Forum Moderators: buckworks
I don't take credit cards in the real world and don't have a merchant account or anything. I looking for suggestions of the best way to approach this.
A cheapish solution would be very handy, could I use something like PHPshop? I would prefer a low outlay even if that means more spent per sale, just so I can get my feet wet initially.
So I need recommendations on shopping carts, ways to get the money and now importantly which will be the best to use as Froogle develops. I'm based in the UK and expect UK sales and I know Froogle could be a while coming over here, but I'd like to be prepared to provide a feed.
Can I run a yahoo store from the UK? I don't think I can, but I hope.
Ok, so I've read a lot on here and could piece together something from it all, but there must be some of you running small scale uk ecommerce sites, that work well for you and might work well for me, let me know your set-up please.
I've been reading here for a long time, but this is my first cry for help.
http://www.paypal.com/
there are infinite options out there - loads of shopping carts, loads of card processing companies, etc etc. best advice i can give is to find the most suitable setup for your business rather than the cheapest. the most suitable setup might cost a bit more but it can also drive substantially more sales - the extra profits can easily cover the extra costs.
as an example, you're in the UK. make sure you have card processing that includes UK sterling and UK debit cards. if you can't take UK debit cards, you could be cutting out as many as 50% of your potential customers. many people like to buy their own currency from a company in their own country. if you can only process payments in US$ and only advertise in US$, many people will think you're a US business. great if you're targeting the US, not so great if you're targeting the UK.
one card processing company might be cheaper to set up with than another, but transaction charges might be higher. of course, you either have to swallow the extra cost and lose profits, or you have to pass the cost on to the customer by increasing your prices, which can cause fewer sales. calculate card processing costs to see how much different this could make. for each processing company, work out the actual costs per year if you have say 100 sales per month at £20 each or whatever you expect to sell at the price you expect to sell at.
you might find a free catalogue / shopping cart system. but is it the best option? if your catalogue / shopping cart system cannot be spidered by search engines, you'll lose visitors because people won't be able to find your site on the search engines. problems that will stop search engine spiders include URLs like:
catalog.php?item=12345&colour=blue (as found with sites using databases)
and URLs with session IDs like:
catalog.php?item=12345&SID=sedf987345er456234342039483
try a site search for oscommerce for the session ID problem (the oscommerce team may have fixed this by now) and check elsewhere on webmasterworld for URL problems and overcoming them with .htaccess
you may well find it's better to pay for shopping cart software such as actinic catalog which creates "plain HTML pages" that can be spidered properly. because pages can be spidered, people will find your site on the search engines and you're likely to make more sales - the software will pay for itself many times over.
do you really need a database driven catalogue? if you only have a handful of products or if you have a large number of products but pricing rarely changes, then no, you shouldn't need a database, plain HTML pages should be fine. if you have a lot of products and pricing or products will change more frequently, then you'll probably find it easier to use a database driven catalogue / cart system. even if you have to buy one, it'll pay for itself in time savings - the less time you spend updating products/pages, the more time you can spend promoting your site and making sales (profits).
you might find it's even better to create plain HTML pages (easily optimised and spidered) for your catalogue and to use a remote shopping cart like mals-e (there are a few others around). mals-e only costs a few quid a month when used with certain card processing companies.
don't be afraid to use a web developer if you don't know how to set things up properly. they have experience and can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. you'll need to look very carefully to make sure that you choose a developer that can prove they have done the sort of work you need.
there are special tax allowances in the UK. until march next year, you can claim 100% first year capital allowance on your domain name, design and development etc etc etc. go see an accountant - you might find things are more affordable than they first seem.
getting it right the first time will save you having to do it all again in 6 or 12 months time. if you find you have to change the system you're using in 6 months time, then the time and money you put into the original (cheap) setup is wasted. you may only need a few hundred pounds to get the right system from the very start. look carefully at what you need not what is cheapest.
the last things you need are probably the most important -confidence and determination. just wanna dip your toe into ecommerce? toedipping shows lack of confidence. and if you don't have confidence in your own business, you can't expect others (including potential customers) to have confidence in it either and you probably won't succeed.
you should start a new thread about UK ecommerce with that!
It deserves more credit :)
Also, be aware that open source solutions can vary greatly in terms of the amount of input you need to provide (usually in customisation) to achieve your aims, although in strictly monetary terms they are a good deal.
As Crazy_Fool has pointed out, price should not be your primary criterion for selection, although it is obviously an issue. Grit your teeth, pay for the right solution (even if it is more expensive than you would wish) and it will pay for itself. I can't really better this sentiment :-
>> the last things you need are probably the most important -confidence and determination. just wanna dip your toe into ecommerce? toedipping shows lack of confidence. and if you don't have confidence in your own business, you can't expect others (including potential customers) to have confidence in it either and you probably won't succeed.
There are numerous threads discussing pros and cons of specfic packages here, and for further research you could do worse than talk to your local Business Links or Chamber of Commerce. They may also (depending on your area) be able to offer you funding on the project, which will ease the financial strain
Payment systems: Allow the customer to send cheques/postal orders.
Credit and debit cards: worldpay are quite good but cost is quite high
Credit cards: paypal.com now allow UK pound but are difficult for first time users
Debit cards: nochex.com are definately worth a look.
Personally I would always recommend hand coding a shopping cart if you have the skill to do this work, but be prepared to test it thoroughly.
Yep I made that mistake, and it costs you a lot in the long run.
As a UK business I'd make sure that you have someone to help if things start going wrong...or you need help with integration of the software.
There are some great packages around from basic free ones which offer very limited support to fairly sophisticated ones like actinic which do provide support but are quite expensive.
You could also try out <snip> which is uk based and offers free integration with any website.
Good luck
[edited by: TallTroll at 3:25 pm (utc) on May 29, 2003]
[edit reason] self-promotion [/edit]
From what I have read it offers free integration but costs £99.00 per year to use, I personally think Mals is a better solution.
Mals is completely free of charge and the support forum is excellent for help and advice.
The bazaarbuilder doesn't list any stores that are actually using the software, which seems strange?
:)
CurlyKarl
Mals is is a good product which I have used myself and for some applications, especially home businesses it is very well suited. But how much support will you get? Can you ring up and ask for help? Will they integrate it for you? Can it be customised to match your exact requirement? Does it have stock control facility etc? Does it allow COMPLETE control over the website design?
Also if you do happen to run a larger store, with perhaps hundreds/thousand of products you WILL need a database driven site that allows the online catalogue to be searched and products displayed dynamically without compromising on the design.
:)
I have just finished building a database driven application with Mals, it was soooooo easy once I learned a little bit of PHP.
I am in the process of adding more products to the database, so far I am upto 4 products with around 19000 individual part numbers and I have around 10 more product groups to go, each containing around 7000 numbers per group
Mals - Free
PHP = Free
MySql = Free
I'm sorry but I doubt I will ever be swayed from Mals :)
IMHO it's the Daddy when it comes to free carts :)
And I like free stuff :)
Sticky me if you want the URL
mals allows that.
>>I'm sorry but I doubt I will ever be swayed from Mals.
>>IMHO it's the Daddy when it comes to free carts
yep, it's very comprehensive. i'm working hard to build my free cart with as many features as mals, but it'll take a very long time .....
Going to hook it up to a mySQL database of the products with PHP dynamically generating the store. Hopefully I'll get it finished some time next month, got to get my tax return in first!
