E-Commerce Solution - online shop needed

[touching cloth]

My dear old ma, downscaling and retiring as she should be, would instead like to do the opposite and take her little shop in Scotland online and start selling stuff on that there interweb - fair play to her but I foresee it giving ME a complete headache if we don't get it right from the outset. I am fairly conversant with web stuff and can cobble together a basic static site, but she wants more than an online brochure and wants to sell stuff direct from the site and that is where it gets maybe a little more complex for my skills. A quick google turns up this lot that looks interesting.

http://www.ekmpowershop.com/index.asp

Whilst I will help her with the initial set up, I really need something that can be run by a complete technophobe (and I mean complete) pretty much out the box, the more complicated it is the more hassle I am going to get by way of daily phonecalls from the old dear or worse a reliance on me to keep things updated for her. This does look quite simple and also she can run through payments via her shop pdq machine so even that will be quite doable for her (the site claims it can take the number that she can process herself manually later, which will be fine for the scale she will be operating at). My question I guess is, are they any glaringly better packages out there that I should consider for her? Also anything else I need to be wary of or should be thinking about (pretty open ended question that bit I appreciate). As we have no idea whether it will be successful, minimum costs both for set up and ongoing are key at this stage.

Edited by touching cloth on Tuesday 3rd June 16:27

[Graham]

You need to be careful about taking cc details on the web and putting them through your normal pdq machine...

we've set up a few e-commerce sites for customers and are doing one for ourselves at the moment...

The banks say we need a separate merchant account for the web, moto and point of sale !!! each with their own setup fees and transaction fees.

There are also web site security audits they want depending on how you process the transactions.


we've been looking at using protex to carry out the transactions ( 10p per trans) directly with our merchant account ( 375 set up pls 45p dd and 2.5% credit cards)

you might be better off looking to integrate to something like google checkout which seems a good deal without having to get a merchant account

G

[Justin Miles]

HI!

You could try talking with th guys at Jux Designs... they built my site!

Hard working, honest, full of ideas, and becasuse they're still trying to make a name for themselves, they're reasonably priced!

Call them on 01626 369662... speak with Tom or Craig.

Best of luck, hope it all works out.

Justin

[taffyracer]

I use EKM and it has alot of very good features but also some downsides, but for the money I think it is excellent, email me if you have any questions you need answers to

[Ordinary Bloke]

My mate has used EKM for a few years, and has been very happy. He also dislikes PayPal after some bad experiences, and is paying for something better (can't remember who) in case that helps.

[damci]

Take a look at www.smartmerchant.co.uk I've spoken to them a few times and they have always been helpful. You can receive online payments with Google checkout and Paypal whom don't charge any setup fees.

[guyh]

My brother uses Zen Cart for the purchase system on his site:


www.alwaysriding.co.uk

[touching cloth]

Thanks chaps, lots to look through. Interesting reading about the separate merchant accounts for the website, seems on the surface a bit of a low shot by the banks just to get more money but maybe they have their reasons - think we will still start her off manually, just to test the water and migrate the payment solution upwards if the webselling takes off.

[fullphat]

Feel free to take a look at our online shop package at fullphatdesign.co.uk . Ive stuck a few examples down below for you to take a look at:

www.lippiselkbag.co.uk
www.nsdpowerballs.com
www.lindhurstandcompany.com
www.toyuniverse.co.uk
www.habanero-clothing.com

Ive got quite a few more examples should you be intersted.

All the best with the shop,

Martin

[sam.r]

Hi touching cloth!

I can recomend Full Phat - Martin is great to work with.

Also www.2dmedia.co.uk are very good.

[andYc42]

Hi, I noticed your post and it just so happens that my company provides ecommerce websites, in fact someone has already posted a reply with a link to our company Absolute Shopping Cart www.smartmerchant.co.uk

Our shopping cart system is a complete ready to go package there is no setting up to (we do all that for you and even load the site graphics ) it is truly is very simple to use.
Plus unlike other systems ours is very search engine friendly we have a number of customers with buinesses that started from scratch and in less than two years they are turning over more than £1m

I'd be happy to speak to you about it and give some advise just go to our site, either click the on line live help or give me a call Ask for Andy

[PJLarge]

fullphat said:

Feel free to take a look at our online shop package at fullphatdesign.co.uk . Ive stuck a few examples down below for you to take a look at:

www.lippiselkbag.co.uk
www.nsdpowerballs.com
www.lindhurstandcompany.com
www.toyuniverse.co.uk
www.habanero-clothing.com

Ive got quite a few more examples should you be intersted.

All the best with the shop,

Martin

Hi Fullphat,

Interesting... we're just opening a florist shop and I also need an online presence. With your solution, do I need to set up my own merchant account or do you handle the payments? Do you also do a PH rate
Cheers

Phil.

Edited by PJLarge on Thursday 5th June 17:47

[taffyracer]

I think it's important for an online presence to ahve a decent payment gateway, paypal or some of the others don't inspire confidence, if you join the FSB then there are many deals with some of the leaders such as streamline or worldpay, makes it very affordable

[fade2grey]

if you are handy with computers & want to do it yourself, look at OScommerce - it's free & basically plugs into just about an banking service to take payment - paypal, various banks etc. Well worth a look. Really easy to set up & configure out of the box. It can be skinned to look how you want it to & has a pretty good support network of both commercial & open source developers should things get sticky.

[JamieBeeston]

fade2grey said:

if you are handy with computers & want to do it yourself, look at OScommerce - it's free & basically plugs into just about an banking service to take payment - paypal, various banks etc. Well worth a look. Really easy to set up & configure out of the box. It can be skinned to look how you want it to & has a pretty good support network of both commercial & open source developers should things get sticky.

The Register1 VDS Pro comes with OsCommerce and SSL Support, meaning that out-of-the-box it's ready to sell.. (you just need to sort a payment gateway of your choice!)

Chec my profile and drop me a line of you have any queries.

J

[DSLiverpool]

Shopify - built in card processing, carriers and you’re not holding data on your server as it’s SaaS

Add features with apps

Anyone can work on it

Just need good photography

[Dynion Araf Uchaf]

Initial post was 16 years ago. Hopefully she wasn’t holding out for your advice before starting

[DSLiverpool]

Dynion Araf Uchaf said:

Initial post was 16 years ago. Hopefully she wasn’t holding out for your advice before starting

That came up on my recent threads / someone must have posted and deleted. Weird.
I hope she founded Etsy :-)