Distributor of Products/Needs Help/Ideas?

[Merritt]

I have been selling online since 1989 with my rudimentary website/s. I do Wysiwyg with a manual Order Form I get by email. Clumsy but last year I did some nice business. I actually became pretty good @ SEO/PPC before a crappy host crashed taking my site with it.

Thru luck and time,I now am getting the lowest distributor pricing on a large product line of durable goods and really need to step it up.

I started a OS Commerce site but I am 50 and don't have the time to relearn it all.

What is the best/most secure option for me to get a more sophisticated Ecommerce site at the best cost.

Of course, I pay almost nothing for the site I have.

Best regards,

Merritt

[Rugles]

1989? really, you predate Amazon

[Merritt]

Yeah, well try being 50, you pre-date alot of stuff.

I sold industrial boroscopes off www.oemresources.com then.

Why is that so hard to believe?

Best regards,

Merritt

[jsinger]

WWW dates back only to around 1991. First commercial websites came a year or two later.

One COULD sell online (not on WWW) thru usenets or email and some other internet means that go back long before '89. Dial up bulletin boards, like early AOL, date back to early 1980s, I believe.

I sold industrial boroscopes off www.oemresources.com then.

? and not in 1989

[jsinger]

WWW dates back only to around 1991. First commercial websites came a year or two later.

One COULD sell online (not on WWW) thru usenets or email and some other internet means that go back long before '89. Dial up bulletin boards, like early AOL, date back to early 1980s, I believe.

I sold industrial boroscopes off www.oemresources.com then.

? and not in 1989

[rachel123]

I do Wysiwyg with a manual Order Form I get by email. Clumsy

and not even close to PCI compliant. Certainly you aren't having people type a credit card number into a form-mail that gets emailed to you. Please tell me you aren't.

[Merritt]

Not PCI Compliant: Not a Law

I did 000k last year with my little hobby and I was on the usenet in the beginning also! :0)

I actually looked in my file cabinet and found some info on the boroscope sales lit. and it was dated 97, oemresources was before that (but I didn't find any documentation), so I was a little off. jeeesh! I'm 50.

So no one has any advice, just want to pick apart my memory for dates?
4 years ago I learned a ton from this site which resulted in some good solid practices that generated hits/leads.

Later, Tator!

[rachel123]

I started a OS Commerce site but I am 50 and don't have the time to relearn it all.

What is the best/most secure option for me to get a more sophisticated Ecommerce site at the best cost.

Of course, I pay almost nothing for the site I have.

The best solution for you depends entirely on what your specific situation and needs are. No one here can say *this* is the right thing for you.

In general, it's going to cost you either time or money. 50 isn't that old, however, if you've given up on your ability to learn and adapt to today's web, you're going to have to pay someone to do it for you. Depends on your needs, but you are def. looking at least 4-figure number if you want a secure and even moderately up-to-date solution.

Not PCI Compliant: Not a Law

Never said it was. It's not a game either. If your attitude toward your whole business is as cavalier as your attitude toward the security of your customers' information, all I can say is "good luck with that."

[edit] I don't mean to come down on you too hard. But it is serious stuff you're talking about here...it will help folks give more on-point advice if you ask a more specific question. If you want super-cheap, you can just use any opensource cart out of the box, hook it up with PayPal and call it a day.[/edit]

[Merritt]

All of my customers are OEM's or System Integrators, most buy by PO. I really don't sell to consumers.
That is why I came her to find some advice. So I would find out what the minimum requirment/product I need to safely sell to the public.

Since 2000 I've never had a CC fraud, and maybe I will do my own site! :0)

Is OS Commerce the minumum you can get away with to safely sell to consumers? So Paypal is the simplest option?(I have a CC processor & merchant acct.

Don't worry about coming down hard on me, I have thick skin.

Be thankful I don't fall on you, I'm 6'4" and weigh close to 300 lbs.

[caribguy]

It's not meant to criticize, but the domain you mention...

ICANN Registrar:NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Created:2005-08-13

[HRoth]

An easy cart is Mals e-commerce. All you have to do is add some code to your html pages. I did it by myself, and I am older than you. It costs $25/quarter for the premium version; the standard version is free.

[rachel123]

Lots of opensource "free" carts can easily be integrated with payment gateways. If you want an easy integration with CC payments, ask your processor which online gateways they support. Then you can look specifically for a cart that boasts integration with that gateway as a feature.

Be thankful I don't fall on you, I'm 6'4" and weigh close to 300 lbs.

:) If I fell on you you probably wouldn't even notice!

Most of the carts are "secure enough" to safely sell to consumers especially if you do mostly PO sales. If you use a 'hosted' cart your security requirements will be minimal since the actual cart and payment processing is outsourced to a different website (e.g. Mals).

You'll be surprised, probably, how easy it is. In fact, I'd bet my mother in law could do it. You'll wonder why you didn't do it ages ago. :)

[Merritt]

I let that oemresources domain go in the 90's, maybe it was .net, I think some chinese have it now.

I think I'll go to my host and ask them what is the simplest cart to use with them.
Ciao