How did you get your ecommerce site started?

[Bubzeebub]

How did you find your developer? It seems like several people on here have sites up and running but few have said how they got the ball rolling. I'm having trouble just FINDING someone or some company to do a decent job and on a decent schedule. Guess business must be really booming if people are dragging their feet on new clients. Your input would be greatly appreciated!

[Essex_boy]

yep busines is booming. I have a mate in Australia who just developes ecom software for customers on a free lance basis.

He's so busy he doesnt have the time to do some work for me or have much time off.

nice.

I tend to write my own (Crappy) sites in Html with mals as an extra, that way I can control the SEO and give people a good laugh....

[Miop]

I started up on Ebay first, and got fed up with the fees. I hadn't got a clue what to do and had no programming skills, so I bought web space which had a free shopping cart on it. I used that for a year, and it only supplemented Ebay in a minor way, but then I put more effort in and built another home made site with basic tables and a free javascript shopping cart.
(nopcart). That took off so well (mainly because I bothered with the SEO I think...) that I ended up buying a boxed solution.
I miss the website building thing even though I'm a techno-numpty - I don't have time for it anymore.

[Bubzeebub]

I would like to have a basic site created for, at most, a handful of products (no more than 5). I am looking to go through the Yahoo store route. I know they have a basic web building tool but my concern is that the site is professional looking and not something that looks like my 7 yr. old brother put together. Considering all this what would be a fair price to pay for someone to build it?

[kc0eks]

I use OSCommerce, it looks pretty professional out of the box. Had to mod a lot of things to make it do what i wanted, check it out.
hopefully this wont get **

[CernyM]

I created a static HTML site by hand and then integrated it with Mals cart.

I lose some ability to do some things (like decent promotions) and I have no catalog, but things get laid out exactly how I want them, rather than how some shopping cart wants them. To me, the tradeoff has been worth it.

We have only 30 or so products, so the amount of maintenance work on the site is manageable. If I was dealing with hundreds of products, I wouldn't do it this way.

[hiker_jjw]

Interesting topic.

With literally thousands of PERL/PHP ecommerce scripts out there, I don't think anyone should start a store from scratch. IMHO, I don't think having a Yahoo store is the best option, but I do think both a Yahoo Store and eBay sales can supplement a professional site.

Things to consider that havn't been mentioned.

1.) POS - Is your current Point of Sale solution off-line?

This can seriously impact the way you do business online.

2.) Do you currently process credit cards off-line?

You can save a ton of money if you already process CC's off-line and don't mind entering the numbers manually.

3.) Do you own (registered) your own domain name?

A must IMHO.

4.) Have you applied for a secure server certificate?

This is one of the big ones! I don't buy from anyone who hasn't taken the time to get a valid cert. I also don't like shared certs.

5.) Is your store friendly and unique?

I seriously believe that people are starting to recognize store fronts such as osCommerce. You need to work on developing a custom look and feel for your store.

Here are a few things to offer.

1.) Post real informative articles about your products on your site.

These will help to drive traffic (SEO). Be the expert about your products.

2.) Post reviews, feedback, etc.

Amazon showed us that positive reviews with sell products.

3.) Guarantee your transactions and products.

You must guarantee their transaction.

Just a few things off the top of my head.
Cheers,
Jeff

[Miop]

One thing I would say about starting from scratch...I had no web page making skills until I did it that way. I'm so lazy that if I had bought an out of box solution straight away I would never have learned the skills needed to do essential customisation!

[onlinehelp]

Nice post there hiker jjw, very informative. I also did my html coding from scratch, learning with 'trial and error'. I wouldn't recommend it though. I was seriously short on cash, so i really had no other choice. If you have some money, then i strongly suggest looking at web designers to do the work for you. But this is entirely my own opinion. :)