Web Shop

[lorraine]

Hi
Probably answered already but has anyone had experience good or bad with the cheaper hosted all in one type web shops.
Something like ekmpowershop or easywebstore - they appear to be about £20 a month and seem ideal.
I am looking to set up an online shop shortly with the intention of testing the market and so do not want to over complicate things with a complex costly solution.

I have read reasonably good reviews from the above mentioned elsewhere but I have a feeling they were written by stooges.

Regards
Tony

[TWD-Tony]

I have never used these types of estore, obviously we build ecommerce site's for clients and we do use off-the-shelf products and then build on them to the clients needs...
The thing(s) I would be asking myself (and the owners of these systems) are:

• What template choices are there, and how can you customise them?
• Are you limited to certain payment processing options, are there lots of payment modules available that you can use as you expand?
• Is there a product limit?
• Is there a bandwidth limit on the hosting? (I don't think you could develop a busy website on such a system)
• Length of contract (if there is one).
• Is there any forced advertsing?

Lots of things to think about there, like I mentioned above - I have never used such a system so I am just asking the questions that I think anyone should ask before signing-up

[bizNorthEast.co.uk]

how about oscommerce

[blackice]

how about zen cart? (oscommerce based)

[CanzDesign]

Hi.

We too make e-com websites, and have a build it yourself websites, so I don't use them.

However I have had a LOT of experience with people that have used them.

If you only intend to use it short term, just to wet your feet,

1) buy your own domain name, don't let the host buy it for you. I've heard of so many website hosts that hold domain names to ransom if you decide to move hosts at a later stage.

2) Be aware that most website hosts won't allow you to move a website made on their free to use website builder, even if it is an opensource site to start with. And always keep a copy of whatever you have on a build online website on your own computer.

3) Many of the build it yourself (BIY) websites have way too much unnessary code that make pages slow to load, and hard for search engine spiders to navigate.

4) Check out if whoever you go with has a list of website already up and working, and email the owner, and ask how the website is working for them.

The most successful website we have built, the owners had a website for three years, and never sold a thing, they are just about to pay for their second years hosting, and are making a steady income from the website. Mind you, the sell gemstones and jewellery and they work hard at it all the time. We build the original website, and make the odd content page(because we do a good job of making a good looking page) but the owners add their own products. If you have time go take a look Quality rough and faceted gemstones

I just had a friend from another forum that built such a website, her website hosting went from $120 per year to $600 a year.... once they have you, they think they have you by the short and curlies, I have this cool little programme that can harvest a website, keeping links etc intack, so we grabbed the website, and gave her hosting and she copy and pasted the content back onto the new website, with free software(which was the same as she was using) that comes with all our websites control panel.

But otherwise go for it.

Lynn from Canz Design