Help Ecommerce

[Lovemylife231]

I am very novice at web design and looking to start an ecommerce site for my business , I want something simple , yet presentable , that I can do myself.

Please help me ? Where do I start ? What should I use ? And how can I get this done myself ? ( I'm a fast learner )

[Webzarus]

There are a lot of free "scripts"... For this, but as with pretty much anything on the web... You get what you pay for.

if you go the pre-built route, your gonna be limited in some way or another... OR... There are going to be issues with security... Or they won't tie in nicely with anything but pay pal.

The thing is, a functioning , secure, nicely designed ecommerce store will cost you money, but along with that money, you get some kind of support, so without knowing much abou this stuff, that should be the ONLY route you should consider. Then if there are problems or issues, at least there is someone to call.

[TheGAME1264]

What WZ said.

Even if you're a fast learner, here is a short list of some of the things you'd have to learn to do this yourself and do it properly:

HTML
CSS
Javascript
At least one of PHP, ASP, ASP.net, Ruby on Rails, Python
How to isolate and debug problems that occur
Search engine optimization
Marketing both online and offline
How to implement security measures
Server administration (since things such as SSLs will have to be installed)
Credit card processing - what you can and can't do legally, any laws pertaining to e-commerce in your jurisdiction, etc.
The ability to study and analyze statistics - learning about conversions, doing A/B and multivariate tests, etc.

Several of these things on their own, even for a fast learner, can take years to pick up. None of them are "easy" or "simple". If you're building an e-commerce site, you're not building an extension of a business...you're building a business entity all of its own, with its own set of rules, with its own competition, with its own parameters. It is very difficult to do properly because there are many different things you have to do (or hire someone to do) to truly get it going.

If you're looking for something that you can just put online and then you'll have a store, yes, those scripts do exist as WZ said...but as WZ also said, they're extremely limited, very difficult to customize, and usually don't end up generating any ROI for the time and money put into them.