# Website for my clothingline?



## MayhemIndustries (Jan 21, 2009)

ive done some reading and realize i need to buy a domain name and a webhost to build a website.

How do shopping carts work as in how do i recieve the money? Will it go directly to my business bank account?

i want a site that looks proffesional but doesnt break the bank no more than 40 dollars or so a year and id rather pay by the year not the month just seems easier

im just starting out but need to know what would be a good site to use that is cheap and i can do everything i need to do all in one place. build, create, check, whatever 

also how much space do i need? cleverdot has a reasonable price of 40 a year with 2000 MB of diskspace. is that enough?

ill probably only need to sell up to 14 items for my first year.

also i want to do my own accounting does any one have anexcel sheet that i can print off to keep track of my records. i cant afford an accountant and im decently computer savy. im juss not sure what information i should keep track of obviosly the profits of each item and my taxes but what else.


any help would be greatly appreciated


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## curiousity (Feb 15, 2009)

Hello. I'll try to answer your question. I'm pretty new, but have been digging away at this forum and other sources of information for a little while now...

A website does give you a potential 24x7 ability to advertise and take orders. That is a powerful thing. Of course, like anything, it is what you make of it. If nothing else it is great for business cards that direct potential customers to a website.

Minimum:
1) registered domain name
2) hosting company
3) shopping cart software
4) way to take money:
--- a) third party which provides a separate, secure purchase transaction (google checkout, yahoo, paypal, etc)
--- b) merchant account AND a SSL certificate for website (SSL cert allows you to be encrypted - some hosts use a "shared" SSL cert that will give you the same function)


Quite frankly, there are many optional things you could add to help or make your site stand out - most of which I learned on this forum. Do some searches, read the stickies, and browse the ecommerce section. There is some great advice there if you take the time to search and read through it.


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## lifework (Nov 12, 2007)

You might want to check out Volution e-Commerce Solutions. One of our major vendors uses the interface, which is available on a month-to-month or annual plan, and it looks great. There are also a number of free solutions available such as oscommerce and Zen Cart, but require some experience to setup and operate.

Good luck.


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## babyboy (Apr 20, 2008)

Also separate your domain from the hosting company meaning buy your domain from one place and the hosting from another so just in case the hosting shuts down you can move somewhere else and vice versa. If you need any pointers I will be happy to help.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> How do shopping carts work as in how do i recieve the money? Will it go directly to my business bank account?


This should help answer your questions:

For starters: http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t25617.html

More answers: http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t20417.html


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## mcchate (Jan 24, 2009)

NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER USE IPOWER AS A WEBHOST!!!!!! THEY SUCK!!!!!
we started with them and everything about them sucks!!!!
We now use HostGator and thy have been excellent in every area of webhosting.

Good Luck!!!


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## jkruse (Oct 10, 2008)

Bigcartel.com is very affordable
I do a lot of custom store designs for it.


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## KarenGarcia (Aug 17, 2008)

I had mine with Hostmonster and I think it's pretty good. I also tried Godaddy for a while and it was fine, people kept saying it's a bad hosting site but I never experienced anything bad with them.


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## CxCthreads (Dec 2, 2008)

Just use Word Press(wordpress.com). It's free, can be set up to look like a website and all I had to pay was $10 for the domain name on Go Daddy. I did not need an elaborate site, just the basics.
http://www.stillproudclothing.com


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## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

Take a look at Cubecart.com as well.

...and it's free! Well the software is, you still have to pay for hosting and domain name - I recommend GoDaddy for that.


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## dave1 (Feb 21, 2007)

I second that. Go daddy is great. I use freewebs to design my site then I upload everything to Go-daddy.


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