Small shop website

philio16

philio16

philio16

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
158
Location
Manchester, UK
Hey!

I've today moved home to the small sleepy town of Mildenhall where my step mum has a small craft shop which recently opened. She has asked if I could do her a website (as she has been quoted £1000!) whilst I'm here before going back home to Manchester in a few weeks. I have some web design knowledge however I've never really touched on creating a shop, but am willing to learn!

So....I'm looking to create a website thats going to obviously have a database behind it....what's the best (and easiest...and cheapest) way to do this? Are there any free (or again...cheap) shopping carts available? Also, she is able to use a PC fairly well but isn't as advanced as updating web databases etc, so is it possible for new products etc to be added in a fairly simple to explain way?

Payment wise I think paypal is going to be used as she already has an account set up so thats taken care of :)

Any help is greatly appreciated as always!

Thank you!

edit - the first paragraph is in no way promoting the shop...I just felt like saving a pointless thread in GD :p
 
£1000 is very cheap for an online shop :)

Look into Zencart, Cubecart, Oscommerce and X-cart (that's not free) for starters, they're very good pieces of software :)
 
Beansprout said:
£1000 is very cheap for an online shop :)

Look into Zencart, Cubecart, Oscommerce and X-cart (that's not free) for starters, they're very good pieces of software :)
Click to expand...

I've been told its cheap, but the shop is tiny and with having to buy stock etc she doesn't really have that much cash lying around! :(

I'll look into those though, whats the general idea behind actually creating the pages the user will see? Do they come with like templates or am I able to easily merge my own site design in with the database stuff?
 
If I had 2 hands I'd type more, hopefully someone else will though - but basically oscommerce and zen cart have a "simple templating system" add-on but they're still a pain whereas X-cart uses a proper templating system :)
 
Beansprout said:
If I had 2 hands I'd type more, hopefully someone else will though - but basically oscommerce and zen cart have a "simple templating system" add-on but they're still a pain whereas X-cart uses a proper templating system :)
Click to expand...

you have been a great help! :)

I'm just browsing the site now, a lot to take in! Maybe I should wait till morning, its been a long day today :p
 
Why not create a simple yet sweet site with PayPal intergration? Let them handle the payment details (users don't have to register) and you'll be set.

That's going on the basis that its not going to be a huge online megaplex superduper store with many purcahses each day, because if it is - surely £1000 is a 10th of the budget needed?
 
Are you sure that having a website at this time is right for the business?

They can't pay for one to be done professionaly becuase they are just buying stock etc. If they end up with a website that doesn't meet their needs it will be a waste of effort and if its not good people will not sure it so its wasted investment.

Is there a market for the online sale of craft items? Personaly I imagine that such items are better sold in a shop since customers can look at them, touch them etc. If there is no market for an online shop then the effort required in setting one up is too expencive. Perhaps the website shouldn't sell goods? Perhaps it shoudl be an information source for potential customers about the kinds of products the shop sells rather than an online e-commerce solution. Such a solution is complex, will require a great deal of planning and effort and some experience of object-oriented programming. I suggest that you look at existing off-the-shelf solutions. You will also need a server which runs Windows or Linux (this choice will depend on the solution you want to run) and you will need a domain, need to consider some kind of business process for fulfilling orders.

Justin
 
Worth a try?

Knock up something simple just to have at least a little online presence and then see how it goes from there.
 
Take a look at www.actinic.co.uk

Their Actinic Catalogue software would be ideal for your mum at £443, get the trial - you'll be surprised how suited it is to the sole trader.

If she has a shop she should have a merchant account so just setup with someone like secpay, get a cheap hosting package (just need ftp and perl) and a ssl certificate.

ps. For that £443 and a few hours of your time making it look as your mum wants it she could go from nothing to doing hundreds of orders a day with no further investment (except staff of course).
 
JustinW said:
Are you sure that having a website at this time is right for the business?

They can't pay for one to be done professionaly becuase they are just buying stock etc. If they end up with a website that doesn't meet their needs it will be a waste of effort and if its not good people will not sure it so its wasted investment.

Is there a market for the online sale of craft items? Personaly I imagine that such items are better sold in a shop since customers can look at them, touch them etc. If there is no market for an online shop then the effort required in setting one up is too expencive. Perhaps the website shouldn't sell goods? Perhaps it shoudl be an information source for potential customers about the kinds of products the shop sells rather than an online e-commerce solution. Such a solution is complex, will require a great deal of planning and effort and some experience of object-oriented programming. I suggest that you look at existing off-the-shelf solutions. You will also need a server which runs Windows or Linux (this choice will depend on the solution you want to run) and you will need a domain, need to consider some kind of business process for fulfilling orders.

Justin
Click to expand...

The community and her customers have expressed interest in a website due to the low density of the population here, it is all quite spread out and not convenient for a lot of people to travel the distances for small products.

I have set up a quick oscommerce store for the mo to see what is possible but am still looking futher into all the methods suggested!

Thanks for all the help guys :D
 
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