eCommerce Tycoon

**still learning** · 01-04-2006, 02:56 PM

Hello,

Where is the best place to look for someone to help me set up my site? I have some specific ideas about what I would like it to end up like but I have no experience in web design. I would like to be able to update my site regularily, so I will something relatively simple and I will need to find someone who can explain things to a newb like me in an easy step by step manner.

This is just a guess, but is there a place somewhere on the web where people advertise/offer their services with examples, resumes and rates?

Any ideas how much money I should be looking at spending for all of this?

As you can tell, I have many questions and few answers thus far. Any info you can help me with is very very appreciated.

fyi. I am not quite ready to hire someone right away, this post is part my initial research.

Thanks.

**Anacrusis** · 01-04-2006, 05:03 PM

You just need to jump in and start fooling around. Get yourself a hosting account and install an eCommerce package like osCommerce. It's free. Spend some time fooling around with it and get a feel for how an ecommerce store works and all the components involved to make do what you need.

Off the top of my head, you'll need to research the following:
1.) shopping cart software. This could be a premade application such as osComerce or a custom made application that you hire somebody to make for you.
2.) payment proccessing. Will you use paypal, a merchant account, or a combonation of both.
4.) Security. If your asking customers for personal information, you will need an SSL certificate.
5.) the legal stuff. Business registrations, local tax laws etc. Best to check with a laywer and an accountant on this stuff.

**still learning** · 01-05-2006, 03:03 PM

Hi Anacrusis,

Thanks a lot for taking the time to respond to my question. There is some really helpful stuff in there. I wanted to follow up with some more questions if you don't mind.

With regards to the last point you made, the business side I have started already. I have my license, my tax #, import/export #, and all that good stuff already.

All I really need help with is the web based stuff. osCommmerce looks like a great site for all this but to be honest I am a bit reluctant. ..Reluctant just because I am not completely confident that I will be able to set it up and maintain it myself with a certain degree of professionalism. One thing I know about what I want my site to look like it - professional. I plan to make my customer service as professional as possible, and I don’t want that to be misrepresented by my site simply because I am far from computer savvy.

So for the rest of the stuff like SSL, payment processing, and shopping cart software, and in particular, the creation of the site itself, I was planning on getting someone to help me with that.

First off, am I making a big mistake? Is it really simple once I get into it and there is a very small chance that I can do something / make a mistake which will leave my site looking unprofessional?

If there is indeed a chance that my business skills could be undermined by my lack of computer skills and it looks like maybe I should hire someone to help me with it -
- where should I look for someone to help me with it?
- how much should I be looking at spending?

Those are the questions that I'm really interested in for now. As I'm sure you can tell I wasn't kidding when I said "No Experience"! Again, thanks so much for the help. I really appreciate your expertise here!

**Anacrusis** · 01-05-2006, 03:36 PM

Getting started will be the hardest part. Selecting/developing shopping cart software, selecting a merchant account provider etc. But once you get it all up and running and configured to match your business rules, it should all run smoothly and you won't have to worry about it.

Like I said, you just need to jump in. I'd be more then happy to give you a push if you need it. Get a cheap hosting account and install osCommerce, or any other shopping cart that interests you. Start fooling around with it, configuring it, placing test orders customizing it etc. I can help you with setup and configuring of osCommerce as I do have experience with it. There is also a very good user community behind the software if you should run into any serious problems with it.

Again, just take sometime and try to do things yourself. The people here at WT can help you if you get stuck. But I think even with very little tech knowledge, you can have a very proffessional online store up and running. As long as your willing to be patient and try different things and arn't afraid to get your hands a little dirty.

Send me a PM or email if you would like my personal assistance getting things rolling.

**still learning** · 01-06-2006, 04:30 PM

Hi Anacrusis,

I didn't have enough posts yet to send a PM, so I thought I'd go with the email. But I sent it through the forum and I suspect that it may not have gone though. So I kept a copy and I thought I'd just post it here. Soon I should have the 5 posts I need to use the PM.

I have taken your advice and I jumped right in! But the water doesnt feel shallow and I went in head first!

Unfortunately, I didn't get past the first page of the instructions!

I uploaded the catalog directory from osCommerce into my document root with FTP. Then I tried to use phpMyAdmin. I downoaded it and unzipped it into my document root. Found in the instructions there that I should create a config.inc.php file (I skipped the instruction about making sure all of the scrips have the appropriate owner because that made no sense to me at all. I thought I'd just skip that for now in my effort to be jumping right in.) phpMyadmin was ALL greek to me. It said that I should use my favourite editor to create the config.inc.php file. Is that just Notepad? Im guessing that it's not because when I put config.default.php in to notepad to see what my config.inc.php should look like, there are unusual characters.

So here I am , not even half way through the first page and Im completely lost.
I will push on in trying to understand this, but I just want to make sure that you still think that it is a good idea for someone with such limited computer knowlege to be diving into this head first? Aren't there a lot of ways to mess this up? I am ok at the computer and I tend to pick things up. But I know my limits and I had thought web design was one of them. I would love to know that I am wrong about that and I can, in fact, do it.

Thanks again for being so helpful with this and thank you for the push! I hope you don't get tired of me!