Web Presence

[Martin Boekers]

This will be a year of changes and adaptations for my shop.

I have a limited audience that I am allowed to sell to. I am looking to expand
my sales by establishing a web page to make ordering easy for my clients.
I can't go through regular services that provide a "shopping cart" system.
There still will have to be some ineractivity with clients for payment and such
The main thing I want is a "forum" to have product photos and cost, email orders, specials
and shop info as needed.

One alternative is to go with a "book paging" system these guys have one that
seems adaptable, easy to use and update as well as embeding links. Has anyone used
these guys or a similar system? Any input or ideas would be appreciated!

www.keeptrees.com/

Thanks!

Marty

[Randy Digby]

I don't see a link??

[Rodne Gold]

I like this style website , modified content management
www.timpson.co.uk
Im redoing my website this year and want to use it as a model for mine.
Easy to navigate , clear and looks classy

[Ross Moshinsky]

Ecommerce sites are A LOT of work. I have one about 60% done that I did with a developer and it will probably never see the light of day. It's just a lot of work to get going in our industry with so much customization required. I'm almost tempted to sell it off. Probably would take about $3000-4000 to get up and going plus all the data entry.

As for KeepTree: I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole. What they are doing is taking a PDF, bringing it into Adobe Flash, and then jazzing it up. Adobe Flash is becoming less and less useful on the web. It's far better for building interactive applications. I'd stay away from it.

There are a few routes to go. I'll say before you read this: most likely the best route is finding someone in India to do this work. I have many reasons why I say this, but I'm not going to say them because it will probably come off as offensive.

1. Download a CSS template and work from there. CSS template is basically a file that loads into every page and sets the style/look for the page. Now if you can find one that works for you, you can load it up in Corel's Web creator or Dreamweaver or any HTML editor and get it right. If you look at the CSS page and say "well I don't like the image there, I want it over here" then you're already in over your head. I mean literally keeping everything the same but just inserting your images and text.

2. WordPress w/ template. Wordpress is kind of like having an editor on the internet. It's very user friendly, but somewhat limited. Tweaking up templates and text is much easier on WordPress but if you want to add an interesting bit of code or a special feature, you might not be able to. WordPress is not HTML.

3. Go find a Website builder site. Do not pay to host. If you're going to pay, only pay for the design features. There are sites that you log in, pick a template, and go to work. It's not much different than the other two options except things are typically VERY user friendly. This typically comes at a cost, but time is money.

I built this site off a free CSS template in Adobe Dreamweaver: http://hgawards.com/whi/index.html It's not really ready for launch yet but I'm hoping in a couple of days it will be close enough to launch. (By the way, I don't care if you take down the link. It was just to illustrate what you can do from a free CSS template. It started as this: http://www.nuviotemplates.com/template/impress-01/)

[Scott Shepherd]

Marty, I see a lot of people flocking towards Wordpress these days. It's getting more and more powerful every day, it seems. You can do a ton of stuff with it and it's always getting better. It might be just what you're looking for.

[Martin Boekers]

I don't see a link??

Thanks! I am moving too quickly again.....

[Martin Boekers]

Thanks this is the type of input I am looking for. I can do the hosting so that's not an issue.
I liked the ease of what "Keep Trees" was doing, but I haven't used it so that's why I asked.
Thanks for sharing your insite Ross. I have an "older MAC at home and Adobe Flash no longer
supports older MACs so some sites I can't use becuase of that. I am at work most the time
so I really haven't got around to upgrading the home computer.

Rodne I'll definitely check that out.

Scott, Wordpress is now in my notes!

Thanks Guys!

[Mike Null]

Marty

Take a look at Yahoo. You can build your own site with their software, you can use your own dot com address as well as emails with that dot com address. Mine is not a merchant site and I pay 11.95 a month with no other fees. I've been with them for about ten years and wouldn't consider a change.

I started out as a catalog (not ecommerce) service and then found I was better off going in another direction.

[Ian Franks]

We used prestashop to build our webstore. With products being 50% of our laser sales it works for us. Then customers do contact us for other stuff through the site. What is pleasure is getting the order emailed to us together with payment notification from the credit card processor.
It is hard to keep the site updated and we make sure that we have at least one special running.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I would also suggest looking at WordPress for what you describe. It is quite easy to use and there are a gazillion themes (free & paid version) available to choose from to give your site a consistent look. There are even more apps, widgets & toolbars you can select to modify the appearance and add components to achieve the end results you are looking for. You can also integrate certain shopping carts into a WordPress site.

I don't personally have a WordPress web site, but I have helped a few old friends convert their sites to WordPress so they can then make their necessary changes instead of relying on someone else. I have to disagree with Ross in his statement that you might not be able to make changes to code in WordPress. You just need to know where to look.... and you need to know how to read and write code or find someone that can. :-)

[Doug Griffith]

There are a few routes to go. I'll say before you read this: most likely the best route is finding someone in India to do this work. I have many reasons why I say this, but I'm not going to say them because it will probably come off as offensive.

That's funny. I freelance program for a development company that spends a good part of their time rebuilding sites previously built there.

[Doug Griffith]

My suggestion is to find someone who has real experience with web development. There is a lot more to it than just plugging content into a CMS or Dreamweaver. SEO being a big one. A decent PHP programmer (not an HTML cut and paster) should be able to bang out a professional site in a month provided all the content is good to go. Less time if using a template based framework.

[Craig Matheny]

I have been doing my websites and others (friends) for about 15 years started with backtobasics dot net (still take orders daily) simple site using Paypal for the cart free... For my other site lazermodels dot com ( been up for about 6 months) I use Ecommerce Templates for the basic site and cart cost 160.00 then customize it and then load it up with your products, I host all my and friends sites unlimited bandwidth for under 8.00 a month. I have heard that WordPress is not a good way to go do a search lots on it, sometimes when we talk about websites we are not talking apples and oranges, Yahoo, Google, Go Daddy and others offer start ups but it has to be what you feel will work for you. Currently I am doing a site for a friend that paid 1000.00 to a developer and the site is ---- and no search engine tags and ugly so I am now redoing it from scratch with a template from ecommercetemplates dot com.

Martin if you have any questions feel free to ask you all have been here when I needed help

[Craig Matheny]

My suggestion is to find someone who has real experience with web development. There is a lot more to it than just plugging content into a CMS or Dreamweaver. SEO being a big one. A decent PHP programmer (not an HTML cut and paster) should be able to bang out a professional site in a month provided all the content is good to go. Less time if using a template based framework.

Get a template pay to customize the colors and hook up the Data Base and put your items in

[Scott Shepherd]

I think some responses on here are missing Marty's original post. He's on an Air Force base. He sells to clients on the base. He can't sell to the general public. He has a limited amount of products and services for those clients.

I don't think you need to pay someone for a months wages to develop some custom application for that unless you just like spending money.

I know many many people that do business all over the world using simple sites. No need for any MySQL and all that stuff. You don't need to make this complicated (unless you get paid to solve those complicated tasks ).

Marty, will iWeb run on your old Mac? If so, it's easy to use. I mean easy!