Need an Affordable Shopping Cart Website

[Sophie Andrews]

Hi
I need to get a shopping cart website up and running - it is for a trial new product so am happy to use a template which can be customised to a certain extent. At this stage I don't want to allocate big $ to a custom built website. I am aware that there are various template sites and also hosting companies that offer a website as part of the package - can anyone recommend one? I know for example netregistry will provide a shopping cart website but their charge is $99 a month which seems somewhat high!! Any help much appreciated.
Many thanks

Sophie

[Heidi Price]

Hey Sophie

A couple of questions

1) Is this for 1 product, several, or many?

2) What do you want to achieve with the site? I know you want to see how the product sells, but what else will the site do?

3) How will customers receive the product(s)?

4) Where will your product info and pictures come from?

5) Have you worked out your realistic budget - the minimum you would like to pay and the maximum you have available.

6) Who is your ideal customer, where do they come from, and how will they find out about you?

7) What image do you wish to portray through the website?

8) Do you have the knowledge to customise a template?

9) Have you researched/purchased a domain name?

This and MUCH more is what a good website designer will work through with you. I'm not trying to push you into hiring someone, but IMHO you will get the best results by using the right resources.

A website is a business tool and asset, and what a visitor to your site sees is a vital part of your branding.


Heidi

[Sophie Andrews]

Hi Heidi

Thanks for your response and concern. The site is for more than one product. I am well aware of the importance of branding etc - 18 mths ago I designed a website from scratch and had it built in close collaboration with a website designer. I have since won a national business award for that site. I have done much research on what does and doesn't work in website design, branding, marketing etc. This particular site is for an information product which can be downloaded. Product info and pictures are all in hand. Yes I have a budget and my target market defined.

I am not someone who has no knowledge whatsoever of websites and website designers but in this particular case I am after a customisable template. I do appreciate your questions and have used designers in the past and will use them again in the future, but this is not what I am after for this particular project.

Many thanks

Sophie

[Heidi Price]

Not a prob Sophie

Not knowing your background I thought it best to ask some of the basic questions.

Did you have any ideas on the features you were looking for in a template?


Heidi

[mexham]

Hi Sophie, I use this webhost provider, and noticed they offer this service;

http://design.webcity.com.au/design-wc.php

they also have very cheap monthly hosting plans.

you get some free adword credits also, but you must use within 15days, which unfortunately I didn't know about and it expired before I got to use.

[gareth_concise]

Hi,

May i suggest Oscommerce or Zencart. They are known as Open Source solutions. Effectively they are free as long as you don't onsell them.

For around $250/year, you can have a basic server with Oscommerce installed. Its upto you to customise it but there are hundreds of <$50 templates available online. It has everything you need to get started. If you get stuck, email me and i can help.

Hope that helps

Cheers

[coolgifts]

Hi Sophie

You may want to try spiffy stores. they're a pretty good low cost service that's good for people wanting to start an online store. There's a free trial as well.

http://www.spiffystores.com.au

[Philip Shaw]

Hi Sophie,

I haven't used it myself - but work in online marketing, and have heard great things from some reliable sources about www.magentocommerce.com/

Good luck

Philip.

[Adam Randall]

Originally Posted by gareth_concise

Hi,

May i suggest Oscommerce or Zencart. They are known as Open Source solutions. Effectively they are free as long as you don't onsell them.

I dont think there is anything wrong with onselling opens source, in actual fact I am pretty sure the licensing encourages it.

The only thing you must do is make available any modifications to the code you have made, back to the general community.

[ray_223]

Originally Posted by Adam Randall

I dont think there is anything wrong with onselling opens source, in actual fact I am pretty sure the licensing encourages it.

The only thing you must do is make available any modifications to the code you have made, back to the general community.

I know this isn't the purpose of the thread ... BUT ...
there are literally dozens of different open source licenses and if you are contemplating using open source code in an external project (i.e. not your own internal business) then it would be wise to get legal advise.

As an example the GPL based licenses do require you to make available all source changes you make to the base code but BSD based licenses do not require you to make your source code changes available.