Getting started in E-commerce

[balilewis]

Hi everybody,
I am trying to get started in the E-commerce business, and I've browse the forum for quite a bit, and decided to use Zencart to help me manage my products and my site. I am using wampserver in order to set my e-commerce site offline at first, then once everything is set, I will upload them to my webhost FTP.
I've installed zencart successfully, created a database, admin ID/password, and manage to log-in as administration to my website, which is filled with a sample data from zencart.

My e-commerce business will be selling garments and clothes, probably around 20 models or so, nothing big.
The question is, what do I do now in order to have a fully functioning website where members can order their things online?
I am planning to integrate Paypal into one of the payment methods, and I do not know how to set up credit card payment.
How do i set SLL to make my site more secure?
How do you guys usually handle shipping for your products? Do you ship everything to the customers once per weekly?

I will be handling this website myself without help from others. So I will personally have to handle shipping, handing, and customer service.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[roban]

First of all if I were doing this I would have installed the site in a test directory on the server it was going to be on. That way all you'd have to do is edit the links to reflect the final directory. For example if you were installing on www.yourclothingsite.com/test all you'd have to do is edit your links in the database to www.yourclothingsite.com and the config.php file. This takes a few minutes. Then you'd move the site to the root directory and you're in business. Most hosts these days have installers that will set up your Zen store including database in about 2 minutes so you might want to consider doing that instead of trying to convert your local installation and upload it all to your host and then import your database.

As for Pay Pal, you can get a Pay Pal business accouint which will allow you to accept credit cards and Zen Cart has a fairly intuitive method of setting up Pay Pal in the payments section in the admin back end.

Shipping is another matter and is usually the sticking point with alot of cart syatems. With shipping your on your own unless someone here uses Zen cart and can give you detailed help.

[Tamsin Presley]

Hi,

Selling products online has never been easier! With the technology available, the hardest part is deciding which to use. Read on to learn the advantages and disadvantages of your options along with where to find the solutions to meet your business needs. There is no average cost for a full e-commerce website solution. But there is an average for which type of e-commerce solution you're talking about. Multiple factors contributing to this average include:
* Turnkey vs. original e-commerce software
* Template vs. custom design
* Online marketing & promotion

[balilewis]

Can you tell me what the average cost is?
I'm planning to use zen-cart. So that is free. And I plan to build my own template and what not using the options that zen-cart provides. I can also download free templates and design from the website.
I have no idea on what to do regarding online marketing and promotion.
And do I have to use a gateway for credit card purchases? How does that work?

[7FigureProject]

If you're looking for a good starter cart, why not consider Webstore by Amazon instead? Or maybe Shopify. You will have to pay a monthly fee, but you can use "Fullfillment by Amazon" with both of those solutions, which means that they handle all of the shipping for you, which makes things easier. Customization is great and they integrate with many payment gateways. I've used ZenCart in the past and find it pretty clunky. You'll have to hack a lot to get it working the way you want it to. There are API's that you can add to it to easily integrate with UPS/FedEx. Also, it's pretty easy to integrate PayPal and use that for secure credit card processing. Regardless, it doesn't provide a streamlined solution like the other starter packages outlined above. But keep in mind that they are just starter packages... when your store takes off you'll want to upgrade.

[vbeal]

Can you tell me what the average cost is?
I'm planning to use zen-cart. So that is free. And I plan to build my own template and what not using the options that zen-cart provides. I can also download free templates and design from the website.
I have no idea on what to do regarding online marketing and promotion.
And do I have to use a gateway for credit card purchases? How does that work?

For anyone "new" to e-commerce, here are two guides that will help you understand the basic elements of an e-com site and what things you need to have in order to sell online via your own Web site.

Ecommerce Primer Part 1: What You Need to Set Up Shop Online
Topics Covered: Domain Name, Web Host, Site Design, Merchant Account, Payment Gateway, Shopping Cart, Site Security
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solut...e.phpr/3836866

Ecommerce Primer Part 2: Enhance Your Web Shop
Topics Covered: Web Site Analytics, SEO: Search Engine Optimization, E-mail Marketing, Product Reviews, Live Chat/Support
http://e-commerceguide.com/solutions...le.php/3841236

Hope that helps!
Vangie

[Seifert Tech]

This link may help you. http://www.seifert.com/it_mainstreet.html It is really important to have the right support when embarking on this endeavor. Especially if you want to maintain your sanity. I'm sure Seifert Technologies could help.

[Fakingit]

I admire your courage, as I would not venture to use something like zencart as a first outing. What about the actual front end? I believe you have to have that designed and of course you have hosting issues. I'm not at all an expert on that but I can comment on some payment issues and shipping.

You should open a fedex or ups account and sign up for their live rates. You will need to enter weight of items and set up some parameters in your shipping module. Or you build shipping rate table. Customers do not want to wait for you to ship once a week. You will need to try and fill orders in 1-3 days to be competitive. You can generate shipping labels online and have a regular or sheduled pickup. Customers will want prompt tracking information too.

For payment, all these carts are normally integrated with paypal and google checkout. Paypal is a must, google checkout will help a little if you export feeds to google product base. But you won't do much business just using paypal. You will need to get a payment gateway and credit card processor and Amex is essential especially for clothes.

I agree a hosted solution that has templates and front end already built in is much easier and faster startup. But I don't recommend Amazon webstore as their commission is way too high. I like quickcart and 3dcart for an economical and fast startup. Quickcart in particular because you can have a trial for as long as you want.

As a one man show - using something like zen cart is going to be an ongoing challenge because you will need to manage your own hosting too, and you will need to get security (ssl) certificate, and gateway and it's a lot of technical work to put something like that together if you are a starter. I have been doing ecommerce for ten years and I wouldn't do it myself.

For pure SEO features - which will in the end get you the most organic traffic - I recommend SEO-cart, which generates real html pages and has an automated metatag system. You will need to buy a template though. Quickcart you don't need anything but your products. It's hosted, and very inexpensive and you can run the trial until you have the whole store built.

I also recommend a toll free phone number - we do about forty percent of our business by phone. Many people are still uncomfortable paying online. And also, many people don't want to look through a website either. Many people will not want to take the time to register and get confirmed with paypal either.

Also, many of these hosted carts have other features like built in email marketing modules, chat programs, etc.

The two biggest boosts to our business was a toll free phone number and processing Amex -- you cannot leave any payment options out if you really want to make money.