setting up a store - looking for help

[Nospam]

I'm a fairly experienced front end webdesigner without any knowledge of
the backend or how to set up a store. I now have a potential job to
develop a craft store for someone but will likely have to outsource it.
I'm hoping someone here has done something like this before and will be
willing to work with me as a freelancer. However, I have no idea where to
begin in order to give the client an estimate on costs.

What kind of database is best to run a store with? How do I approach
credit card validation? Is there a tutorial on the internet that covers
ecommerce for newbies like me?

How much time does it take to, say, set up a store with 35 items? Has
anyone here done anything like this before?

Thanks in advance for your time.

H

[Christian Winter]

Nospam schrieb:

I'm a fairly experienced front end webdesigner without any knowledge of
the backend or how to set up a store. I now have a potential job to
develop a craft store for someone but will likely have to outsource it.
I'm hoping someone here has done something like this before and will be
willing to work with me as a freelancer. However, I have no idea where to
begin in order to give the client an estimate on costs.

What kind of database is best to run a store with? How do I approach
credit card validation? Is there a tutorial on the internet that covers
ecommerce for newbies like me?

How much time does it take to, say, set up a store with 35 items? Has
anyone here done anything like this before?

Thanks in advance for your time.

H

Best thing to do is buy an out of the box solution. Few people these
days sit down and develop a store from the ground up because of the
problems you mentioned. I would buy these out of the box and quote that
to my customer. If I had to sit down and write a whole store myself I
doubt a customer would want to pay for it. ;)

[Nospam]

Christian Winter <cw*****@gmail.com> wrote:

: Best thing to do is buy an out of the box solution. Few people these
: days sit down and develop a store from the ground up because of the
: problems you mentioned. I would buy these out of the box and quote that
: to my customer. If I had to sit down and write a whole store myself I
: doubt a customer would want to pay for it. ;)

Well I don't know why I didn't think of that...! I will look into it. I
don't know if this is the kind of thing where I can stop by Staples or
Best Buy and find something useful or not, but I will look around. If
anyone else has any tidbits of wisdom they learned from going through
this, I'd appreciate it!

Thanks again.

H

[Christian Winter]

I would search on the web. There are tons of commerical scripts out
there and I am 100% certain there are tons of people selling out of the
box store scripts. Staples and Best Buy will likely not have those. ;)

[Nospam]

Ok, even better then. It's easier to check online than in the store anyway
since I can do it now.

Thanks!
H

Christian Winter <cw*****@gmail.com> wrote:
: I would search on the web. There are tons of commerical scripts out
: there and I am 100% certain there are tons of people selling out of the
: box store scripts. Staples and Best Buy will likely not have those. ;)
--

[Matt Silberstein]

On 26 Aug 2005 08:12:17 -0700, in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
, "Christian Winter" <cw*****@gmail.com> in
<11*********************@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups. com> wrote:

I would search on the web. There are tons of commerical scripts out
there and I am 100% certain there are tons of people selling out of the
box store scripts. Staples and Best Buy will likely not have those. ;)

Any recommendations, for or against? I always prefer buy to build and
I am setting up a store or two at the moment.

[newsgroups added]
--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

Genocide is news | Be A Witness
http://www.beawitness.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
www.darfurgenocide.org

Save Darfur.org :: Violence and Suffering in Sudan's Darfur Region
http://www.savedarfur.org/

[arccos]

Matt Silberstein wrote:

On 26 Aug 2005 08:12:17 -0700, in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
, "Christian Winter" <cw*****@gmail.com> in
<11*********************@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups. com> wrote:

I would search on the web. There are tons of commerical scripts out
there and I am 100% certain there are tons of people selling out of the
box store scripts. Staples and Best Buy will likely not have those. ;)

Any recommendations, for or against? I always prefer buy to build and
I am setting up a store or two at the moment.

[newsgroups added]

While I don't have a recommendation for a specific package, I would
suggest looking into Ecommerce solutions that are already developed. A
good one will be cheaper, more stable, more feature rich, and quicker
to set up than a custom build. Unless there is a specific reason or
feature you want that you cannot find, there's plenty of flexible
solutions to choose from.

[Lavarock]

Matt Silberstein wrote:

On 26 Aug 2005 08:12:17 -0700, in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
, "Christian Winter" <cw*****@gmail.com> in
<11*********************@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups. com> wrote:

I would search on the web. There are tons of commerical scripts out
there and I am 100% certain there are tons of people selling out of the
box store scripts. Staples and Best Buy will likely not have those. ;)

Any recommendations, for or against? I always prefer buy to build and
I am setting up a store or two at the moment.

[newsgroups added]

Although not boxed sets, here are a couple of alternatives. I have used
both OsCommerce and Zen-Cart and have the following observations.

Both are licensed under GNU (Open Source) so are free to use, with
certain exceptions.

Either may be available for installation via control panel on certain
webhost companies. Combined, they run thousands of stores. OsCommerce
shows 5,000 active stores in the links, but there are 68,000 community
members so I think the number of people using the software is a lot higher.

OsCommerce (OSC) is in use by more sites than Zen-Cart. Zen-Cart is an
offshoot of OSC with the idea to incorporate all of the usual goodies
and make installation fairly simple and easy.

They are similar enough that once you know one, the other is very simple
to change and adjust. However, modules written for one will not
automatically work on the other software. There may be simple changes to
accomplish that though.

Even with Zen-Cart it helps to know a bit of PHP and have editing skills.
My ItsKona site below uses Zen-Cart.

http://oscommerce.com/
http://zen-cart.com/modules/frontpage/

--

Aloha from Captain Cook, Hawaii
http://ItsKona.Com
http://Photos.ItsKona.Com

[Matt Silberstein]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 20:21:28 GMT, in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design , Lavarock
<la*******@myhawaiiansite.com> in
<c7*****************@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink. net> wrote:

Matt Silberstein wrote:

On 26 Aug 2005 08:12:17 -0700, in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
, "Christian Winter" <cw*****@gmail.com> in
<11*********************@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups. com> wrote:

I would search on the web. There are tons of commerical scripts out
there and I am 100% certain there are tons of people selling out of the
box store scripts. Staples and Best Buy will likely not have those. ;)

Any recommendations, for or against? I always prefer buy to build and
I am setting up a store or two at the moment.

[newsgroups added]

Although not boxed sets, here are a couple of alternatives. I have used
both OsCommerce and Zen-Cart and have the following observations.

Both are licensed under GNU (Open Source) so are free to use, with
certain exceptions.

Either may be available for installation via control panel on certain
webhost companies. Combined, they run thousands of stores. OsCommerce
shows 5,000 active stores in the links, but there are 68,000 community
members so I think the number of people using the software is a lot higher.

OsCommerce (OSC) is in use by more sites than Zen-Cart. Zen-Cart is an
offshoot of OSC with the idea to incorporate all of the usual goodies
and make installation fairly simple and easy.

They are similar enough that once you know one, the other is very simple
to change and adjust. However, modules written for one will not
automatically work on the other software. There may be simple changes to
accomplish that though.

Even with Zen-Cart it helps to know a bit of PHP and have editing skills.
My ItsKona site below uses Zen-Cart.

http://oscommerce.com/
http://zen-cart.com/modules/frontpage/

Thanks. I had heard about those, but getting a vote of confidence is
nice. The next thing to find out is if someone is using them on my
host.
--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

Genocide is news | Be A Witness
http://www.beawitness.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
www.darfurgenocide.org

Save Darfur.org :: Violence and Suffering in Sudan's Darfur Region
http://www.savedarfur.org/