Good retail wed design software?

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GARoss


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I'm asking those who know as, obviously, I am new at this. In searching this site it appears RapidWeaver & iWeb are more for personal use rather than retail.

One of the things on my wife's honey-do list is to design a website where she can sell her homemade products. We'd need to list 100 or more products with description, pricing & photos (a zoom photo feature would be nice). And, a secure internet connection where buyers could use PayPal, etc is a must.

Are RapidWeaver or iWeb candidates or another software company?
 
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todd51

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I think you would be better off using a Content Management System such as Joomla, Drupal, or even Wordpress (all of them are free) for a personal sales site like this. Selling items over the Internet usually requires MySQL databases along with PHP, which would take a long time for a beginner to start coding from scratch.

WordPress is very easy to get the hang of once installed on a web server. There are many plugins out there that allow you to do all kinds of things. Do some research on the CMSs I listed.

As far as designing a site, Dreamweaver is always the professional way to go, although it is expensive.
 
podraig

podraig


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Go to Rapidweave site, additional plugins for retail, shopping cart etc are all available......tons of third party themes, snippets etc, go through the addons at Realmacsofware site;P
 
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You can do all of that using iWeb. All you would need is a hosted shopping cart & a host. I'll send ya an email & you can checkout my site if you like, made using iWeb & Photoshop. If you need any help, ill be happy to share what I know with you.

Here is the shopping cart solution im using for digital products. CLICK.
 
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GARoss


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Wow! Lots to work with here. I've got to do a lot of research before I get started.
Thanks everyone!
 
TheGreatApple

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Well....

As a long time online marketer that has designed, created and even coded many a site...here's my opinion! If you wish to take it of course :)

1. I would personally stay away from a content management system. Not because they're hard to use...in fact it's usually easier, but because with a CMS like joomla or wordpress you're always going to have larger security gaps. This isn't to say that you're guaranteed to get hacked or anything, but your risk is higher. Especially when you start doing things like adding on 3rd party widgets on wordpress and joomla for example.

2. While I love dreamweaver, it does cost a pretty penny new and while it's not rocket science there is a learning curve as with any serious piece of software. It's my favorite web design and programming tool, but a serious piece of software. So something cheaper, more simple might be the way to go. After all you're not trying to open up a design firm here.

3. You're talking about opening up a store, with a shopping cart feature and so on. I would highly recommend that you look into yahoo stores. Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Everything you Need for an Ecommerce Business This COULD be the perfect solution for you.

4. You could always hire a designer, programmer to do all the work for you. But from the sounds of it, you could get everything you want done on your own and have more control of it through something like yahoo stores.

Best of luck!
 
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GARoss


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TheGreatApple said:
Well....

As a long time online marketer that has designed, created and even coded many a site...here's my opinion! If you wish to take it of course :)

1. I would personally stay away from a content management system. Not because they're hard to use...in fact it's usually easier, but because with a CMS like joomla or wordpress you're always going to have larger security gaps. This isn't to say that you're guaranteed to get hacked or anything, but your risk is higher. Especially when you start doing things like adding on 3rd party widgets on wordpress and joomla for example.

2. While I love dreamweaver, it does cost a pretty penny new and while it's not rocket science there is a learning curve as with any serious piece of software. It's my favorite web design and programming tool, but a serious piece of software. So something cheaper, more simple might be the way to go. After all you're not trying to open up a design firm here.

3. You're talking about opening up a store, with a shopping cart feature and so on. I would highly recommend that you look into yahoo stores. Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Everything you Need for an Ecommerce Business This COULD be the perfect solution for you.

4. You could always hire a designer, programmer to do all the work for you. But from the sounds of it, you could get everything you want done on your own and have more control of it through something like yahoo stores.

Best of luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks,
Currently, my wife sells everything on eBay & eBay does offer something similar to Yahoo, I guess. So, Yahoo & eBay stores may be the simplest & most secure way to go. They aren't free, of course! Nothing is. I'd bet their cost would be similar to the cost of starting a site of your own.

We're control freaks!;D If we do this there will be a learning curve but it may be best in the long run. After all. Knowledge is power.

Thanks for the advice.
 
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iWebdezine


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TheGreatApple said:
Well....

As a long time online marketer that has designed, created and even coded many a site...here's my opinion! If you wish to take it of course :)

1. I would personally stay away from a content management system. Not because they're hard to use...in fact it's usually easier, but because with a CMS like joomla or wordpress you're always going to have larger security gaps. This isn't to say that you're guaranteed to get hacked or anything, but your risk is higher. Especially when you start doing things like adding on 3rd party widgets on wordpress and joomla for example.

2. While I love dreamweaver, it does cost a pretty penny new and while it's not rocket science there is a learning curve as with any serious piece of software. It's my favorite web design and programming tool, but a serious piece of software. So something cheaper, more simple might be the way to go. After all you're not trying to open up a design firm here.

3. You're talking about opening up a store, with a shopping cart feature and so on. I would highly recommend that you look into yahoo stores. Yahoo! Merchant Solutions: Everything you Need for an Ecommerce Business This COULD be the perfect solution for you.

4. You could always hire a designer, programmer to do all the work for you. But from the sounds of it, you could get everything you want done on your own and have more control of it through something like yahoo stores.

Best of luck!
Click to expand...


Thats true, there is ALOT of hosted Ecommerce/stores that would be the easiest way to go. Just simply add your pics, price & go!

If I can find the place I was looking at before I decided to do it myself I will let ya know. Also, the place im using as a shopping cart does offer the same type of setup as yahoo stores offers, heres a link (Not affiliated, place is called Swreg).

Also, if you do decide to go about designing your own site using iWeb. I'll be happy to help ya free of charge.
 

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