# Recommendation on Turnkey Online Store



## abash (Oct 11, 2008)

*Recommendation Needed on Turnkey Online Store*

I need to create an online store. I would like to use an all-in-one site that is not going to break my proverbial bank. 

I need something that offers templates, credit card payments and shipping estimator options. 

I have reserved my domain name through godaddy, but their turnkey store solutions are a bit high for me.

Please offer ANY suggestions. I'm willing to research anything I have to.

Thanks!


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

Did you also get hosting through GoDaddy or did you JUST get the domain? Personally, i do NOT like godaddy for hosting at all, though they are good for domain managing.. if you want, i can suggest some hosts to you that are newbie friendly. 

OR you can get a shop that comes with the host and shopping cart built in> it seems BigCartel is a favorite, and theres always CafePress.. Personally, i do not like them because as much customization as you do, it always looks just like everyone else's site because you can ONLY change the graphics and not layout/functionality. 

I you choose to go a more "customizable" route, you can get an open source shopping cart (which is free) and get a host (usually around $5-$7 a month)

once you get your host, you will have a few choices on the shopping carts. Personally, i like oscommerce (my favorite) and Zen Cart (other people's favorites) Oscommerce has a GREAT online community to help people, years of documentation behind it, and LOTS and LOTS of extra contributions (addons for looks, design, and functionality) Oscommerce has a GREAT contribution that allows you to make an html store and turn it into a shopping cart store.. (its called STS or simple template system) 

Zen Cart is actually an offshoot of oscommerce. It has very similar functionality. It comes with a few more contributions already installed, and has other addons like oscomemrce (not as many) It does NOT have the STS to make an html store into a shopping cart. It DOES however have some templates that you can download easily and use.. but then you get into the whole - do you want a customized store or not.. 

Opensource is DEFINITELY the way to go.. you can do it yourself (can deal with the learning curve) or you can hire someone to customize your cart for you. Either way it is LOADS cheaper than paying for a shopping cart and THEN paying someone to customize it.


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## EntropyGuy (Jun 5, 2008)

If you want everything in one place, check out Volusion. Their system has templates, cart, complete back end (with too many benefits to mention), shipping estimator and credit card processing. The cost is affordable and scalable depending on how many items you are selling.

I use it and find it easy and powerful. There is a learning curve, but they provide instruction and even training videos.

R.


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## rainbrunn5 (Oct 20, 2008)

i recently did a study about 31 ecommerce solutions for the german market. i was surprised by one special shopping solution. it's a company called epages. and their products are quite remarkable. for example they offer an ebay gateway, in case you sell on ebay your customers will get send to your own website after finishing an auction and you can upsell other products to them. you don't find that feature very often, usually only for paid systems of around 5000-10000 USD.

anyway, i would suggest you to have a look at epages website

epages shop software: the e commerce standard for online shop solutions and web hosting products

their businessmodell is to sell their software to hosting companies that rent the system to their clients. that way you get a real turnkey shop without having to mess with installation. 
Many big brands buy their software and you can get almost the same for a monthly price of around 20-30 dollar.

here are hosting companies that offer their product:

Find rental offers: cheap online shops with bt, 123-reg, daily eshops, eclipse internet estore, kingston communications estore

most of them are offering epages 5, not the new version 6. keep that in mind if you look at the specs. but version 5 is fine for most shopowners.


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## abash (Oct 11, 2008)

Thank you guys so much! It can be so confusing.

I definitely won't go with godaddy as a final solution.

Volusion looks like a good option. It seems to have everything I need with minimal upfront costs and I love the all inclusive monthly fee.

Thanks again!


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## stitchcity (Dec 15, 2007)

abash said:


> Thank you guys so much! It can be so confusing.
> 
> I definitely won't go with godaddy as a final solution.
> 
> ...


Abash, what will you be selling online? will you be fullfilling the product?


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

If you want, you can send me a PM and i will give you a few links of hosts that i know as tried and true.. 

Basically, for my websites, i only pay $7.95 a month because my shopping cart software is free, so i am ONLY paying for the hosting account.. Then i also pay for my payment gateway (which i use paypal) and thats it.. Personally, i dont like those softaware that you pay monthly for because if you keep your site on there for a long time, you end up paying a LOT more than what the actual software is worth if you buy it outright..


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## DominicXavier (Oct 21, 2008)

Do you Yahoo!? You might if you want to start your own retail store online. You can have your own online store up and running in just a few days if you open a Yahoo Store. Their smallest package (which is all you'll need to get going) is only $39.95 a month. Awesome!


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## dhuff125 (Sep 10, 2008)

We had to just move our site since our old service provider went out of business. We looked at several different sites and choose Network Solutions for our new site. It has worked great and the tech support has been wonderful (especially since we have only had to use them twice). We had over 800 products on our old site and still have not been able to get all of them back online, which has been good since we needed to delete some outdated items anyhow. Watch how they they count products. Some companies count each color and size for a tee shirt as a different product, so if they tell you, you can have 100,000 products that doesn't mean much when you have 20 different types of shirts each with 10 colors and 8 sizes. 
Unfortunately your the only one that can determine what is the best solution for you. Another site that is cheaper and less sophisticated that I use for a side business is buyitsellit.com. Less expensive and even free for a basic store. Hope that helps.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

i think that if you have ANY amount of products, signing up for a store that charges you PER product AND changes you for extra storage is a little nutty.. I would prefer to have unlimited products


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## JohnDesjardins (Jul 3, 2019)

This site is the site that you're looking for. Its fully automized you don't even have to do anything but wait for the profits to come in.


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## FXCreations (Jan 20, 2020)

hello guys, any recommendation of program or software to create my online customisable t-shirts platform.


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## JohnDeco (Mar 2, 2020)

*Re: Recommendation Needed on Turnkey Online Store*

Go for Volusion. It is affordable and a good backend management system for shopping to the checkout flow


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## FXCreations (Jan 20, 2020)

John deco thanks I will give it a try


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## JohnDeco (Mar 2, 2020)

*Re: Recommendation Needed on Turnkey Online Store*

It is easy to use and loaded with major e-commerce features


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## Max3344 (May 9, 2018)

I haven't heard about Volusion. Thanks for sharing!


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