Custom Site or Shopping Cart Platform? Confused non-techie!

Thank you everyone for your replies. I really appreciate your insight.

Tiana: I did look into shopify. It appears they don't allow recurring billing for subscriptions, which would be a problem for me.

Anthony: You're right! I need to get this thing done. In my heart of hearts I want to go the custom route with the company I've chosen, but I'm just not sure it's a wise business move financially. I'm considering contacting the company and talking with them about my concerns. I'm also considering staying with zaxaa for now. It's got all the functions of the other shopping cart platforms I've seen. The only difference is I can't customize the look of it. But, maybe I will stick with it until I get a few more products, and then switch.

I guess part of my problem is that I want to create a good impression, and I feel a nicer site would help me do that. It would also be nice to have everything in one location. Right now my blog is a free wordpress.com blog, my product is on zaxaa and my squeeze page is on wordpress.org in another location.

So much to think about! And not having any real technical knowledge doesn't help.

Thank you for your input! I am considering every suggestion.

Serpyre: I will look at the link. Thank you! I think my biggest problem is not knowing the difference or whether there is any between the hosted sites and the ones you host yourself. It seems to me that they all have the same basic functions, some have the added function of recurring billing, and hosted sites have the monthly fees attached whereas with a site you host via hostgator, you only have those fees and whatever fees your payment processor charges. Am I missing something or is that pretty much it?

Action Man: I've looked at Magento but I'll take another look. I need something that is braindead simple to use, no fuss no muss, not only because of my lack of technical skill, but also because I don't want to spend hours trying to figure something out. I've tried putting up a simple wordpress site with wordpress.org, and my biggest problem with that was that it took me a few hours to decide on a template for the blog. Seriously, I'm one of those people who could spend days and days on minutia like this. And in the end what does it matter? There's no telling whether my market will respond to it or not until I try it anyway. So, I have misgivings about Magento for me, but I will take another look. And, I already have a hostgator account so that's done.

Sbucciarel: My blog is on wordpress.com, so I don't think I can use woocommerce with that and I don't want to expand that blog into a website. I'd rather move that blog to a website. My squeeze page is on wordpress.org, and that could probably work with woocommerce, but that squeeze page needs a complete redesign and if I'm going to do that I might as well just do an entire site. One question. Is woocommerce something I need to download to be able to see? There didn't seem to be much information on the website.

I'm looking for something that I don't have to spend hours and hours trying to figure out, and that will work on its own with little attention from me other than adding products, writing blog posts, and that type of stuff. I will also want a way to measure the success of the website - how many visitors I'm getting, what people are responding to.

I don't mind a small monthly fee, though no monthly fee is good too. Sbucciarel hit the nail right on the head when she said I want to try out a store. That's exactly it. I want to see if this thing will really fly before I go whole hog and plunk down alot of money for a big website.

Thanks so much to each of you!

Anthony: Thank you again for your thoughtful reply. I'm currently looking at 3D cart. My main concern with them right now is whether their platform is setup for recurring billing. That is something I am going to need.

Here's another question. If I were to go with one of the hosted solutions such as 3D cart or 1shoppingcart, would my customers' information be more secure than if I hosted my site on hostgator and used paypal? I've read in a few places that this is the case, but it seems to me that if any information were stored it would be stored on the paypal server and would be their responsibility if something happened. My site would just be the portal they start the purchase through, but they would complete the purchase with paypal or whatever payment processor I used. Is this correct or am I missing something?

Also, I've been thinking more about what I need with this website. It's not just a store in the sense that Target or Macy's are stores. It's a way for me to connect with my customers, not just a way for them to discover products they need and buy them. I will need a blog on the site, which is something that many of the turn-key website creators don't offer. And I need to be able to email customers. I've already got Aweber, and I would like to be able to use that. And, as I mentioned, I need recurring billing capabilities.

Another concern I have - with the turn-key hosted solution - is the quality of design with their website templates. They all have such a cold, corporate type feel. I know it's possible to make changes to many of them, but you can make any major changes without knowing some code and if I were going to hire someone to help me with that I might as well go with the company I've chosen and do the completely custom website.