ecommerce-please help!

[rsef]

OK, I know there is plenty of information about this around, but that's the problem--I'm overloaded! I have a website that I really like and don't want to change much about it. But I DO want a shopping cart. I'm an event florist and don't want the cart for daily delivery items; just for some add on items (at this point). Specifically, I want to start selling customizable favors for the weddings, a few vases, and other assorted items. At some point I might want to add some wedding packages and/or sympathy stuff, but not right now. BUT I don't have a big budget for this AND I don't have the know-how to set it up. GoDaddy hosts my website. I have a PayPal account.

Please help! I need an easy to set up, easy to maintain, easy to integrate to my current website, and inexpensive shopping cart. Any suggestions?

Thank you-thankyou-thankyou!

PS-this is making me feel old. I feel like I've reached that point where technology is beyond me. Next I'll be hiring a 10 yr old to do this...sigh.

 

[Palms]

I am in the process of changing my site over to ecommerce and you sound a bit like myself, (i go all tense when someone starts talking techno). I asked around for prices etc and Ryan who runs this site actually is now doing it. I have not had to do much yet but the thought of sorting stuff out is already filling my head up. Maybe send him a pm or he may reply to this thread anyway. Other than that i think you can do it yourself with one and one.

Good Luck

 

[SpringCity]

I have ecommerce on Godaddy. I also have my website through them. It's pretty easy and very cheap. I can control what content goes on there and it's template based. I only have the capacity for 20 items but that works fine for now. It took me a very short time to set it up.

I hear good things about Ryan's sites too. I am just in super cheapie mode right at the moment.

 

[rsef]

I hear ya! How do you handle payments with GoDaddy? When I talked to them today, they said you need an ssl cert. if you want to accept credit cards on your site & that sounded like I needed a more expensive option; with the 20-item shop it sounded like you could only use paypal. Is that an issue for you?
-RSEF

 

[SpringCity]

I hear ya! How do you handle payments with GoDaddy? When I talked to them today, they said you need an ssl cert. if you want to accept credit cards on your site & that sounded like I needed a more expensive option; with the 20-item shop it sounded like you could only use paypal. Is that an issue for you?
-RSEF

You just buy the certificate, it was like $30. (a one-time charge). I have a merchant account and cc machine with my bank so I can accept credit cards, I just ring them through on my machine after the person has entered it.

The only thing I don't like is that there is no place for an enclosure card message, just a "special instructions" area as they're checking out so they can put it there. And they don't have a "recipient" area like a reg. florist site but a "shipping" area to input that info. Not ideal but for $10 a month I'll deal with it.

 

[theRKF]

Too "cheapie" for $80 / mo (including SSL and a real florist checkout process)??

Don't sell yourself short! If you get one or two more sales from a better site isn't it worth your while?

Ryan

 

[bloomz]

There are many services such as vcart that allow you to add simple links to any catalog page that link to their shopping cart. This is a simple way to go if you already have a catalog site you like.

I did this at one time - they're quite easy to implement if you already have a static catalog site. They cost if I remember correctly about $30 a month.

However some, like yahoo are way higher than Ryan's prices, asking for a percentage of sales in addition to the monthly fee...

Search for shopping cart plugins. You have to have the ability to add extra fields of information you want to pass such as delivery date and card messages.

 

[marigold]

I use Mal's ecommerce www.mals-e.com.
It is free to use, I can pick up my payment with a password and I then
process the charge card myself, just like a phone order. I don't know
if it takes paypal.
I had my web designer set it up, but I think it was pretty easy.
If one is not too techno, it is worth every cent to pay someone else to
do it right.

 

[SpringCity]

Well this morning I was able to fix the enclosure card problem so, ha.
Yes it's worth $70 a month to me at this juncture.

I will tell everyone though that I am not doing the ideal thing and you have to be willing/able to mess around with a site and the BEST thing if you don't have time or patience for all that is to hire someone.