs. I register domains through GoDaddy and they have a good service.

SquareSpace is also an excellent way to go because they have a drag and drop template system that is pretty intuitive. But they're not the only one so, as Bill says, you may wish to Google for others. There are Web.com, Weebly, Shopify and others out there. I would also look for reviews on the sites to get others' opinions.

A big question for you is, how much personal time do you want to spend tweaking a site, developing content, and so on? Back in the day, I thrived on that stuff but don't really want to be bothered with it anymore. If you go with a more or less turnkey site provider, then you spend less time on the site and more time making product. But the trade off will be the monthly cost.

Still, the costs are pretty modest for a website. I'll bet you can set up a site and prepay a year for the cost of a really nice gouge 🙂

Just my .02 (and probably worth less than that)

 

[Bill Boehme]

... Still, the costs are pretty modest for a website. I'll bet you can set up a site and prepay a year for the cost of a really nice gouge 🙂

So, you're saying that you get gouged, but in a nice way? 🙄

 

[Mark Hepburn]

So, you're saying that you get gouged, but in a nice way? 🙄

😀😀😀

Bit of an unintended pun, Bill.

 

[Gretch Flo]

😀😀😀

Bit of an unintended pun, Bill.

Mark-it was not unintended. Bill's brain is working all the time-wonder if he rests?????? Gretch

 

[Bill Boehme]

Mark-it was not unintended. Bill's brain is working all the time-wonder if he rests?????? Gretch

There's no rest for the wicked.

 

[Mark Hepburn]

Mark-it was not unintended. Bill's brain is working all the time-wonder if he rests?????? Gretch

Gretch:

Come to think of it, you're right. He's pretty quick isn't he? And it sure helps keep the forums light and fun doesn't it? 🙂

 

[Jeff Bower]

Take a look at www.weebly.com for a website. They offer free websites and also a site builder that is easy to use. You can also pay for a site at 3 different levels if you want. If you have a square reader (or even if you don't) you can set up a free store at www.squareup.com. You can do only online sales and/or local pick up sales as well. If you do shows, if something sells at the show it is taken off your online shop automaticallyl. Bonus, you can embed your store on the weebly site! Easy peasy!

 

[nicksilva]

I like and use go daddy for my website and store. You basically have to purchase 3 things:
1) the domain name (which you'll point to the website).
2) the website package (gives 10 pages) and it has some easy to use tools.
3) The quick shopping cart which you load your products on (100 items) and allows for payment processing.

I use the website for information, FAQs, and for setting links to my various stores (ebay, etsy, and the quick shopping cart).

Go Daddy has recently added a new product which is a online store. You get an unlimited # of products you can list, it handles the payment processing
and gives 5 pages you can use as you would the website. cost is $20/month. You don't have to buy a domain. It will automatically create one
in the style www.carvedpens.mysimplestore.com where carvedpens is the name of the store you provide. However for name branding purposes
it is still nice to get your own domain name and point it to the store. I did get the online store with the idea of doing away with
the quick shopping cart and webpage package.

Cheers!
Nick

 

[olaf Vogel]

Take a look at www.weebly.com for a website. They offer free websites and also a site builder that is easy to use. You can also pay for a site at 3 different levels if you want. If you have a square reader (or even if you don't) you can set up a free store at www.squareup.com. You can do only online sales and/or local pick up sales as well. If you do shows, if something sells at the show it is taken off your online shop automaticallyl. Bonus, you can embed your store on the weebly site! Easy peasy!

I've tried both Squarespace and Weebly in the last few months, but not their eCommerce offering.
Both have online docs, but don't offer much help otherwise - its self serve.
Costs are very comparable.
Templates both look decent.
Both are easy to set up and get running,

but....
if you want to do any customization from the template, then I found Squarespace very unintuitive and difficult. I'm pretty computer savvy and my wife is a web designer. After a couple of weeks, we both gave up and I cancelled the account.

The Weeby customization was a snap by comparison. In 2 days I had more progress than 2 weeks on Squarespace.
Weebly has good video tutorials to watch, which were very informative and helpful. Online searches for these are easy.

Admittedly my site still needs work, but that's just lack of time....and I'd rather be turning. 🙂
Olaf

 

[Douglas Ladendorf]

Olaf, did you view any of the Squarespace support videos? When I have gotten stuck a quick search of the support site turned up a helpful article with video answering my question.