best website builder?

lostinross

hi guys

could anyone point me in the direction of a good website builder?
i want to set up and online store to go with my existing bricks and mortar and i need something thats pretty flexable


cheers!

the_syco

lostinross wrote: »

i want to set up and online store

To sell stuff online, or to advertise online? If the latter, go for it. Learn to code HTML, and you'll do great. Selling, on the other hand, you may want to get a pro to do it, to ensure that they set up the credit card side of things correctly.

Oh, and if you want help, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=23 would be the best place to ask.

W!zard

If your host has Cpanel, there is a package that comes with it that has a wide range of building software but its not for the light-hearted! Check first and if there is a package there you like, then your on the right path to ask the questions that would help further with your vision of your online store.

probe

If you are looking for a simple do it yourself solution, check out www.squarespace.com. You can try it out for 14 days free. They have good templates and you do everything in a web browser. No html coding required - but you can add html if you wish. Squarespace allows you to leverage on their design work and platform and they run everything with a drag and drop simple interface for creating pages.

As far as an online store is concerned, a lot depends on how many product SKUs you have to sell. If you don't have many you could describe your products on regular web pages and put a click to buy link. Many payment processors have simple solutions that you just need to put a bit of code supplied by them for each item into each webpage. When the buyer clicks to buy they are taken to the card site, the payment is processed and sent back to your site. Amazon.com offer a service like this - details here under payments and billing. http://aws.amazon.com

If you are looking for a more flexible content management system - which is somewhat more complex than squarespace, consider www.drupal.org - free opensource - supported by many ISPs. Drupal's "inventor" has his own business http://acquia.com providing support and custom solutions.

Suggest you search drupal.org using "shopping cart module" as keywords.

If you want someone to build an e-commerce website for you, perhaps someone else here can suggest someone they have used?

daymobrew

You could look at your competitors or other online shops that you like - the company responsible for the online shop is probably in a link in the footer.

nellyshark

Or create an advert on adverts.ie for a quote etc

X Site Pro 2 is meant to be excellent also. Check it out.

shuggy1001

[snip]

Read the rules, Hugh. Thanks.

PCPhoto

OP .... are you looking to do online sales or just an information site: price difference varies significantly.

there are plenty of very capable people on boards that could take on the project and do it as a nixer (I'm definately not one).... put an advert up on adverts.ie, gumtree.ie and view portfolio's - be prepared for about a month maybe longer before the project will be completed.

Haggle over the prices - theres loads of other sites that will offer you a freelance web designer/programmer for a fraction of what you will be quoted from an Irish based person/company.

web2crawler

Depends on what exactly you need.

For CMS recommend: Drupal, Joomla

Cart: osCommerce, Meganto etc

There is also a list of most popular systems here: http://www.cafewebmaster.com/best-cms-and-web-20-software-php-mysql

shuggy1001

web2crawler wrote: »

Depends on what exactly you need.

For CMS recommend: Drupal, Joomla

Cart: osCommerce, Meganto etc

Have to agree with Drupal - very powerful and open source too!
Ubercart works well with Drupal for eCommerce stuff.
One of the biggest things when choosing a CMS is definitely the support, and Drupal for one has a thriving community behind it. Yet to come up with a problem that hasn't been answered in forums etc.

Re: [snip] - Sorry, my bad... won't happen again.