starting my business, post military, help!

I am currently in the us military, about to get out in a couple months.

I am starting my own business and want to run my own e commerce website.

currently i have my domain along with a hosting account with host-gator.

my question is this, i am pretty new to web development, is it easy to setup and manage a shopping cart/website? what is the best, i am currently messing around with joomla/virtuecart.

is there a step by step guide or reference for everything i need to do in order to run an ecommerce website? sorta like a checklist i guess.

and if anyone has any suggestions on items such as hosting company or merchant processor it would be greatly appreciated.

thanks, please include links if applicable to all information and advice given!

Hi Mike and welcome to the forum and thank you for your service to our country as well.

In my opinion Joomla/virtuemart is not the easiest cart system to manage. Although it's been years since I've used it, I have not heard glowing reports.

Host Gator has not been the recipient of kudos either. I would look seriously at Bluehost (my host of choice) for several reasons and their support is terrific.

As for a shopping cart, I would strongly suggest staying away from the free carts because you get what you pay for and I am sure many will reply that I am wrong about this. I use CS-Cart because after many years of trying all of the free solutions and several of the paid ones, I have determined that this is the best for me and my clients. As a member of their support team I can honestly say that feature wise and design wise, it is the best.

As for credit card processors, I use Authorize.Net and have been thrilled with the success of my collaboration with them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikej2009

is there a step by step guide or reference for everything i need to do in order to run an ecommerce website? sorta like a checklist i guess.

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Hey Mike,

As far as a step-by-step guide to getting started in e-commerce, there's a course called Niche Blueprint by Tim Godfrey and Steve Clayton (if you're familiar with either of those guys). It goes into finding niches to go into for your stores, so essentially it's niche-oriented e-commerce stores you'd be setting up. It covers everything tho, down to the marketing of the store and outsourcing of the daily tasks and operations. It's kinda out of the affiliate marketing arena, so I'm not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but they cover what you were talkin about.

I mention this because of that line I quoted from you above, as far as a reference for running an e-commerce store. In the actual course there's both videos and PDF companions, with checklists of everything you need to do for everything.

It's not for everyone tho, and semi-high end price-wise, so I'm just mentioning it. I'm doing an informational e-commerce tele-seminar soon on it too, which is free to get on, but I'll be breaking down the system (since I used it), and some good content for e-commerce in general. If you wanna get down on that, just check out my sig. If not, totally cool too.

Sorry to kinda pitch this, I'm realizing now that it's more salesy than I intended. And as for what Roban said, I'd definitely steer clear of the free carts. I've had nothing but trouble from them, to say the least :(

Talk soon,
-Tom

mikej2009,

I have to highly disagree with what roban has stated.

I've been in web development and ecommerce for nearly 10 years. I've used many different hosts and carts, both for myself and clients of mine.

I have to completely disagree that host gator is a bad host. Their support is one of the best I've done business with and their servers have very little problems. I can't say the same for bluehost.

Also, although joomla and virtuemart aren't the easiest or best software it's most definitely better than many of the alternatives out there. I don't like paid software that locks you into proprietary software or code that can't be changed very easily.

One thing you should keep in mind when looking for cart providers is the community and support that you get. Joomla and virtuemart are among the biggest of communities you'll find for carts.

Searchbox, I'll agree with you on that one on Hostgator.

Best support, hands-down. The techs are always there, always help, and it's always efficient.

Can't really ask for more, imo.