Advise Needed for Online Store Creation

Biosol

Hi,

Any tried those free website b4? eg: yola, freeweb etc
issit reliable and easy to maintain?

How do people locate our store if using osCommerce solutions?

How about blogshop?

I want to create an online store but I am not a tech savvy person so dunno which is better and what is what...

Can some1 shed some light? I am so confused with all the options


cheers

yanmei216

Hi,

The easiest to do is Blogshop. You can go to www.blogspot.com, just create an account, assign the sitename you want and upload your product photos and product description. There are various template designs on how you want your page to look like..

I have check out Yola, the features are good, very fast and easy to design a nice page within minutes using the templates provide... I think is quite easy to maintain, you can just constantly update the website with your new products easily. The difference with blogspot is that blogspot only allows updates on different dates and separates out the pages via the dates, and it is displayed like a diary type of webpage..

For OsCommerce solutions, i assume you are talking about shopping cart? that type you need to get a domain name and web hosting space from a hosting company. If you are not tech-savvy, it might be a bit of challenge to setup, web hosting company can do it with a fee, the updating of the products on the shopping cart, you should be able to do it on your own via the user-friendly menus... For getting people to visit your website, you probably need to do some advertising via forums, google ads and word-of-mouth..

Hope the advice helps.. You can pm me if you have queries..

Ceandra

I used freewebs years back when I was just a newbie/beginner on the internet. I can say it is reliable, but there isn't much you can do there. It basically just allows you to set up a website for yourself, and play around with it. That's all. 90% of people from internet start their websites from freewebs, and slowly begin to learn about other stuffs before moving to find a real hosting provider. In other words, if you are an absolute beginner, freewebs is the place to start, although it is not recommended by me. I have no tried yola before.

Talking about osCommerce, it is actually an ecommerce plugin/solution. Basically, you need to have at least a basic understanding of HTML. You also need to buy a web hosting space, plus a domain name for yourself. If you are new to this area, I suggest you not to try it first. You'll be facing many errors that'll make you pull your hair out and scratch at your head and give up in the end.

About blogshop, many people choose blogger as their starting point. Some do well, some don't. Basically, it is just a free web space for those people who own a blogshop online - 70% of what I browsed through plastered their product images around the website and hoping some sales would come knowcking at their doorstep. However, just like what I recommend about Freewebs for beginners, I recommend blogger for beginners as well.

If you are really more serious about this and making your online shop look good, I recommend Wordpress, which is slightly more advance than blogger. Wordpress can be quite difficult to understand, but easy to use. I will not be elaborating on that because it simply cannot be explain in a post.

Ultimately, creating an online store without any basic costs - which means, posting your products online and hoping for some sales without having to pay for anything, would require basic coding skills.

To end this post, there is one solution that you have not looked into. Which is, online market websites that enable you to list products AT A FEE. The most common case which I find is 'listing fee'. Some other websites charge a 'product fee' as well, which means, for every product that you sell, a percentage is given to that website which you used to list your products. I do not recommend them, because it is a LOSS to pay before you even sell a product of yours.

The above is my very limited advice, but I hope it helps in some way.

winterflame

you should try to use wordpress as there is tons of ecommerces plugin or widget to get you start but you need a webhost to start with

Cocoon

i use freewebs...

so far so good...have shopcart, facebook, twitter all free...

disadvantage no discount payment, weight calculation

good for startup and beginner

JerrickYeoh

OS commerce maybe difficult for you if you do not have any knowledge with it.

Why not you try with wordpress which is a blog platform for you to create a blogshop. Beside that it provide you lot of plug in like shopping cart, seo tools and so on.
You may try easy.my as well which you do not see any coding , what you need is enter your product in there and click the payment gateway will do.

This both methods are easy to set up your online business.

Runaway

Hi, you may try miiduu.com or freewebstore.org. These allow for 15 products upload free. If you want to upgrade, you need to pay. They have great features available for you that make selling highly efficient. You can check out our facebook page wall to see the rest of the webstores available... If you want unlimited products upload and free, you can try a local provider - storeviva.com. Feel free to PM me if you are still unsure. All the best.

andrea51

I use Bigcommerce now. They charge a monthly fee but it's worth it. You have a lot of templates to choose from, shopping cart, discount vouchers, plugin to Facebook, SEO, ability to set discount vouchers and coupons.

If you want to start a webstore I suggest reading up even just a little on html, search engine optimization and social media marketing.. these are the most important stuff when putting up a webstore I believe.