New online PC store

wiggyuk

wiggyuk

wiggyuk

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Joined
1 Oct 2004
Posts
706
Location
Rowley Regis, West Mids
I am currently trying to setup my own online PC hardware store, what is the best kind of website I should create I have heard about oscommerce websites, I have never setup a website before but I have dreamweaver 8, how hard can it be ?? can someone please advice the best way around this
 
My advice? Give up now. Sorry thats harsh, but if your asking that you probably don't have much of a clue what your doing.

Before even considering website stuff, do you really know:
- Where your going to get stock from?
- What your selling?
- How are you going to find space in such a crowded market? How can you possibly undercut massive companies?
- What initial investment do you have?
 
Lagz said:
My advice? Give up now. Sorry thats harsh, but if your asking that you probably don't have much of a clue what your doing.

Before even considering website stuff, do you really know:
- Where your going to get stock from?
- What your selling?
- How are you going to find space in such a crowded market? How can you possibly undercut massive companies?
- What initial investment do you have?
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Cheers Lagz I was going to sell on eBay first until I had sufficient investment to put into my company, I have already had several suppliers from all over the world contact me and sedn me there products and prices, and beleive me at the prices I have been quoted I could sell very competitive and still make a profit. So can anyone give me any advice on setting up a new site for selling goods ?
 
Beansprout said:
www.oscommerce.com.

But really....I agree with Lagz. Unless you find the cash to sort everything out professionally, which would include a website development. Though oscommerce is reasonably easy to setup.
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I would like evrything to be sorted out professionaly how much would a website like this cost to setup
 
The easiest way would be to pick up something like Actinic to build the store and integrate with various payment methods.

If your not sure what direction to take, or how to go about it then setting up your own on-line store from scratch can cause many sleepless nights infront of the computer and a large hole scratched in the top of your head :D

Need to consider things such as:

How many products are you going to offer ?
How are you going to store the data ? - if only a handful of products then you could just build a page for each. For a few more you could use an access DB with an ASP front end but if your selling a decent selection of products then you'll need to be storing them in some sort of SQL database with a suitable front end to enable fast categorising, searching and retreival.

Hosting - Depending on how you are going to build the site will influence your choice of host and the package you take out with them.

Payments - How are you going to accept and process customers payments ? Again, different methods require various code and methods of securely passing customer data around. If you go for paypal/nochex payments then sure it's easy enough, but doesn't look too professional.

Just a few things to consider.
 
How many products are you going to offer ? I do have a large list of products that I will be supplying

Payments - I would like to accept all types of payment including credit cards
 
Will probably cost you at least £7500+ to get a professional website done that meets your needs.

Be wary of getting something cheap that is hard to maintain. . you will pay for it later.
 
Lagz said:
Will probably cost you at least £7500+ to get a professional website done that meets your needs.

Be wary of getting something cheap that is hard to maintain. . you will pay for it later.
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I didnt relise it would be that expensive just for the site, I could always use one of these ocommerce sites and then transfer over to a more expensive site later, what you think ?
 
Yup. Oscommerce is fine (heck, the Google store runs it) for small stores. But you really should get professionals in to work with whatever setup you choose, rather than try and do it yourself.

There's a ton of information on the oscommerce site :)
 
so do you think that the oscommerce site would be fine to setup and then transfer later to a professional site, do you think I would still get good sales using the oscommerce site
 
Just incase there's an incorrect perception here....there's nothing wrong with oscommerce, it's a perfectly good online shop used by thousands. It has its querks and its problems, and you shouldn't set one up on your own as you have no idea what you're doing (hence, the professional help - read around the oscommerce site for lots of info). But as you grow larger you'll need a better system, like X-Cart or Actinic, and so on.

But the website is only a small part of this whole idea. There's things like hosting, products, stock, and so on....as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Good luck - but don't expect it to be easy, or cheap :)
 
wiggyuk said:
How do I set a site up with this oscommerce
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I'm going to brutally honest here and suggest that i think you're a bit out of your depth and are setting your hopes too high. You say yourself that you've never even done a website before. Get down from your cloud.

If setting up an ecommerce site was so easy, we'd all be doing it. I suggest you think it through a bit more. :)
 
fozzybear said:
I'm going to brutally honest here and suggest that i think you're a bit out of your depth and are setting your hopes too high. You say yourself that you've never even done a website before. Get down from your cloud.

If setting up an ecommerce site was so easy, we'd all be doing it. I suggest you think it through a bit more. :)
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Do you think Sir Alan Sugar would have listened to this advice
 
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