Hello there ;o)

 

I am very new to web design and have only done two pages with html and CSS so far. So all the technical stuff scares me a bit - but I want to understand it all! Anyway, my family have a business that currently has a website someone else made, but they want to start selling a few products on it. Is this totally out of my league? Shopping carts and such like - can anyone give me the low down on what would be involved in this kind of operation? Are there any really good books that can guide you through it bit by bit?

 

Thank you!!

If you're only selling a few products, and don't need any special shopping cart widgets, then Paypal Buynow buttons are the simplest and quickest option to implement.

 

If you need the full monty with customer accounts, multiple shipping rates and so on then you'll need some sort of cart application to run your shop with.

 

It really all depends on what you need. If you can elaborate a bit we can tell you more...

Hello there ;o)

 

I am very new to web design and have only done two pages with html and CSS so far. So all the technical stuff scares me a bit - but I want to understand it all! Anyway, my family have a business that currently has a website someone else made, but they want to start selling a few products on it. Is this totally out of my league? Shopping carts and such like - can anyone give me the low down on what would be involved in this kind of operation? Are there any really good books that can guide you through it bit by bit?

 

Thank you!!

 

Hi, from the sounds of it, it is well out of your league sorry to say. If you post the site on the forum people might be able to help you out.

that is a bit out of your league if you want to start creating or even integrating a shopping cart into your website. However, paypal is very easy to use, you can just have buy it now buttons or you van have add to cart buttons, just like a shopping cart.

It's out of your league but it's something you'll probably need to learn. Like said adding a paypal/google checkout button is easy.

 

Thing is with so much OS out there you don't have to be so hands on with the code. A basic understanding of PHP and MySQL will never hurt, but elaborate backends and ecommerce is more specifically a coders job.

that is a bit out of your league if you want to start creating or even integrating a shopping cart into your website. However, paypal is very easy to use, you can just have buy it now buttons or you van have add to cart buttons, just like a shopping cart.

Well i do agree with you. Pay pal is a good system, but woun't you think that, if your site has its own payment system, then you need to purchase a SSL certificate that will secure the information submitted by the customer to your site. There are many trusted providers like Thawte, RapidSSL and others and good deals for them can be found at SSL Star which will help you in e-commerce security.

It's fairly easy, but we do need to know what you're looking to sell, how many products, what kind of stock levels, budget, server spec, and basically anything else you have decided before we can recommend a suitable system.

 

eg,

some carts dont suit digital products which are emailed to you like photos, or ebooks or links to software downloads.

some carts are only really ok for large online shops not just a small one selling a couple of tees

some require ssl, where as some allow intigration with paypal et al and then do not,

some require a budget, some do not.

some are for porn, some are not... etc

 

we need infoo eleven 11 !!

may as well give it a whirl

 

zen cart is pretty easy to customise, try it out if its too hard hire someone to customise the template of zen cart to your website (be the cheapest method of getting your online shop) or use the paypal idea

Hello there ;o)

 

I am very new to web design and have only done two pages with html and CSS so far. So all the technical stuff scares me a bit - but I want to understand it all! Anyway, my family have a business that currently has a website someone else made, but they want to start selling a few products on it. Is this totally out of my league? Shopping carts and such like - can anyone give me the low down on what would be involved in this kind of operation? Are there any really good books that can guide you through it bit by bit?

 

Thank you!!

 

It sounds out of your league if you are talking about setting-up/managing the site full time. If the system was already in place, and all you needed to do was log in and add a few products using the ready-made interface, I think most people should be able to figure that out. Good luck on it.

For some good reads on learning this stuff, I would recommend SitePoint. They always make things easy to understand.