Online Trading Website - Please help :)

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Gozzy

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Yo Guys,

So my wife's got her own event's business, and she's asked me for help (being in the I.T industry, but not so much on the website of things).

Basically she wants a website like, bidorbuy.co.za/Sybaritic.co.za where she can upload goods and sell them online with a payment gateway of some sort where people can use their visa/maestro/ etc to make payments for goods they ordered online.

As I said before, I have never had to do anything quite like this before, but I'm sure it can't be that hard, I just need to be pointed into the right direction.

What sort of Hosting Packages would I need for something like this, PHP, SQL etc and who would be the best Provider (I had Hetzner in mind).

What would my running costs be on a website like this?

Are there like full packages available for things like these where I pay an X amount per month (including payment gateway, website hosting,etc etc) with easy to use CPANELS/GUIS (obviously my wife will have to run with this) to upload goods etc. I don't expect her to be a web-developer to run a website like this? :P

So please tell me, where do I get started?

Help appreciated :)
 
What you are after is a shopping cart system.

There are MANY open source packages available to use. A few - oscommerce, opencart, magneto, prestashop, x-cart, zencart etc.
There are aslos some that are plugins to CMS systems like wordpress and Joomla like vitumart and WP e-commerce.

All have different features and different levels of ease of use, customisation etc. You need to have a look at a few and decide what best suits your needs and abilities.

All these packages can be hosted on most standard linux hosting packages that include mySQL and PHP support.

For a payment gateway there are a few options. You would need to sign up for the sevices of a payment gateway company like Mygate / paygate / VSC / payfast etc. There are a few. They usually charge a percentage per transaction and the fees can be quite high depending on the volume of payments you process. The other option is to use Paypal or just only accept EFT.

Setting up an open source shopping cart can be fairly simple if you just want and out of the box setup. Customising it is where the work is depending on your knowledge of PHP etc.

There are some companies that offer a fully 'hosted and managed solution', ie they will set up the shop for you, host it for you, include the payment gateway and charge you a monthly fee. This can be quite an expensive route, but easiest if you dont have the time or knowledge to set up your own system. One local one i know of is shopdirect.co.za.

Hope that helps.
 
Its quite easy to do yourself if you have a bit of technical knowledge. I suggest using wordpress and the getshopped plugin. Its supports payfast which is a payment gateway that accepts credit cards and eft's. There are no set-up costs for payfast. They just take a percentage of your transactions, which i find reasonable.

Hetzner is a great hosting provider but i dont think they offer auto script installers. These will allow you to install wordpress with a few clicks which will make life much easier. Try Virtual Domains They offer script installers and their support is really helpful
 
Try this ...

Gozzy, if you lack the time and expertise ... have a look at Qikcommerce
They new and backed by MIH so chances are they may be going places

Take care ...
 
Gozzy said:
Yo Guys,

So my wife's got her own event's business, and she's asked me for help (being in the I.T industry, but not so much on the website of things).

Basically she wants a website like, bidorbuy.co.za/Sybaritic.co.za where she can upload goods and sell them online with a payment gateway of some sort where people can use their visa/maestro/ etc to make payments for goods they ordered online.

As I said before, I have never had to do anything quite like this before, but I'm sure it can't be that hard, I just need to be pointed into the right direction.

What sort of Hosting Packages would I need for something like this, PHP, SQL etc and who would be the best Provider (I had Hetzner in mind).

What would my running costs be on a website like this?

Are there like full packages available for things like these where I pay an X amount per month (including payment gateway, website hosting,etc etc) with easy to use CPANELS/GUIS (obviously my wife will have to run with this) to upload goods etc. I don't expect her to be a web-developer to run a website like this? :P

So please tell me, where do I get started?

Help appreciated :)
Click to expand...

Use bidorbuy as her shop front until she is up and running and has a constant demand for her products.
This will cost her only a percentage of sales.
Then once her 'brand' is established, you can look at other hosting options for a self-owned shopping portal
 
ramar said:
What you are after is a shopping cart system.

There are MANY open source packages available to use. A few - oscommerce, opencart, magneto, prestashop, x-cart, zencart etc.
There are aslos some that are plugins to CMS systems like wordpress and Joomla like vitumart and WP e-commerce.


All these packages can be hosted on most standard linux hosting packages that include mySQL and PHP support.

For a payment gateway there are a few options. You would need to sign up for the sevices of a payment gateway company like Mygate / paygate / VSC / payfast etc. There are a few. They usually charge a percentage per transaction and the fees can be quite high depending on the volume of payments you process. The other option is to use Paypal or just only accept EFT.

Setting up an open source shopping cart can be fairly simple if you just want and out of the box setup. Customising it is where the work is depending on your knowledge of PHP etc.



Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
+1 In addition most of these out of box eCommerce solutions have existing modules to plug into third party payment gateways.

Nice bit of advice there ramar
 
Basically she wants a website like, bidorbuy.co.za/Sybaritic.co.za where she can upload goods and sell them online with a payment gateway of some sort where people can use their visa/maestro/ etc to make payments for goods they ordered online.

As someone else has mentioned, the best bet if you are out for a relatively quick and cost restricted start would be one of the free e-commerce solutions available freely on the internet. A good list has been provided already, and i would like to add that I have used prestashop before myself. But at the end of the day, you will require some sort of technical thinking to get it set up and running correctly all by yourself. If you have some IT background, it would more than likely be a intermediate task for you... Something like installing and configuring an operating system, but more like linux. There are also a wide array for add on's for these solutions and these are generally available for a price. They are however mostly plug and play and it'll let you configure things to match your needs and provide almost endless functionality, like card functionality as a basic example. It basically will boil down to a bit of google and a lot of logical thinking though for you to get approach up and running yourself.

The days turn to weeks, then the weeks to months, and before you know it you know what you are talking about ;)

As I said before, I have never had to do anything quite like this before, but I'm sure it can't be that hard, I just need to be pointed into the right direction.

I dabble with things like this quite often. But have been more inclined to go for the do it yourself route. As my own ideas and creations have always been unattainable with solutions like prestashop as mentioned previously. As far as making something like this goes, there are quite a few good guides available on the internet. They will mainly deal with PHP. That, and a bit html, css and jquery. If this is something that you know nothing about these things, and your idea for the design does not allow for anything other that what you have in mind. Then consider hiring a web developer for this aspect. As a plus for this, there is a lot of really good local talent around!

What sort of Hosting Packages would I need for something like this, PHP, SQL etc and who would be the best Provider (I had Hetzner in mind).

I have dealt rsaweb in all of my projects. I have found them in most situations quite pleasant to deal with. They have also provided me with some very technical knowledge and out of the ordinary configurations that most hosts either knew nothing about, or would not under any means provide. Although their customer service systems, and agents, could use a bit of a revamp... They have a R99 business package that has been more than enough for any of my projects.

What would my running costs be on a website like this?

Its hard to say and really depends on what exactly you are looking for and who is offering it. What kind of shop? What things do you want to sell, will you be doing enough turn over to be vat registered? There really are endless other concerns that come to mind and your approach, and goals can actually compliment each other if you do your research beforehand.

Are there like full packages available for things like these where I pay an X amount per month (including payment gateway, website hosting,etc etc) with easy to use CPANELS/GUIS (obviously my wife will have to run with this) to upload goods etc. I don't expect her to be a web-developer to run a website like this? :P

What you are looking for for this website is something called a cms, it would basically be like the backend of the shop. As far as a package goes though, it would be best to approach a reputable web developer to design and maintain this website for you. This will more than likely prove the most costly approach and would really only be worthwhile if you intend on doing ALOT of business through the site.

So please tell me, where do I get started?

Google and a good book? This forum is a good start...

Help appreciated :)

Pleasure! :)
 
Last edited:
Hi All,

Thanks for all the in-depth feedback...all of you have been really very helpful, much appreciated :)

I will present this to my wife I'm sure she will appreciate this and then we'll move from there, shot once again pplz :)
 
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