# Need simple "gateway" web page for links



## inkie (Jun 28, 2007)

Hi friends,

Need advice! I've pretty much got my artwork prepped and a product line ready to go. I've decided to open several POD stores (Cafepress or Zazzle, Greeting Card Universe, Imagekind etc.,) for stuff I can't make myself, and also an Etsy store for selling items I can make myself. All of the above will handle the payment process, so I don't really need a store. What I need is a SIMPLE - moron simple! - web page to act as a "gateway" to my various products which are spread out among the above places. Now I know this will probably won't please the more experienced web folks on the Forum, but I plan to just have plain old links to these places from my site. Since I have a professionally designed logo and trademarked name (also my own domain), I believe there will be sufficient consistency between my web site and my stores so as to not scare any potential customer too badly! Plus it's all my budget or I am capable of at this point.
Can anyone recommend a SIMPLE, low-cost web site builder with host that won't require knowledge of HTML that would work for my purposes? Thanks in advance,
Inkie


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## Catbox (Oct 3, 2007)

Joomla.... Wordpress... Drupal... all are good and pretty easy to use
all have free templates and Go Daddy has cheap hosting


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## inkie (Jun 28, 2007)

Catbox, Thanks for your quick reply - most helpful. I'll look into all of them!
Inkie


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## cyclonearts (Jul 8, 2007)

Sounds like a good idea but the only thing I'd be concerned with as a customer is whether I'd be able to order products from multiple sources on your site at the same time without having to checkout multiple times. The multiple shopping carts might confuse some shoppers, but its just a small thing to consider.


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## mikelschwarz (Apr 12, 2008)

i'd recommend trying out mal's ecommerce (www.*mals*-e.com) for your webpage/gateway need. You can do exactly what you want. I'm pretty sure they still have a free service which allows you to collect credit card information in a secure fashion and manually process those transactions later. They also have a for fee service that lets you plug in real-time credit card processing if that's what you need.

for the site builder functionality, they're everywhere. I started with GoDaddy's WebSite Tonight service at around $5 per month. When I outgrew that, I moved to hosting with Bluehost and put up my store on CubeCart. Although, Bluehost does have a PageWizard Site Builder as well which is not bad.


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## peteVA (Nov 11, 2007)

Yes, Mals is still free and there is a lady who has an excellent "user guide" kind of site for Mals. Shows you step by stop how to build a page, etc.

And there are a number of sites offering free templates. Some are right out of the 1990's, but many are quite current is design. Do a Google on "free website templates" and you'll find many.
.


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## inkie (Jun 28, 2007)

Thanks AJ, Mikel, and Pete for your thoughts. AJ, I admit I never thought about my site having links to two POD stores and one online craft market possibly forcing the customer to have to make multiple checkouts...darn. I'm not sure if there's a way to avoid this. 
Mikel and Pete, I've been checking out the three open source site builders mentioned previously - thanks for the heads up on Bluehost PageWizard and GoDaddy's Website Tonight too. I'll look into Mal's for when I'm ready to bring more production in-house and will need a shopping cart.
Whew, all this online footwork makes a person's head spin!!

Inkie


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## MentinkiZM (Apr 16, 2008)

I use drupal form my ecommerce system and it looks great. I would suggest checking that out.


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## inkie (Jun 28, 2007)

MentinkiZM said:


> I use drupal form my ecommerce system and it looks great. I would suggest checking that out.


Two votes for Drupal - worth taking a second look.
Most importantly, it seems like there is sufficient hand-holding available!

Thanks,
Inkie


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## MentinkiZM (Apr 16, 2008)

If you need any help with your drupal just let me know.


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## inkie (Jun 28, 2007)

MentinkiZM said:


> If you need any help with your drupal just let me know.


Thanks for your generous offer. Is Drupal (or Joomla) as easy to set up and operate as a commercial, hosted sitebuilder like Yahoo's, BlueHost's, GoDaddy's, etc.? I don't plan anything fancy, but Open source always makes me wary, as I know *NOTHING* about coding...

Inkie


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## MentinkiZM (Apr 16, 2008)

It can be. It has its own installer that walks you through everything. You should breeze through it.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> What I need is a SIMPLE - moron simple! - web page to act as a "gateway" to my various products which are spread out among the above places.
> 
> Can anyone recommend a SIMPLE, low-cost web site builder with host that won't require knowledge of HTML that would work for my purposes?


If you just need a website with a website builder, you could the free service at Weebly - Create a free website and a free blog

You can create a simple page there with no HTML skills.


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## inkie (Jun 28, 2007)

Rodney said:


> If you just need a website with a website builder, you could the free service at Weebly - Create a free website and a free blog
> You can create a simple page there with no HTML skills.


Wow! Never heard of it till now - it looks simple to set up, but very usable, effective, and attractive...thanks a lot,

Inkie


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