# What am I getting myself into??!??



## krylonking (Aug 28, 2007)

Yay I think this is my second thread I've ever started! lol

Anyways, I am talking to a gang of different designers, and of course everyone of them has their pitch and theyre all trying to sell me on 'oh i'll host your site' or 'free shopping cart' or 'i'll birth your first born!' .. Well the last one not so much but it got me thinking about something I haven't done much research on and that's the little stuff and costs associated with doing ecommerce..

Basically Ive seen alot of love for blue host, and I was like cool they seem legit and theyre pretty cheap, and then I saw the merchant account for paypal and thought 30 bucks, meh that seems like a bit much but whatever.. And I thought that would be pretty much the backend crap for what I would need to pay to get paid, then I talked to a couple designers who were all like why whould you pay that when you can use my hosting, cart, etc..

So in conclusion, what are you guys paying ever month: to host, what are you (or aren't you) paying for a cart, what are you paying for merchant services, and basically what do you pay per month to do business (not including costs for shirts themselves)????? 
And any other info recommendations and opinions will be greatly appreciated and rewarded with high 5's and +reps (aka thanks)

please help, thanks!


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## jkruse (Oct 10, 2008)

$10 a month at bigcartel. I also have dreamhost to host all of my sites and images.

Bigcartel is the cheapest and if you need someone to design for it check out my work and hit me up.


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## krylonking (Aug 28, 2007)

but dont you have to host as.. 'domain.bigcartel' ?? because for my site I just want it to be 'mydomain.com'? And do they collect the cash for you or what?


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## gp1305 (Oct 17, 2007)

With the premium package you can use your own domain name.


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## sunnydayz (Jun 22, 2007)

Regardless of what cart you, to collect payments as a business you do need a merchant account whether it is through a gateway company, or paypal merchant account. To process payments in your business name, you still need one, seperate from your cart. As far as I know anyways  I myself have my hosting fee plus my merchant account fee each month. Well I pay my hosting by the year, but pay my merchant account by the month.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

heres the thing. It depends on how much time and effort you want to put into the DESIGN of your site and how much flexibilty you want with it. 

BigCartel is limiting as far as how much you can customize it. Its a GREAT "out of the box" solution, but since its not "open source" you can get your hands into the code and start changing things. Also, LOTS of clothing companies use Big Cartel which will generally make your site look a LOT like a million other clothing companies just with different graphics

If you want full creative control, open source is the best way to go. Open source CAN be a headache ifyou are just learning, but at least the MAIN part of the cart is there and you just start customizing. Basically, you start with a bare bones cart like this one:

Click here to see the stock version of oscommerce
then click here to see what people have done with this stock version
All of these sites are created using oscommerce

here is a basic version of Zen Cart
Then this is what has been done with it
More customized Zen Cart

So you see, you CAN do loads with opensource, but you have to be willing to spend about 4 months messign with it, but then again, NOTHING worth while comes instantly. 

With open source, you will purchase your own host.. I LOVE my host and have refered loads of people to them. Their price is about $5.95 a month AND they have the BEST customer support i have ever experienced. Its AWESOME for newbies, and its what i started with and never turned back because of the great service i received. With them, its 24 hour a day PHONE service that is with people right here inthe US, not outsourced.. they also go above and beyond. if your having issues, and its kinda your fault and NOT theirs, they will help you as much as possible. 

With that host, you also get a free domain name, so thats all set.. Just make sure you know what you want before you sign up..


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## krylonking (Aug 28, 2007)

Thank you everyone for your replys. I will ask some more questions in a sec.. Gotta get some work done


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

I set my site up with Yahoo small business solutions. It might be expensive, $39.95 a month, but I don't really know. I needed something that was a cross between giving me templates for fast set up and some flexibility to do my own thing. I know just enough coding to make myself dangerous. In any event, it works out well. It's got great reports, intergrated shipping and tons of free advertising and e-mail noticing when you first sign up. I still collect through Pay Pal, but so far it's been good. At least I haven't run out of space yet for all my stuff!!


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## kriscad (Dec 18, 2006)

vote big cartel!


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## jkruse (Oct 10, 2008)

gp1305 said:


> With the premium package you can use your own domain name.


With the $10 a month plan you can use your own domain in bigcartel by using the CNAME.


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## krylonking (Aug 28, 2007)

thanks, I have a couple different ideas for sites so I might try a couple options but I am still wondering what hosts people use, what cart you use, and what merchant services you choose to use?? and most importantly what it costs you to do so??


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

I use HOSTMONSTER.COM for my host. It is $7.95 a month and comes with unlimited space, hundreds of email addresses (if i wanted them) and a one click install of oscommerce, zen cart, wordpress and more. Oh yea, AND you get a domain name for free with them

I use oscommerce for my website. Its kind of a pain to start with if you dont know php, but it is VERY customizable and has lots of available pre-coded addons (FREE)

I use paypal website payments pro for my merchant account. It is $30.00 a month plus a discount rate of (i think) 2% I like it because i didnt need to buy and set up a gateway and all that

Then i have a dedicated IP address and private SSL certificate that is $70.00 a year from hostmonster. SSL, in my mind, is required for online merchants to run a good and reliable shop. Its a way on encypting all of your customer's data as it is being passed over the "cloud" and is WELL worth the money. With hostmonster, you can get a free shared SSL, but when ever a customer goes to a secure part of your site (like login, checkout, update account info) instead of saying https://bscphoto.com/catalog/login.php it would say something like https://host.77.hostmonstersecure.com/bscphoto~catalog/login.php


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## krylonking (Aug 28, 2007)

Thank you Lindsay if I could thank you more than once in one post I would!!!


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

no problem. I would like to add though, that Zen Cart might be a better option for those who really have no desire in learning the inner workings of a php store and want just a quick fix. It is still as customizable as oscommerce, but also has lots of premade templates that you can install and customize. The only downfall is that there are not as many addons as there are for oscommerce because zen cart has not been around as long as oscommerce


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## krylonking (Aug 28, 2007)

Well I have some knowledge but my time and patience is limited. Which is why I am paying a designer to do it for me. 

But I am looking into both, to see what I could do if it came down to it.


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## cpix (Aug 25, 2007)

I also use Big Cartel for my store and am currently on the "platinum" plan which costs $10/mo.

There are a lot of options w/ the platinum plan along w/ the ability to edit the HTML which the free plan does not let you do.


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## krylonking (Aug 28, 2007)

Thanks John,
You have a dope lookin portfolio btw


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## cpix (Aug 25, 2007)

krylonking said:


> Thanks John,
> You have a dope lookin portfolio btw


Hey, thanks man. No problem on the help.


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