Websites

[wobblyknicks]

I need to start up a website to sell jewellery. Eventually I'd want something 'proper' that I'd designed and did everything I could ever wish for, but right now I need something quick and easy (as well as cheap) - so I'm look at 'off the shelf' stuff.

Can anyone with more techy knowledge than me tell me what you think of this , or suggest something else?

hi ther Wk,I've just bumped up a thread you might want to look at !

it's a 'going back to work' one

Thanks boudicca, have just read it. Will definitely bear Chandra in mind for October, if she'd dare to work with me!!! Problem is that once I get an idea, I have to do it NOW, so I just want something simple and ready to go. Plus, it being cheap helps!!!!

Have read your job one too - you don't fancy sales and marketing do you?

don't really know how you go about s&m! love to help if I can tho

you sound so like me -I want -I want it NOW!!

hard to say, wk.

If I were you, I'd write to them and ask for the URL of a site using their system so you can see how it works from a customer perspective. Some of these things are very slow and inflexible.

It would also be nice to actually see their "set-up wizards", but that's not so important if you have the time to mess about with them and email tech support!

It's just that the other day katzguk mentioned that shops near her would be looking for new jewellery to sell, so if you knew anyone who wanted some, I'd split the profit with you 50/50. Doubt it would be as much as a p/t job but worth a thought maybe.

Thanks SP. They do give links to sites that have been designed using them and also examples of the templates you can choose from, and they look fairly decent. It is very inflexible but atm that's what I'd need, so I can just put my content in and not worry about anything else. If it took off, I'd pay to have someone completely do it from scratch but thats not an option yet. And I do have a bit of time to mess about, its not needed this second so it might be a decent option for me then.

boudicca - isn't it terrible when an idea overtakes you and you HAVE to do it THIS MINUTE!!

by the way boudicca, don't mention on any BAR threads that you don't know how to go about s&m - you'll get some very strange answers!!!...and they won't be about sales either

right - I've just found the links.

The system looks pretty good and is faster than some. However the redirect thing they use will cause problems with the search engines (you shouldn't be too worried about that yet as it can take months to get listed well, but it is something you should think about from the start). It's also all on SSL which makes it slower than it should be.

My other concern is that the first link gives a mixed content error ("some of the items on this page are not secure..." because the images are being loaded from a non-ssl site.

I'll have a quick look for another one for you!

Thanks a lot SP. I'm only looking at using it for a few months while I think about getting a 'proper' one going so the search engine side won't matter, because I won't be able to get deeply into that for a while and I'm mainly hoping to rely on word of mouth, links etc rather than search engine traffic.

The non-SSL link side is probably the most worrying bit.

Thanks a lot for your help!!

wk - how about this ?

Again, it's not perfect, and again I suggest you have a separate plain HTML site for the search engines (either build it yourself or get someone else to) which links to it, but it's a lot cheaper - free first month, then 1.99 to 2.99 a month.

Contact me if you want a reference quote for the plain HTML or the full e-comm site (but I do suggest you get more than 1 quote. )

Oh yes, and you should also check the credit card transaction commission for whichever solution you go for. The one I've linked to uses Paypal or Worldpay who both charge around 4% (but you may have to pay a setup fee for worldpay, I haven't checked).

just checked and both want you to set up your own payment handling acccount with paypal or Worldpay.

Worldpay charge around £300 for setup, but you'd need an account with someone like them eventually anyway.

So I say go with the 2.99 a month one.

The reason I say to set up your website separately is so that the site gets listed correctly initially. Sometimes when you have a domain (eg. www.jewellery.com) that redirects to a store thingy (eg. www.storething.com/?site=jewellery.com), the wrong one gets listed and your actual domain gets effectively banned for a while. Even just one page that says "click here for our online shop" is a good idea, just in case.

That might be better SP, just having the shopping cart and dealing with the front end separately. Will cat about the quotes, thanks. My problem was I wasn't sure what I wanted but thinking about it, all I need atm is to be able to have a basic website that looks half decent, with the facility to upload pics and change the content now and then.

Thanks SP, World Pay looks good but from what I can see on the 2.99 one, if I have a merchant account I can do without them, so might be worth going in to the bank to see how much a merchant account would cost - what do you think?

I think I'll take you up on your job offer of the other day Wk-but I will need parking space for my chariot!(v. wide as I've still not got around to taking off the hub-knives)
and I really don't know what you can mean about the s&m business

boudicca - you can have a special double space for your golden cart!!! And I know you have no idea what I mean about s&m (of course!!), that's why I was warning you!!!

Hiya

I'm going to be a brazen hussy now and ask you to look at my dp's website.

He's been developing this for a couple of years and the business has just been set up. The windows version is not ready yet but the Mac version is up and running for testing. He's hoping to get it to market within the next few months.

I do hope I'm not going to get into to trouble for promoting his business but the saleable version, when it's ready, may be helpful.

Good luck in what you're doing.

p.s. it's all techy jargon and I'm nagging him to do an 'idiot's guide' style manual when it's ready so even I can have a go!

dottee - I wouldn't have thought you'd get in trouble because you're answering my q. That does look really good - tbh I'm a bit too knackered atm to read every single word but it looks very promising - good on him!!! I hope it does well for him!!!

Is it fairly easy for your average idiot to use??

lol dottee - idiot's guides are always good!!!

It's being designed to be one of the (it not, THE) quickest and easiest ways to make your own web-site.
It's still in early stages and he's ironing out problems (his Javascript writer comes back from holiday tomorrow and they've got a snag list to work through for example) but it may be worthwhile bookmarking the site to see when your platform test version becomes available as he's going to do a one month's free trial (a bit like AOL) before you can subscribe.

We've had a lot of interest so far so keep your fingers crossed!

Will definitely keep my fingers crossed for him dottee - and will be watching out for its release. Thats exactly what some people need - a good program thats easy to use and will deal with the front-end and the back-end at the same time.

My ex was a programmer and although most of the time he just pissed about and didn't do anything useful, I saw enough to know what hard work it is so I really hope it goes well for your dp.

I don't know if you fall within the age range (I think you do)but it's worth looking at this site.

\linkwww.shell-livewire.org/?PHPSESSID=38a0d9699b0366696a50f1e29130e36ethis{}

Good luck and allow plenty of time for things to get moving, especially getting listed by search engines.