Building an E-Commerce Website (Help Requested)

[Oliphante]

I am building a website blue print in Adobe Photoshop to get coded using o-desk. I have minimal experience coding so it seems like the best way to maintain creative control is to design the site visually in PS and then have a developer use it as the basis for the site build-out.

Anyway, I am trying to have a few products and services listed on my site as it is the online presence of a small storage service company with a few products. I am going to have the site developed abroad but I am unsure how to go through the whole process. M main questions can be summarized as follows:

1. Where should I host my site? I bought the domain at godaddy but would like to host with a cheap and reliable provider that also allows for e-commerce.

2. Are there special considerations when hosting an e-commerce site?

3. What platform should I use? 1shoppingcart looks attractive to me but haven't done enough due dilligence into the space to be sure.

4. How to get banks to allow you to accept credit cards?

Any help would be great! Also, I think this topic will be broadly valuable to a wide array of the members as it is both a common concern and important skill.

Thanks

 

[chrishirst]

How to get banks to allow you to accept credit cards?

Pay for a merchant account.

2. Are there special considerations when hosting an e-commerce site?

None in particular

1. Where should I host my site? I bought the domain at godaddy but would like to host with a cheap and reliable provider that also allows for e-commerce.

No decent host would NOT allow "eCommerce"

 

[Oliphante]

chrishirst,

Thanks for the reply. I am aware that basically all hosts allow for e-commerce. I am more interested in the steps to attain a fully functional site. I want to build a my own customized site, then implement a shopping cart, then get it hosted safely and securely.

I don't know anything about the logistics of this. Will a bank give you a merchant account if you are an LLC or do you have to have perfect credit.

 

[chrishirst]

Banks don't 'give' merchant accounts, they sell them. Setup fees, monthly charges, transaction fees, currency conversion fees, etc. etc.

You also need a business account in the name of the business, NOT a personal account. Credit ratings are for personal accounts with overdraft or cheque (check) facilities.

I want to build a my own customized site, then implement a shopping cart, then get it hosted safely and securely.

"Secure hosting" is another thing that doesn't come cheap either and unless you intend to process payments directly, unnecessary.

 

[jkemper]

Banks don't 'give' merchant accounts, they sell them. Setup fees, monthly charges, transaction fees, currency conversion fees, etc. etc.

You also need a business account in the name of the business, NOT a personal account. Credit ratings are for personal accounts with overdraft or cheque (check) facilities.



"Secure hosting" is another thing that doesn't come cheap either and unless you intend to process payments directly, unnecessary.

Agreed my suggestion would be go through a merchant(like paypal, or Authorized) and let payments process through there portals, much safer and easier to set up.

 

[BradT81]

. Where should I host my site? I bought the domain at godaddy but would like to host with a cheap and reliable provider that also allows for e-commerce. Dont use godaddy for hosting. They are great with domain registration but horrible for hosting. the control panel and support sucks.

2. Are there special considerations when hosting an e-commerce site? Id suggest alot of bandwidth and storage. Some hosting accounts come with free ecommerce software as well

3. What platform should I use? 1shoppingcart looks attractive to me but haven't done enough due dilligence into the space to be sure. Magento and Prestashop are 2 that I love amd if you want something where your content part of the site should integrate with the shopping cart, id suggest Joomla and Virtuemart2

4. How to get banks to allow you to accept credit cards? You need a merchant account. Id strongly suggest Merchantplus.com they give you the authorize.net gateway as well as a payment processor. Ive used them for years. You could also just use Paypal