ecommerce

[Ringo]

My wife has a craft business & she's looking to put it online, any ideas of how much a small ecommerce website costs? Looked at osCommerce, anyone used this?

[osarusan]

ever thought about starting with ebay?

maybe not a bad way to see if you will get buyers online..........

[dahamsta]

My wife has a craft business & she's looking to put it online, any ideas of how much a small ecommerce website costs? Looked at osCommerce, anyone used this?Define small. ;)

osCommerce is an excellent app, but it can be complex for smaller businesses, and you really don't have a lot to play with in terms of style. eBay is an excellent sales location, but personally I think it should be used as a compliment to a dedicated online presence. If you're just talking about a few products, and your shipping/tax/etc requirements aren't too complex, you might be better off with a static site and PayPal Buy Now buttons.

It's worth considering design expenses too. Someone like me could fire together a pretty passable - but very basic - site for less than a grand, but if you invested a bit more a dedicated designer could be brought in to make the site look extremely professional. Invest a bit more and the design can be wrapped around something like WordPress to give content management facilities. Invest again and more professional commerce facilities can be made available (mid-range WorldPay, high-end Realex). Invest a bit more and you're into bespoke catalogues and shopping baskets particular to your product, delivery and tax requirements. I could go on.

Unless someone is utterly loaded and they like throwing money at things on the off-chance, I generally advise them to start small and invest as they go, because success in online sales isn't a given. Start with a fixed budget and a defined set of requirements. If you're doing well after six months, tack on a new feature or improve look and feel or usability. If growth continues, think about more professional commerce functions. If it starts booming, think about dedicated hosting and direct commerce features. Again, I could go on.

Drop me a line if you'd like to talk it through with someone. This is, after all, what I do. :)

adam

[A face]

Define small. ;)

osCommerce is an excellent app, but it can be complex for smaller businesses, and you really don't have a lot to play with in terms of style. eBay is an excellent sales location, but personally I think it should be used as a compliment to a dedicated online presence. If you're just talking about a few products, and your shipping/tax/etc requirements aren't too complex, you might be better off with a static site and PayPal Buy Now buttons.

It's worth considering design expenses too. Someone like me could fire together a pretty passable - but very basic - site for less than a grand, but if you invested a bit more a dedicated designer could be brought in to make the site look extremely professional. Invest a bit more and the design can be wrapped around something like WordPress to give content management facilities. Invest again and more professional commerce facilities can be made available (mid-range WorldPay, high-end Realex). Invest a bit more and you're into bespoke catalogues and shopping baskets particular to your product, delivery and tax requirements. I could go on.

Unless someone is utterly loaded and they like throwing money at things on the off-chance, I generally advise them to start small and invest as they go, because success in online sales isn't a given. Start with a fixed budget and a defined set of requirements. If you're doing well after six months, tack on a new feature or improve look and feel or usability. If growth continues, think about more professional commerce functions. If it starts booming, think about dedicated hosting and direct commerce features. Again, I could go on.

Drop me a line if you'd like to talk it through with someone. This is, after all, what I do. :)

adam

In bold is good advice .... write down exactly what you want and what you think it will achieve, objectives ..... and then start on the solution.

[Ringo]

In bold is good advice .... write down exactly what you want and what you think it will achieve, objectives ..... and then start on the solution.

I'll talk to her again. its her baby, its up to her.I've spent the day playing with oscommerce & its a bit too advanced for my computer skills. Thanks for the advice. she might be in touch;)

[dahamsta]

osC isn't really that bad, it's just not very well designed from a usability pov. A half-day's hard work and it all makes sense. However it really is overkill for most applications. I'd imagine a lot of webstores have died because people thought osC was the way to go, and their customers didn't... :D

adam

[Ringo]

osC isn't really that bad, it's just not very well designed from a usability pov. A half-day's hard work and it all makes sense. However it really is overkill for most applications. I'd imagine a lot of webstores have died because people thought osC was the way to go, and their customers didn't... :D

adam

I have by now spent several " half-day's " at it & i'm still lost.:o
Its at the point of, will it make enough money to justify spending the money on a proper website. The fact that i have two youg kids wanting sit on my lap as i'm trying to figure it out, doesn't help:D

[dahamsta]

That's why I'd suggest starting small Ringo; but that being said, there's a difference between starting small and starting with no budget. As with nearly every trade, you've got to spend money to make money. IMHO you should be starting with a budget of at least a grand. You'll get cheaper with a youngfella in college or just out of college, but you're not going to get an ongoing relationship with someone like that, and if you don't have the skillz yourself, that's what you need to succeed online imho.

Of course I'm bound to say that, and I'm biased. But I have been at it for a decade, I think I'm qualified at this stage. :)

Anyway, good luck with it either way, and like I said if you want a chat about it drop me a line.

adam

[paul_oshea]

osCommerce is an excellent app, but it can be complex for smaller businesses

i am using it, i am a techie, but i dont have much experience of open source web languages or open source software, and it is simple to use.

The hardest part is probably setting up payments, but to get a merchant number and paying a bank as well as relex to transfer credit card payments it can come to about 6% of your actual transaction, so its much simpler just to use a paypal IPN account and they only charge 3%.

if you want any infor let me know. plus there forum is very useful.

[Dodge]

Someone like me could fire together a pretty passable - but very basic - site for less than a grand,
A grand, jeeessh you must be loaded. Apart from living off all the freebies you have people send in, there's the millions you earn from this site and now you're charging for websites?!?!

BTW A friend of mine sells his thing exclusively through Ebay and finds it OK. Pretty much hassle free now that Paypal deal with Irish banks.

[dahamsta]

A grand, jeeessh you must be loaded. Apart from living off all the freebies you have people send in, there's the millions you earn from this site and now you're charging for websites?!?!Heh, you should see what I charge when I bring a designer on board, and implement bespoke webapps. But when you're good you're good like... ;)

Oh, and I actually earn brazillions from Foot.ie, not millions.


Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying, "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"adam