Here at TamedLyon Design, Kat has been designing websites and databases for several years, so in light of this we have a nice article from t-shirt forums by contributor AndyC.
Introduction: Out of boredom I decided to type up a beginner's guide to E-commerce. Please keep in mind this is going to be very basic. I thought it would be good to have all of this basic information in one post. Please feel free to provide your input if you feel I have left something out or you have additional recommendations.
Background:This is just a very quick rundown of my experience with commerce and the Internet. Five years ago I started a webhost that had approximately 500 customers when I sold it in 2003. I also have a degree in web development and have been playing around with web design for 10 years.
Domain Names:One of the first things you will need to do is register a domain name. This has become increasingly more difficutl as domain name speculators buy up domains and try to sell them for a profit. To help in finding this domain I highly recommend using
Dotomator. With this tool you simply enter a list of up to 15 prefixes and suffixes, combine them, then do a bulk search to see if any of the domain names are available.
Once you have decided on a domain name you will need to register it. For this I recommend
GoDaddy. The normal price for a domain is $8.95 but you can usually find a promo code to get a discount. Right now the promo code OYH3 will give you $2.00 off which makes the domain name $6.95. I have confirmed this code does work.
Whatever you do try to avoid registering the domain name with your webhost, which brings us to our next topic.
Webhosting:Now that you have your domain name you need to find a place to host your website. Most webhosts offer three different types of hosting: Shared, Reseller, and Dedicated.
If your are just starting out you will probably want to find a good shared web hosting solution. If you plan on hosting for friends or hosting multiple sites the reseller option is a good one. The host I recommend is
HostGator. They have a plan called the 'Baby' that will allow you to host unlimited sites for $9.95, but all the domains will be created on the same account. They have an unadvertised reseller plan for $14.95 that I use and like because I can host domains on separate accounts. Coupon code hgc25 will give you 9.94 off your first month for any plan you select (Does not include Hatchling).
Once you sign up with the host you will receive a welcome letter that will have instructions on how to direct your domain name so that it points to your new host.
Now that you have your host it is time to put up a site...
Website:The first thing you need to do here is decided what type of shopping cart system you wish to use. Three of the most popular are:
CubeCart OS Commerce Zen CartThese carts generally have very thorough installation instructions so if you have every installed a script before you should have no problems. Now, if the thought of doing this scares you to death all is not lost. Most webhosts offer a program called Fantastico that will install these carts for you. Once you login to your web host's control panel you can click on the Fantastico link, select the cart you wish to install and just follow theprompts. It is very easy.
Once you have the cart installed you will probably want to customerize the look of it. If you are familiar with HTML/PHP and have good design skills this should be simple for you. To get instructions on how to do this please see the support section for the cart you use.
If you do not have any design skills you will need to find someone to customize the cart for you. One of the most affordable solutions is to purchase a template from
Template Monster. You can get a very professional looking template starting at $160. Template Monster will customize the templates for you at an additional charge. The drawback to using a template is that other sites may have purchased the same template so your site will not be unique. You can purchase the template so that it will never sold again but this will cost you in the thousands of dollars.
To get a unique site you will either have do design it yourself or hire someone to customize your cart for you. Two great sites that I have used in the past are
Guru and
Elance. The prices for a unique site depend on what graphics you need (i.e. a logo) as well as anything else you are requesting. From my experience the pricing starts at $500 and goes up.
In addition to getting the design done and the cart configured you will also need to decide what types of payment methods you want to use and set those up but that is a discussion for a more advanced guide.
Conclusion:As intended this guide is very basic but should give the budding entrepreneur an idea of what they need to do and how to go about it. If there is something you would like for me to expand on or add please reply to this post so that other members can provide their input. If you need any assistance please feel free to PM me. Also, if you have other services you
would like to recommend in addition to the ones I have provided please do so.
We welcome comments and suggestions, and if you would like to guest post, please leave a comment.
