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31-07-2009 1:24pm#1
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The Magento Community Edition is free under the open source OSL 3.0 license and would be suitable for most small businesses, but you are right I was just using it as an example of what is available. There are plenty of options it just a matter of figuring out what is important to you and find one that best suits your needs.That Magento Enterprise edition is $8,900. seems a bit steep.
For example you could use Zen Cart it is available to download for free. So you could download, install and configure it yourself.
Or if you do not want to get to this level of detail you can buy an off-the-shelf install of zen cart that will work out of the box.
I suppose the point I was trying to make is that there are lots of options and it is difficult to recommend an approach without more information.
Glad to hear you find my posts informative
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Thank u vor useful info! Just reading about it.:)The Magento Community Edition is free under the open source OSL 3.0 license and would be suitable for most small businesses, but you are right I was just using it as an example of what is available. There are plenty of options it just a matter of figuring out what is important to you and find one that best suits your needs.
For example you could use Zen Cart it is available to download for free. So you could download, install and configure it yourself.
Or if you do not want to get to this level of detail you can buy an off-the-shelf install of zen cart that will work out of the box.
I suppose the point I was trying to make is that there are lots of options and it is difficult to recommend an approach without more information.
Glad to hear you find my posts informative0 -
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Hey Guys,
There is many different ways of approaching selling online, and a number of factors that need consideration. All designs / site developments are specific to the nature of the product being sold, thankfully, most products can be sold quite well through pre - developed, free to use, ecommerce applications.
1. Hosting / Domain Name
You will need to get hosting, and register a domain name for your website. Hosting is basically your own space on a server somewhere (anywhere) where your website will live. There are three main players in Ireland for small to medium use; Register 365, Digiweb, and Blacknight. Your hosting can be provided by anyone, but if you are targeting the Irish market you are better off using an Irish host. The reason being the "show pages from Ireland" option you see on google.ie and a few other search engines will use the location of the Server to determine whether it is an Irish page or not.
Domain Names can be registered at the same time as your hosting. To get a .ie domain you need to have a registered company, and then you have to convince the IEDR (the crowd that control the allocation of .ie domains), that you are entitled to the domain. If you have a registered beauty company, they won't leave you register carcare.ie.
If you want to target the international market it would be no harm to register a .com as well. You can have the same site on both addresses.
Hosting, 1 *.com domain and 1 *.ie domain will cost you ~ €80 ex Vat per year (ever year)
2. Website
As mentioned by another poster you have some options. A good website is very, very important. There is a difference between a fancy expensive website, and a good website that a lot of people don't seem to get, they are not always the same thing!
A custom designed and developed ecommerce site could easily run into 5 figures. This is not an option for a startup company. Even if someone has saved / borrowed, and has cash to invest, it is certainly not something I would recommend. There's no need for it (in my opinion). You need good prices, good marketing, word of mouth, good service, and an easy to use website. That's it!
3. Ecommerce Software
I have worked on a nice few online shops for people. www.prestashop is my favourite application at the moment. It is a pre designed, and configured application that you can install on your site. It needs some technical configuration initially (databases need to be created, it needs to be installed, permissions need to be set, and some design elements will need adjusting.) There is plenty of information about this available on the Internet. It's not overly complicated, but could be a bit daunting if you've never dabbled in web design before.
All your products need to be added, it takes a couple of minutes to add each one. Input title, price, how many you have in stock, short description, long description, and pictures. This can all add up, depending on how many products you have.
Prestashop allows you to input your shipping rates, and these will be calculated based on the products weight, before the customer checks out.
4. Design
google "magento templates" or "prestashop templates" some very good, affordable, designs out there.
5. Payment
If you have a credit card terminal there is nothing stopping you processing credit card payments yourself. This however, is not recommended. If you begin "handling" credit card details you need to ensure your site is secure. This requires an SSL certificate, an SSL cert will cost you ~ €150 per year. It also leaves yourself open to hassle if money goes walking from a customers account.
The alternative is to use a payment processor. Realex are an Irish company that specialise in this, they are expensve tho, expecially for start ups.
Paypal would be a better option, the charge 2.9% + $0.30 on every product sold. When the customer goes to the checkout, they are redirected to a paypal page displaying the order and the amount due. They can then enter their details on the paypal site, when finished they will be brought back to your site. By outsourcing the payment processing, it makes it very secure, customers will appreciate this. There is very little risk using paypal. If you try to pull a fast one on a customer, Paypal will refund them the money.
6. Marketing
This is the key, everything else is easy!
Hope this helps, it's late, and I ain't reading that again so i'm sure there's a few mistakes.
If anyone would like some pointers, ideas of prices involved, or a push in the right direction just reply!0 -
Super points in the last post!
I will just point out number 6 again .. Marketing is the key.
When you get to the stage of 90% complete, launch the website. Get feedback, change the site with the feedback, build it around your new customers, increase the awareness with word of mouth from your customers, build more, increase your market / product reach, build again and then sell, sell, sell until the cows come home.
Give yourself one year from pre-launch to review your new online business, as some months you go slow but then it will pick up again. It is all about positioning yourself, taking each step as a small but vital move towards the big picture you have right now.
Best Wishes with it ! Very good advice from members here, do take it on board.0 -
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spartacus93 wrote: »Hey Guys,
There is many different ways of approaching selling online, and a number of factors that need consideration. All designs / site developments are specific to the nature of the product being sold, thankfully, most products can be sold quite well through pre - developed, free to use, ecommerce applications.
1. Hosting / Domain Name
You will need to get hosting, and register a domain name for your website. Hosting is basically your own space on a server somewhere (anywhere) where your website will live. There are three main players in Ireland for small to medium use; Register 365, Digiweb, and Blacknight. Your hosting can be provided by anyone, but if you are targeting the Irish market you are better off using an Irish host. The reason being the "show pages from Ireland" option you see on google.ie and a few other search engines will use the location of the Server to determine whether it is an Irish page or not.
Domain Names can be registered at the same time as your hosting. To get a .ie domain you need to have a registered company, and then you have to convince the IEDR (the crowd that control the allocation of .ie domains), that you are entitled to the domain. If you have a registered beauty company, they won't leave you register carcare.ie.
If you want to target the international market it would be no harm to register a .com as well. You can have the same site on both addresses.
Hosting, 1 *.com domain and 1 *.ie domain will cost you ~ €80 ex Vat per year (ever year)
2. Website
As mentioned by another poster you have some options. A good website is very, very important. There is a difference between a fancy expensive website, and a good website that a lot of people don't seem to get, they are not always the same thing!
A custom designed and developed ecommerce site could easily run into 5 figures. This is not an option for a startup company. Even if someone has saved / borrowed, and has cash to invest, it is certainly not something I would recommend. There's no need for it (in my opinion). You need good prices, good marketing, word of mouth, good service, and an easy to use website. That's it!
3. Ecommerce Software
I have worked on a nice few online shops for people. www.prestashop is my favourite application at the moment. It is a pre designed, and configured application that you can install on your site. It needs some technical configuration initially (databases need to be created, it needs to be installed, permissions need to be set, and some design elements will need adjusting.) There is plenty of information about this available on the Internet. It's not overly complicated, but could be a bit daunting if you've never dabbled in web design before.
All your products need to be added, it takes a couple of minutes to add each one. Input title, price, how many you have in stock, short description, long description, and pictures. This can all add up, depending on how many products you have.
Prestashop allows you to input your shipping rates, and these will be calculated based on the products weight, before the customer checks out.
4. Design
google "magento templates" or "prestashop templates" some very good, affordable, designs out there.
5. Payment
If you have a credit card terminal there is nothing stopping you processing credit card payments yourself. This however, is not recommended. If you begin "handling" credit card details you need to ensure your site is secure. This requires an SSL certificate, an SSL cert will cost you ~ €150 per year. It also leaves yourself open to hassle if money goes walking from a customers account.
The alternative is to use a payment processor. Realex are an Irish company that specialise in this, they are expensve tho, expecially for start ups.
Paypal would be a better option, the charge 2.9% + $0.30 on every product sold. When the customer goes to the checkout, they are redirected to a paypal page displaying the order and the amount due. They can then enter their details on the paypal site, when finished they will be brought back to your site. By outsourcing the payment processing, it makes it very secure, customers will appreciate this. There is very little risk using paypal. If you try to pull a fast one on a customer, Paypal will refund them the money.
6. Marketing
This is the key, everything else is easy!
Hope this helps, it's late, and I ain't reading that again so i'm sure there's a few mistakes.
If anyone would like some pointers, ideas of prices involved, or a push in the right direction just reply!
Thanks very very much for your time!!! I need a lot info about it, just not to fail0 -
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I sorry OP, but it's an absolute waste of time if you
A) have no idea what you want to sell,
have not got a significant amount of capital to fund this and
C) not got experience in the area (granted this point is not as important but it really does help if you know what you are doing). For example there's no point investing large amounts of money in a web commence solution if you have sh1te products to sell or even worse haven't got the market you are going to sell to honed down.
It amazes me how some people just think they can put up a website and instantly think they have the ability to sell any sort of sh1te. And even worse some believe that people will actually buy! Online commerce is not as simple as sticking up a website and web shop. There are a lot more factors to consider.0 -
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