website development

[K. Lynn]

Does anyone have any suggestions for who to go through to build my own website rather inexpensively? I did go through yahoo small business before but it was very labor intensive and I found i didn't have time to keep it up to date. It did have a shopping cart through Paypal but that was a lot of work to set up and keep up to date as well.

[ManicButterfly]

I have to say I use Yahoo and love it! I find it very easy to use, and I'm able to make my site look any way I want it. The price is right too. Rather than using the more expensive Merchant Solutions package I'm just using a basic web hosting account ($14.95 a month) and I add my own paypal system to it.

You should check out ShopIt http://www.shopit.com/index.php?Action=Main.AboutUs It's free to list and sell anything and you can link your ShopIt store directly to other sites such as Myspace, Facebook, etc..you can also create a widget of your products there to post wherever you want, and there are no fees. I've also heard of some people using 1000Markets and Artfire, but I don't know how those work since I haven't checked them out. There's also Bravenet but I found they have more limitations.

Hope these can be of some help to you!

Suzanne

[TaoGem]

What will you be using the website for? If for selling, you may want to consider a shopping cart of some kind?

[K. Lynn]

Does shopit have it's own shopping cart?

ManicButterfly said:

I have to say I use Yahoo and love it! I find it very easy to use, and I'm able to make my site look any way I want it. The price is right too. Rather than using the more expensive Merchant Solutions package I'm just using a basic web hosting account ($14.95 a month) and I add my own paypal system to it.

You should check out ShopIt http://www.shopit.com/index.php?Action=Main.AboutUs It's free to list and sell anything and you can link your ShopIt store directly to other sites such as Myspace, Facebook, etc..you can also create a widget of your products there to post wherever you want, and there are no fees. I've also heard of some people using 1000Markets and Artfire, but I don't know how those work since I haven't checked them out. There's also Bravenet but I found they have more limitations.

Hope these can be of some help to you!

Suzanne

[K. Lynn]

TaoGem said:

What will you be using the website for? If for selling, you may want to consider a shopping cart of some kind?

[K. Lynn]

I would be using it to sell my jewelry. I would definately need a shopping cart.

[ManicButterfly]

Shopit has a few options, which it does for you right on the site, without having to add any systems, there's paypal, revolution money exchange-similar to paypal with no fees, google checkout, and money order or check (the last two I prefer not to do).

[TaoGem]

Just my two cents worth, but after having gone the selling venue sites like eBay, and others similar to the Shopit site I am really glad that took the time to learn and get help with developing a stand alone cart. After some trial and error, finally settled in to ZenCart.

I am not knocking these selling venues like the Shopit. My experiences with venues like these seemed to be part of process that finally led into a stand alone site.

Having the control over all the features via the hosting services control panel makes a huge difference. There are a lot of pay and free carts. ZenCart is a free one, and I pay something like 10.00 a month to have it hosted.

Like I said, certainly don't mean to knock selling through these various selling venues.

Just a thought, plus two cents !

[K. Lynn]

Thanks everyone. Great advice re: shopping carts. Thanks for your insight Manic Butterfly. Has anyone else used any other webhosting services?

[ManicButterfly]

I have to agree with TaoGem-having control over everything on your own stand alone site is best. Sites like Shopit, Etsy, etc...are a good way to go for ease of use-especially if you don't have a lot of time to maintain a website. I use Shopit just for extra exposure, and there are a lot of other sites like it out there that are basic, quick and easy.

TaoGem-I forgot about ZenCart-it seems like I'm seeing it used more often. I had considered trying it a few years back but hadn't seen it around much, so I went with PayPal.

I think in the end, the type of site you go with just depends on how much time you have to invest in building/maintaining a site.

[K. Lynn]

ManicButterfly said:

I have to agree with TaoGem-having control over everything on your own stand alone site is best. Sites like Shopit, Etsy, etc...are a good way to go for ease of use-especially if you don't have a lot of time to maintain a website. I use Shopit just for extra exposure, and there are a lot of other sites like it out there that are basic, quick and easy.

TaoGem-I forgot about ZenCart-it seems like I'm seeing it used more often. I had considered trying it a few years back but hadn't seen it around much, so I went with PayPal.

I think in the end, the type of site you go with just depends on how much time you have to invest in building/maintaining a site.

[K. Lynn]

Thanks Everyone. I appreciate the advice!

[TaoGem]

ManicButterfly said:

I have to agree with TaoGem-having control over everything on your own stand alone site is best. Sites like Shopit, Etsy, etc...are a good way to go for ease of use-especially if you don't have a lot of time to maintain a website. I use Shopit just for extra exposure, and there are a lot of other sites like it out there that are basic, quick and easy.

I know what you mean.. I have actually been thinking a bit about an etsy site lately just for the extra exposure. I am not so sure that the extra exposure would benefit me all that much online. Like in terms of additional search engine indexing, but I think the exposure within the etsy community might be a plus. Besides, I have seen the semiprecious gemstones and their prices within etsy.. Think I could do well there..

You mentioned Shopit.. I tried something similar called The Market Place and added the application to my MySpace.

At first they were only set up so that I had to pay a year in advance. I dropped them a line and asked if it was possible to pay monthly instead.. Explaining that new online business owners just starting out and especially in these difficult times can find it difficult to pay for yearly subscriptions.

The end result was they are now offering there subscriptions to everyone on monthly terms. Then it was kinda neat to see they used my ZenCart site as a demo for how to add the ZenCart feeds to a new Market Place application.

Any hoo... I gave them a try for a few months watching my site stats and did not see a single hit from the Market Place so cancelled and removed the app from my MySpace.