Genuinely developing online e-commerce website has never been simpler. E-commerce sites have appeared as an effective device for promoting your items on the internet without actually conference your customer as well as without displaying him the real items. In such case, the style of an E-commerce web page becomes very important.

Thank you eswariseo for your input, I see in your signature you develop in Magento and Joomla, do you think both platforms are adequate or overkill for a small sized project ( < 300 items) ?

Magento is a great platform to start an ecommerce site. But since you will be selling only so little products and insist on a "personal and consultative approach", i think WordPress would suffice. Acutally, WP would make more sense. There are so many eCommerce themes out there which look absolutely gorgeous.

Im speaking from experience as i had helped a friend get one done. If you would like someone to do this for you, dont hesitate to PM me as i have a thread here on WP site creation services.

Here is an example: http://www.elegantthemes.com/demo/?theme=eStore

I think we could be doing something similar, most likely totally different but using the same method.

I originally built the store in my signature in prestashop, long story short I broke it moving servers, decided to rebuild it in wp using wp-ecommerce and have to say its alot more light weight and more suitable than my original choice of platform.

Take a look, feel free to ask any questions if it's along the same lines.

Rotwic, thank you; I agree with the Wordpress choice, so versatile it makes my head spin!

Then I agree with webpeon about WP e-commerce, I'll get in touch with you guys and if you need anything I'm at your service.

Agree Elegant Themes eSTORE is really good Good luck with the project and if you need any help/tips hit me up on Skype.

I've built several online e-commerce stores. My best advise to you would be to "develop
the site with your product in mind". What I mean is you want to make sure the the product sort of compliments the site colors, navigation etc. Add some eye candy graphics etc. Be creative & shoot forward

Cheers!
Guillermo.

topnichewebsites, thank you for your recommendation! we'll definitely talk on Skype.

Guillermo, thanks for your advice, I'm in planning phase and I'll make sure the site is developed around the product(s).

Jaime

Take a fresh wordpress install, add a nice theme and install cart66 lite plugin.
That's all you need for a start

crivion, I'm currently checking your recommendation, the services feature look interesting. The cart66 lite plugin compatible niche themes seem like a huge timesaver; thank you for your input.

I would suggest magento if you are planning to have a lot of features and products, if you just want to have basic e-commerce features like buying, selling with small inventory then WP-ecommerce is the way to go and if your needs are neither too big nor too small then i would say go with Prestashop.

xuled, definitely precision comes first, specially with requirements, thanks.

arsalan and eswariseo, I agree with Magento being just awesome for e-commerce, I'll definitely work with it in future projects. Since what I'll do now is not huge I'll tackle it by myself, would you recommend it inside a shared hosting environment?

Oliviacis, OpenCart looks good, extensions look great; I wonder how it manages content, since the store will be a hybrid between e-store and informational site, I'm checking it out right now.

Quality options are fantastic!, THANK YOU warrior forum tribe for sharing your expertise and insights, I'll update what is working for me.

UPDATE

Ok, so I bought two domain names for the store, after using Google Keywords Tool and doing some research about the specific niche, Wikipedia really is a lifesaver.

I was buying domain names at around $12 on g dad... (with coupons on the first page on the SERP for keywords g dad.. coupon); but the first result doesn't always have the best offers, result number 3 or 4 had a deeper discount coupon so I bought each at around $8.

I sent a hand drawn logo to fiverr in order to be vectorized (not just traced); on purpose chose and directly bought a gig from a seller with no ratings on his gig, just to test if he/she would deliver faster, almost 24h have passed from the 48h. delivery so...

I'm about to choose platforms after designing a "cute" see you in x days page, I'd like to know if updates would be of any help for someone; thank you all for your words.

give opencart a try, one of the easiest carts to learn the template system, magento is a bloated nightmare...avoid it..trust me.

also look into cart66 if you insist on using wordpress. but 300 items would be rather large for a wordpress ecommerce solution, id stick to a opencart/wordpress mix with matching themes.

site.com be opencart and your catalog
site.com/blog ( or whatever you name the folder ) be a wordpress site for posts/pages and seo purposes .

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vidpes: It is an e-commerce project since financial transactions will be made through the website. All help is welcome, many thanks.

Lchoate: I took a look at cart66, seems like a fantastic all-in-one choice for Wordpress, another interesting project to keep an eye on.

Evan-M: I'll definitely keep an eye on OpenCart, seems like the best lightweight alternative to Magento, I like customization options and elegant use of resources due to its codebase.

N1-ck7: As I wrote to Evan-M I find this option clean and a great out of the box agile solution.

ClicProject: Wordpress can be all the serious you want it to be. Your opinion about OpenCart is precise and a great choice for an e-store only project.

Thank you WF members for sharing your experiences and opinions!

Your site will sell your view to your clients. So, from design to management, your site is very important.

Get a website, promote it on FB, Google. Repeat till you get succeed

dexlink: You're right. I'm taking all the necessary steps towards completion.

donglee: Social media is definitely on the plan especially Facebook.

ahok999333: Startups are awesome, Wordpress is a great choice.

mmeetkaur3: A pleasure.

This is a great ride! I'll keep you posted with updates!

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Presto Shop is the best for doing e-COMMERCE,
besides this you can use WP e-COMMERCE .