# Confused and Overwhelmed



## lgiglio1 (Sep 29, 2006)

I have had a business for 10 years and went with word of mouth. I am interested in adding a web site. I want to get information out there and possibly have a place for customers to design items they want. I don't know much about this websites and don't understand a lot of it. I have also seen some online t-shirt design software and hosting companies. So how do I figure out what is best? What is difference between opentshirts.org and inksoft? Is it good to host with either of these companies or find my own hosting and then integrate these in (Can that be done)? Any thoughts would be great. I did sign up at blue host but can't even figure out how to get started on there. LOL I'm out of my league on this one!


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## krikster (Aug 8, 2013)

Unless you are going to have someone do the coding for that detailed of a site and unless someone offers that already built I would stick to some place like godaddy and go for a web presence to start and move up from there over time. Hiring some one to code is not cheap!


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## JCW (Feb 15, 2012)

There are so many options when it comes to building a website. I'll try to break them down into 3 basic categories.

1. You could just do an informational site. It could include info about your business, products, hours etc but no selling. There are a lot of build your own website programs out there or you could hire someone to build a basic wordpress site for you. There are usually freelancers on craigslist that would charge $500-$1000 for a wordpress site. Many times they will also host it for you for free or a small fee.

2. If you really want to offer design and sales services you could use a software such as opentshirts, inksoft or deconetwork. These are similar products so it would be up to you to choose one based on price and personal preference for the software and features. The advantage of these is that they are basically all in one. You choose your design, put in your products, set your pricing and start selling. This is the easiest option if you want to get started selling. The downside is that there are fees involved, usually monthly but sometimes upfront as well. Also customization of your site will be limited since you are working with their templates and designs.

3. Build a custom site. This would be the most expensive option upfront. You would probably need to hire a developer. I know that you can use the code from opentshirts so you might be able to integrate that into your site. This would give you full control over the look and design of your site but your site would need to be secure. You would have to set up hosting and credit card processing. This is the kind of site you may want to build towards but I would strongly recommend starting with option 1 or maybe 2.


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## rudd (Oct 29, 2015)

Try Square Space they are a great way to get a website setup and have lots of customization options that are super straight forward.


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## ShirlandDesign (Nov 29, 2009)

You'll spend more time deciding then explaining to a developer how you want to express your online business presence than it would take to learn how to do it yourself, provided you are graphically literate. 

OpenCart and OpenTshirts are mostly free.


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## evanalmighty (Nov 9, 2015)

Wordpress is the most well known content management system and it's also super easy to use. It has tons of plugins to add just about anything you could think of to your site. There is a plugin called "Woocommerce" which will get you set up with an online store complete with shipping calculator, stock management and everything else you will need to get started completely free. You can also use a Wordpress plugin like this to let customers design shirts with text or designs you have provided/images they upload and them add them to checkout.

As far as expenses go, you will need just a few things to get you up and running but it will likely only cost you $0.99 for your domain and however much the monthly hosting costs.

Here is an explanation of what you will need:
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1.) A domain. You can get one for pretty cheap from almost anywhere, I would recommend Godaddy because its pretty simple for newcomers to get around. This will be your .com domain, you can also buy some other pretty cool domain extensions like "shirts.rock" if you want to get crazy with your website url but I would recommend starting with .com to keep it simple. It is perfectly okay to buy a domain from one place and host your website with another place. In my experience the companies that sell domains are good at domains but suck with hosting (personal opinion).

If you do choose to buy separate domain and hosting all you have to do is change your domains name servers to point to your hosts ip. This sounds challenging but its really really simple.
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2.) Hosting. Don't let this scare you, it's a pretty simple concept once you get your head around it.

--- There are a few things to look for when picking a hosting provider.

----- *Storage:* This is how much space your server will come with. Usually this will be measured in GB which is a ton of space when you are just storing pictures.
----- *Monthly Visitors:* You will want this number to be fairly high depending on how many people will be looking at your products.
----- *Memory:* This is the amount of ram your server will be using. This is usually only displayed when picking out a vps or dedicated server. With Wordpress or any other content management system you will probably want to aim for around 1GB of ram or more just for performance purposes.
----- *Processor:* This is the amount of power your server will have. CPUs are measures in cores when it comes to power and usually 1 core is enough for a small server with about 512mb - 1GB of memory. Servers with 2GB of memory and up with have 2 - 4 core processors.
----- *Bandwidth/Transfer:* This is how much information was sent to your visitors an really shouldn't matter too much because most hosting providers should have unlimited bandwidth or a limit like 1TB that would never ever be reached within the span of a month.
----- *Websites:* The number of websites that can be hosted on this package. Usually one is enough but if you are planning on having multiple sites then you should look for another plan with more available sites.

--- *Types of hosting:*
----- *Shared hosting:* This is usually the cheapest and is definitely the most common hosting package offered. This is when a hosting company splits one server into a bunch of little chunks in which customers will share. This leads to poor performance because if someone is getting a ton of traffic and needs to hog server resources then your site will get a performance hit.
----- *Virtual Private Server:* Like the name suggests, this is a private server where you will be the only one using resources. This is usually a more expensive way to go when hosting a website and should really only be using when you know what your doing.
----- *Dedicated Server:* This is pretty much the same as VPS but with more power for serving huge applications that I won't get into right now because it doesn't matter much to this purpose.
----- Managed hosting: This is a type of hosting when your site will be managed by the hosting company and given more resources if needed so your site will always be operating at optimal performance. This is definitely the best choice for someone looking for a plug and play solution.

Hosting doesn't have to be hard or super expensive, but don't go with a cheaper service just because its cheap!
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For your purpose I would recommend a hosting provider called Media Temple. They provide managed hosting for Wordpress for a very decent price. They have a one click Wordpress install and great support. The starter plan comes with 30 GB of storage, 400k monthly visitors (more than plenty), and 2 sites for $20 a month. They will also have some custom Wordpress themes made by them to make your site look great without having to code anything!

You can also grab your domain from Godaddy like I said for $0.99 by entering this coupon at checkout: CJCRMN99U

I am in no way affiliated with these two services or promoting them, I am just giving my personal opinion!

I am a web designer/developer by profession so I can definitely guide you if needed (for free, not self promoting or offering any services). This is also my first post on these forums since I am getting into screen printing so let me know if it helped!


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## buffettnh (Mar 11, 2013)

Building a web site is like buying a car. Many brands, many models within the brands, different technologies within the models. Trying to figure out what website is best for you is like trying to understand every bit of tech in every make/model of car before buying one. You cant.

Like a car, you test drive a site and make a decision. 6 months later you may realize you made the wrong decision, so you switch to another platform. Experience dictates what you will need because you really have no idea what is available to you or how to do it. Trying to make a decision with a lack of knowledge will drive you nuts.

I have been building my own sites for 20 years. Even then my most recent site I have changes platforms 3 times! I am still learning.

jump into one, build it, learn. Stay or move on. There is no cheap way or fast way to do it right.


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## jennGO (Mar 11, 2014)

If you are looking to sell retail shirts online I can help you out and point you in the direction I did. I'm not a developer but I can give you free advice via email. If you are just doing an informational site and you've been 10 years without one I see no need to pay for a custom one much less hundreds for a simple one


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## Domenic (Jun 15, 2015)

lgiglio1 said:


> I have had a business for 10 years and went with word of mouth. I am interested in adding a web site. I want to get information out there and possibly have a place for customers to design items they want. I don't know much about this websites and don't understand a lot of it. I have also seen some online t-shirt design software and hosting companies. So how do I figure out what is best? What is difference between opentshirts.org and inksoft? Is it good to host with either of these companies or find my own hosting and then integrate these in (Can that be done)? Any thoughts would be great. I did sign up at blue host but can't even figure out how to get started on there. LOL I'm out of my league on this one!


igigilo,

before you spend $130 a year for a web sit...know this: "Nobody will know you have a web site unless you market the site."
People set up a site, sit back and wonder why nothing happens? Look at a web site like this; You have a store someplace far out in space. Nobody knows it is there. You have to let people know you have a site, and how to get to it.
I suggest you first do this; Read everything you can find on the web about how to market a web site.
Take your time, it's not hard. Your being new just makes it seem hard.
I'm stupid...If I can do it, so can you.
Hope this helps
Domenic


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## Bugmeister (Dec 6, 2015)

People looking for local businesses tend to search online now more frequently than they refer to the somewhat antiquated Yellow Pages paperback. Having an effective website will definitely help connect with those users, not to mention putting the domain name on your business documents (cards, etc) and using it in your online signature blocks. You do need to work on getting the website "out there" and there are lots of ways to accomplish that. But none of that happens until you do get that website (and buying the domain name helps you control your brand identity).

I've been hosting my sites on Media Temple for years and have been very happy with their service (uptime, customer service response times, communications/alerts). I've had some bad hosts, average hosts and would rank MT as an excellent host. My current plan there is the gridserver solution (about $20 a month, or $200 a year).

Once you get something like wordpress and a woocommerce shop setup, which you may want to engage someone with a bit of experience to help with, adding new content is something you can easily achieve with minimal webpage design experience.

I was able to figure out wordpress fairly quickly (lots of info through google!), install woocommerce and have been playing around with the system for a bit now. Unless I find something else in the interim, that is my intended combination once I launch.


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