Hi in need of some help.

Hi guys..

I want to start an online store on my own..

I know first few steps.

Getting a web designed, getting a domain, getting a hoster.

Then what now?

What do i do such that people may register at my website?

What do i do such that people may purchase stuff at my website?

What do i do with the shipping?

What do i do if i don't have an office but i don want my residential place revealed?

I have been searching google, but answers are all quite confusing.

I am sorry if i am sounding dumb, but any help, like a referral to a useful link regarding the questions above will be a great help

Thanks.

Have you installed Zen Cart and played around with it? Doing so will answer some of your questions.

I don't know if you have an existing retail store (brick & mortar). From your questions I suspect that you don't. I think you're doing this backwards. The first thing you need to do is research. What product(s) can you sell that you have a reasonable chance of getting traffic, with a reasonable amount of competition, with suppliers that will sell you the product wholesale, that has decent margins when you sell at a price that is competitive. What I'm getting at is you need a business plan. Once you know what you are going to sell then you can get the website designed and implemented with the needs of you target market in mind. Like Mary Ellen said, if you want to get some experience with Zencart then install it with the demo products and play. If you've already done this then I apologize but I've seen way too many people that think if they stand up a website people will magically line up to buy their products.

Zencart is software that allows you to run a professional, online webshop.

You start by finding a GOOD web-host. KEEP AWAY from GoDaddy, 1&1, FastHosts, and all other cheap web-hosts.

Some reasonably good hosts are listed HERE:http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?16-Compatible-Hosting

If you do not have a DOMAIN NAME yet, these hosts will probably help you to register a DOMAIN NAME, and will then set up a hosting account.

When you have HOSTING, and a website DOMAIN attached to that hosting, it is time to load zencart. Your host (if they are a good one) might do this for you. In MOST cases, you have to do it yourself, or find someone who can help you.

When zencart is loaded onto your hosting service (and your domain), you have (in essence) a "working" webshop.

Then you come back to the forum for more advice.

HI guys, really thank you all for the thoughtful replies.

I have a roughly planned out business plan,but not a concrete one yet. Few days later i will be traveling abroad to look for suppliers and further consolidate my ideas.

Thus during this free period, i want to learn about everything else that i can. Such as zencart,getting traffic, advertising,online privacy, hired mail box and ect. So if i get my hands on my products, i can immediately put them online and deal with other problems.

I din't know a bit about designing, coding and everything else. Thus i was staying at home studying for the past few weeks about them.

But i was flooded with so much information online that i literally felt drowned, hence i came here and hoping someone will tell me the proper way of setting up an online store, looking for an easy way out.

I thought a lame thread like this will be just ignored. Really thanks for the reply.

HI just a question.

I was doing some research and watching some tuts. most of the authors recommended host gator, what do you say?

And some suggested that it is better to have a domain name bought from one site and host it on another site? Is it trully better?

And, what is the take in hostmonster and bluehost that makes you think that they are much better than others?

Will appreciate your reply, thanks.

I strongly suggest registering the domain yourself. There are lots of registrars available. I can PM you the name of the one I use if you like.

I feel this way because I own several domains. Many were registered through a hosting service I had for a long time. When the hosting service went out of business suddenly and unexpectedly, I not only lost most of the content of the sites they hosted, I had to fight with the registrar they used to give me control of the domain names because the hosting service registered them. Even though they were in my name, the registrar was reluctant to give me control. Once I gained control, I moved the names to another registrar. I would never register a domain through any hosting service again.

Thanks that will be really kind of you.. I would definitely love that...

And i have no plan on using anything like shopify or whatever onlinestore webs..

I want to set up a website that belongs to me..

So yupp, i will definitely love a good website where i can get my domain and have my web hosted(still choosing beteen hostmonster and hostgator). Thanks so much.

Hi dreamfm,

Just thought I would add… be sure to research your online target market. This research will help considerably in respect to sales and make up a good portion of your website design, layout, and function.

Zen Cart is very solid and the developers of it are fantastic. For hosting, we have some HostGator coupons http://twitter.com/#!/NAVSPAN.

Any questions, feel free to contact me at the link below.

Thank you

I would suggest hiring someone to set up your cart for you. Zen is so easy that even I can do it. BUT and there is a but ... it is also very easy to miss a few important steps, it is best to have at least basic knowledge.

Once you have your products make sure to take great pictures, the text you type is important. It is you talking to the customer telling them why buy from you. But it is also talking to the search engines telling them why index your site.

I believe your contact page should be complete with address and phone number, I do not deal with any company I can not pick up the phone and ask a question, or contact if there is a problem.

afo:

I strongly suggest registering the domain yourself.
< snip >
I would never register a domain through any hosting service again.

It isn't often that I see this been touted as a recommended option, but it is one that I'm in 100% agreement with.

Sadly, there are far too many people (that should know better) that consider domain registration and hosting as being one and the same thing that needs to be done all in one place, so I quite understand how many newcomers end up with the same conclusions. Not to mention that most newcomers tend to think that having both with the same host is going to simplify things for themselves, which I guess it does, in the very short term.

Nonetherless, I felt the need to backup your suggestion, because we are certainly in the minority of people that appreciate the truth and reasons why this is the best recommendation, even though I'm convinced that many people will actually argue the point.

• :yes:

Cheers
Rod

I mentioned in my previous post that a GOOD host will HELP you to register your domain. The emphasis is on GOOD HOST. Afo and RodG make CRITICALLY IMPORTANT POINTS.

A Doman Name is a LEGAL ENTITY, and is OWNED by whomever registered it. A very "popular" trend is for unscrupulous people (sometimes they are hosts) is to register a name "on someone's behalf", and they register that domain in their own name.

While they may eventually build and host a site for you on that domain, it legally belongs to them. There is NOTHING you can do if they later decide to sell that domain to someone else. (Or at least, a legal battle may be very expensive).

MAKE SURE that any domain you require (and is available) is registered in YOUR NAME or the NAME OF YOUR COMPANY.

The only 100% way of doing this is to REGISTER DOMAINS YOURSELF. They DO NOT have to be registerd with the host where you want the site to live. You can register them at a reliable, reputable and above-board registrar. You should also use a registrar that allows you FULL DOMAIN CONTROL, so that when your site is ready on some other host, YOU, or your AGENT, can go into that registrar's site and re-point the domain to the new name servers.