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Yet another eShop thread .. sorry :(

by mun
8 replies
The more older members and frequent users must be getting reallllly tired of this by now, but i just need a little bit more guidance with my planning.

Firstly, I bought a web domain from 123-reg, now I have heard very mixed things about the company and would like to hear your views, its a little late to be asking but better late than never.

Now this company also do web hosting for eshops and this is what is really bugging me. I decided to search through the forum but came up to alot of dead ends in terms of finding the answers to my questions.

So instead of dancing around the fire , I thought its better to just ask.

Basically I want to create a Tshirts eShop, as you all know clothing has multiple variation per item such as colour and size.

Iv'e been doing alot of research and have had a sort of... brain melt down.

As far as I can see, these are the solutions which I could see as closest, please feel free to steer me clear of quick sand

* To use the eshop service by 123-reg

* Wordpress with associated plugins

* A good host, like hostgator (I say good since it has been mentioned alot here) and OS commerce.

* Joomla - I think this is something like OS commerce too.


This is as far as I have got, Im hoping to create automated invoices and relevant paper work for the customer and business records.
Im considering the 123-reg package quite alot since it "seems" to be a ood deal, however I have not heard good things about their customer service side.

If experience is the best teacher, then let me call you sensei
#eshop #thread
  • Profile picture of the author Frank Donovan
    Hi Mun

    Your best course of action depends on how you want to structure your business.

    If you intend to supply the T-Shirts direct to your customers, a shopping cart script would capture the orders. There are several such scripts available ranging from the most basic to those with all the bells and whistles required by major online retailers. Some hosting packages also include a shopping cart facility as part of the deal (or for a surcharge).

    The platform you use would be a matter of personal preference - they'd pretty much all work, with the appropriate script/plugin.

    Of course, setting up an online store is just the start. I'm assuming you have a plan as to how you'll be reaching your intended customers - do you have an existing offline outlet with a customer database you can tap into?

    If not, you'll either need a substantial marketing budget or the time and patience to build a presence in the marketplace.

    I don't know what type of shirts you'll be selling, but if you're going to specialize in a particular subject/theme/niche that has a passionate following, the marketing might be considerably easier to target.

    If you're starting from scratch, it might be an idea to consider opening an eBay store first. It would be a lot cheaper to set up and maintain and you'd have access to a much larger audience than your stand-alone site would. You could always expand into your own site when you've built a loyal customer base. Just a thought.

    Then again, you may not be looking to physically supply the shirts yourself, in which case you could have companies such as: CafePress UK or Zazzle manufacture the shirts from your own design and handle all the ordering and fulfillment for you (for a price). You'd just operate your store on their sites.

    As far as 123-Reg is concerned, I have several domains registered with them and never had any problems. I haven't tried their hosting, though.

    HTH


    Frank
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    • Profile picture of the author mun
      Hi, thank you for the reply, I have been suggested ebay by some other people however I feel that their fees are quite high since I have to pay ebay's monthly shop subscription + fee per sale + paypal fees, this can rack up quite alot if I have alot of items on there, even as an ebay shop subscriber.

      Although I may give it a try.

      I don't a currently have a big customer base, I just do personal designs for individuals, on T-shirts.

      Basically what I hope to do is what the 2 websites you mentioned are doing, custom prints on them.
      However I would like to make prints and target them to specific audiences.

      I know I will have to do alot of advertising, so it may be a good idea to sell on ebay first to try and collect some emails and grow a customer base and see how it goes.

      Mun.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
    Mun

    I'm going to be launching a shopping cart quite soon and I need folks to help me iron out a few bugs

    If you're interested pm me and I'll send a copy over when its ready

    Cheers
    Kim
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    • Profile picture of the author Silas Hart
      The money you spend on advertising will probably be the same as eBay. Don't forget about the possibility of Amazon too.

      On the same note as eBay, if you are really wanting to own your own site (which should be everybody's goal that sells on eBay) then Auctiva will take whatever you are selling on eBay and put them onto an eCommerce site that you have a decent amount of control over and pretty user friendly.
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      • Profile picture of the author mun
        Thanks for the replies, yes I will most likelly go to ebay and possibly Amazon too, and start there, however I think that advertising my own website within ebay is against their reguations, so I would have to find a way to stay within the rules and also make customers aware of the shop at the same time.
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        • Profile picture of the author yodude711
          i use e-junkie.com for all my e-commerce sites. it's very flexible, very customizable, and very inexpensive. it's also very easy to use and implement on your site.

          I use it mostly to sell t-shirts online, actually, for the very reason that it supports production variations which affect price. e.g. Add $2 to a shirt price for XXL or bigger sizes, etc.

          another thing to check out if you're selling shirts online is the on-demand screen printing service that i've found and use in my own business. just do a search for on demand screen printing. there aren't too many that do actual screen printing (most do digital or DTG printing for the one-off shirts, but this is poor quality), but there a couple out there that do actual screen printing like the pros use, but they do it print on demand so you don't have to invest in a costly inventory and risk not selling all the shirts.

          just my two cents.
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    Hi Mun

    I would suggest having a look at Mals ecommerce which we have used for a number of clothing clients. Its free or very cheap to add extra features.

    We mainly set them up on wordpress sites however the beauty of mals is it can be intergrated anywhere.

    Mals Shopping Cart Video Tutorials

    Quentin
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    • Profile picture of the author mun
      Hi thanks for the suggestion on using ejunkie and Mals, I'm finding it a little difficult on choosing the right package and services.

      I like e-junkie, but it didn't seem to have an invoicing and labels printing feature as i couldnt see it on e-junkie's feature list, so I assume it does not have that feature?, please correct me if Im wrong.

      Just to make sure I'be got this right, to create an eshop I will need:

      * A place to host the webpage like hostgator.
      * Then I will require a CMS - which I think would be Joomla or wordpress?
      * Then integrate a shopping cart like e-junkie or osCommerce into it.

      That would basically give me an online shop to input products into ready for selling?
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