help with e-commerce site

[contagious]

well, i don't know even where to begin. I own a car accessories shop, a few years ago i had a site started, now i want to add an e-commerce to it. i have sold items on ebay and I've used paypal to get my payments. I just want to be able to add some items for sale on my site. I am not good with computers but i am willing to learn, i do have a lot of free time right now, since the economy is really bad right now. i am just looking for different ways to sell my products. thank you for what ever help you guys can provide

[dm01]

If you're serious at entering the world of e-commerce, get rid of PayPal. There are plenty of alternatives out there, and I'm sure you will find one that works for you.

Designing site storefronts can look difficult, but once the basic framework is in place, they are very easy to maintain. Can you provide a link to your site? I am interested to see what you have done so far.

You will need a good-quality camera, a lot of patience, and an HTML/XHTML and CSS editor. Notepad will do. If you decide later that syntax highlighting and macros would be useful, you can use Notepad++ [http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/download.php].
Professional tools are very expensive and unnecessary (most of the time their code requires hand editing anyways).

http://www.w3schools.com/ has very good HTML, XHTML, CSS, and side-scripting tutorials.

Good luck and happy web designing. We're here if you need us.

[sobeit]

some webhosting services sell webspace that have the ecommerce tools you will need to sell online. If you want to see what I mean see the following

http://www.ipowerweb.com/products/we...ing-plans.html

I am not recommending the above, just to show you what some hosting services provide in regards to ecommerce. Usually all you have to do is to go to the control panel of the service and activate the ecommerce software.

[contagious]

thank you, dm01 and sobeit for your advice. my business site is www.contagiousms.com
i paid someone to do it. but like i said i am interested in learning on how to manage it myself, and doing an e-commerce site.

[DonaldG]

It will probably be far quicker to use dedicated eCommerce software, hosted on secure server for credit card transactions.

Personally, I do not recommend learning HTML at this moment in time. Certainly not using notepad to do so. That is a learning curve too far for someone who needs to get up and running asap!

Having a website already up & running is a good start. It is a nice design with quality images & graphics. It shows a professional approach and gives your visitors confidence in your company. All you need is ecommerce software that will intigrate with your existing site.

If you are tempted to go to a hosting company that offers ecommerse built in, watch out for the severe limitations that may be imposed. EG: Maximum products. One I saw limits to 50 products. With Auto Accessories, you will need several hundreds, if not thousands. Other hosters give limited access to their server. Using professional ecommerse software you will have full feature access.

I have just responded to your question in another thread here

[dm01]

Your site looks good. It is well laid-out, there is no animation, and the colours work well together. You just need a bit of an update and you're ready to get started.