Hi all. I need to setup a new website where people can buy stuff from my company and I dont know the first place to start. If someone can push me in a good direction to get started I would be grateful! I was thinking of using http://www.bluehost.com/ as my host.

P.S. - Just so you know, I am an illustrator by trade. I know how to make a pretty website and thats about it.

1) hire a good php/mysql programmer or learn it urself.

2) make ur website and be sure it is fully functional b4 advertising it

3) advertise ur site everywhere

4) keep it updated so that people dont think that ur abandoning it.

it depends on what you plan on selling. You will most likely need to settle on a shopping cart system, or hire a prgrammer to create one for you. When you dicide that, you will need hosting that supports your shopping cart.

You will also need to purchase an SSL certificate w/dedicated IP from host and domain name.

If you plan to accept credit cards you will need a merchant account + gateway, unless you plan to use only paypal or something similar.

I can help your ideas to become reality.

check you pmb.

Why dont you take the cheap option and use OSCommerce or something along those lines.

Have you looked at setting up a zShop through Amazon? That way you will have a large number of potential customers straight away

Originally Posted by Anacrusis

You will also need to purchase an SSL certificate w/dedicated IP from host

I've always been a little fuzzy on this - what's the purpose of SSL? Doesn't Paypal provide this automatically for you if you process through them?

SSL will encrypt the data that a user enters in a form before it gets sent to the server. This way if it is intercepted by a third party, it will be unusable. It also gives your customers a warm fuzzy feeling when they see the lock icon in their browser.

If you will be asking users for personal information (name, address, etc) then it must be gathered over a secure connection, ie SSL. If all you will be using is Paypal, then they will take care of the security in regards to payment information.

A lot of hosts will allow you to use a free shared SSL certificate if your not asking for banking information.

"warm and fuzzy" ... funny, but true

Hi Art-Monger,
Please PM me and I can offer you some help.
Thanks