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I really want to thank this site and every one for all the guidance and direction that I have gotten since I first became a member. I’m sure everyone agrees that this site has been a life saver! I am putting some ideas together for a site to sell my shirts but I’m not clear on a few things. What I want is a site that will showcase my ART and the corresponding shirts in a photo gallery styled environment (possibly done in flash,) give a brief synopsis on the design as well as list the pricing info. I have been looking through templates (for all of my graphic skills I am barely a novice web designerJ)but the ones that have the photo gallery feel that I want are not set up for ecommerce and sadly, the ecommerce templates lack the gallery look. So is this an unusual setup? I’m guessing that I may have to hire a freelance designer to create this for me. But then the question becomes where can I find some one who will do this for a decent price because I have gotten quotes of like 2 to 5 grand. I have bought hosting from godaddy.com and was planning on using there shopping cart services unless I get better direction. Any opinions, direction, smart *** comments or “me too’s” would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance
I'm not sure if this will help or not, but here's what I've got. I too have been working on getting an e-commerce website launched.
In my what seems like hundreds of hours of research, I've found a ton of great sites and programs. Many are free, the ones that aren't free are pretty inexpensive. I think $2K to $5K for what you're asking for is ridiculously high.
There are several rent-a-coder type websites where you can post a job description and people will bid on the job. I had a friend who had a very extensive program developed in the Java programming language and was charged like $300.
I'm sure you've seen most of these, but I'll give you a few names of sites offering e-commerce packages. One you may want to look into is Magento Commerce. It comes with many hosting packages. I know it's incorporated into Bluehost, and Bluehost runs like $7/month.
If I'm being too vague, let me know and I'll try to answer any specific questions you have. Good luck!
Eric
Free PHP based e-commerce
ZenCart
OSCommerce
Magento Commerce
CubeCart
Pay Sites
Big Cartel
Myshopify
Here's a program that creates a flash photo album that's free that you could incorporate into your site.
Yeah, Simple Viewer is a great program to use for a flash photo album. You should also consider creating your site using Wordpress. They have thousands of plugins (which use php) that allow you to create virtually anything on your site easily, including flash photo albums and an integrated simple e-commerce system. I plan on using Wordpress to create a new site that I'm launching soon, and I'm going to be using similar features. Also, Paypal has a premium feature where you can create a simple e-commerce site integrated in your site.
If you can't find a pre-existing example of what you want, that's a bad sign. Conventional wisdom is that selling should be kept simple, because customers have basic expectations and are easily spooked. There's all kinds of times when it's a good idea to buck the trend, but I have to agree with the crowd that the design and presentation of your shopping cart is usually not one of them.
If you can't find a pre-existing example of what you want, that's a bad sign. Conventional wisdom is that selling should be kept simple, because customers have basic expectations and are easily spooked. There's all kinds of times when it's a good idea to buck the trend, but I have to agree with the crowd that the design and presentation of your shopping cart is usually not one of them.
I agree. my goal is to keep it simple and i dont want to mess around with the shopping cart at all. but i do want to display my product in a unique fashion that speaks to the theme of my brand. it seems like a pretty simple idea to me so i'm going to try some of the soft wear and sites recommended above or find a reasonable designer. if not I'll be sending you a "your soooo right!" messege.lol
if not I'll be sending you a "your soooo right!" messege.lol
Well that's not necessarily the case - you said it was simple, so it might be great. I did throw a "usually" in there, so I don't think these are hard and fast rules, just strong guidelines. I'm glad you got some leads, good luck getting it done just how you want it.
I went to wordpress. seems pretty cool but if i make a site there am i required to use the for hosting, am i bound to their site? i ask because I have already paid godaddy.com for hosting.
There are two options with Wordpress - you can run it off their website (with an url like sitename.wordpress.com), or you can install it onto your own server. For example, using the godaddy hosting you already have you can install it to something like yoursite.com/blog or blog.yoursite.com
A lot of hosts make it easy to install Wordpress from their control panel - it's not a difficult package to install. Check godaddy's control panel, they may be able to do it for you more or less automatically.
you CANT run a wordpress.com hosted site and have the e-commerce addon. there arent any plugins for the hosted.. you shoudl decide on a good solid host.. ONE CLICK INSTALL is very important..
The thing with wordpress though is that you will not really get a super unique feel that you want..
DO you have a link to a gallery template that you like that you would like to have turned into an e-commerce store??????
First, pretty much anything is possible with time and money-- sorry, had to throw that one in there. 8-)
Here's an approach from a (system) design standpoint. The basic premise is that you'll probably want one piece (software) to handle the gallery side and another piece to handle the ecommerce side. Then you want to exploit "hooks" into each system to facilitate hand off of functions (e.g. from viewing, to selection, to cart/check out).
Use whatever gallery type of program that seems to work design-wise (that is, presentation/UI, user navigation, etc.). So they shop in your gallery presentation bit.
Then, whenever somebody finds something they like, a link (of shorts) makes the "call" to the ecommerce bit to take you to a product page or add the thing you clicked to a shopping cart. So the viewer/gallery sends a call to the ecommerce bit (that ultimately becomes the interface between the two).
I think the down side is that you "may" have to maintain two sets of inventory/content between the two systems (unless you can find additional hooks that allow you to access info--the database- from both systems and merge them). For example, pricing/shipping/payment info would be in the ecommerce piece, but much of the content may be in the gallery piece.
Additional challenges may come from customizing both sets of functionality to have the same look/feel.
What packages are you considering for each?? I'm not familiar with any commercial (or open source) gallery programs.
can this be done? 
Well that's not necessarily the case - you said it was simple, so it might be great. I did throw a "usually" in there, so I don't think these are hard and fast rules, just strong guidelines. I'm glad you got some leads, good luck getting it done just how you want it.
