Guys, I'm looking to manage a large online shop, and all i have knowledge of is css and html. I am in desperate need of help.

What I am trying to make a fully automated shop. I want add the items I am selling via a web-form, with a picture, description, price etc. I want these items to then be displayed on the website, automatically.

I also want a login for users and some way of printing out the orders made on the site automatically.

Basically I am looking to design a one off job and then keep the website running all the time without actually manually doing anything, apart from posting items, which i would like to do over a form.

Can anybody help in pointing me in the right direction? I would just like to know what languages to use, who to host the site with ect.

Thanks in advanced.

php might be used for the form and login, you might alos need mysql to stroe the login and item data

thanks, ill assume the resources for operating these systems are on their site, what about hosts, any good offers around?

you should post in the hosting forum to see if anybody will give you or reccomend you good hosting

Why not look at a pre-built shopping cart? There's loads of them out there - just search Google and then compare them to see which ones suit your needs best.

I recommend a good open-source shopping cart program call Zen-Cart (www.zen-cart.com). It runs using php and mysql - and there are a few really good reccommended hosts on thier site.

If you get a host with cPanel & Fantastico, you can install many good shopping carts in a few clicks.

Should get ya started

I no shopping carts are good but i prefer to write my own stuff and code, otherwise I learn nothing. Is there anyway of testing mysql and php on your home system, without publishing the files to the web?

Wrting your own shopping cart from the ground up with no knowledge is more work then it's worth IMO. Your better of getting an open source solution such as ZenCart or OSCommerce and then customizing them to meet your needs. This way you're starting of with a solid foundation, and you can learn how they work and how to code for it.

When the time is right, you've outgrown your shopping cart, and you've gained enough knowledge; then you can look into coding your own system.