# Opening your own website?



## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

Hi guys,

Im looking at opening my own website to sell certain products (nothing to do with detailing). 

I was looking for some advice and wanted to know the pros and cons and anything i should watch out for.

A few questions i had were, is it better to host a website yourself or get a company to do it for you?

Can you add a shopping feature (like most ecommerce sites have) without additional charge?

Thanks for taking a look :thumb:


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## empsburna (Apr 5, 2006)

How many items do you plan to sell and how will you be taking payment? Credit cards?


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## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

I suppose the plan would be credit or debit cards probably, or maybe have a paypal system aswell. Items wise probably no more than 50 different items and probably wont sell many until i start getting some customers.


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## col_edinburgh (Nov 2, 2008)

take a look a drupal + ubercart module. flexible and non-techie


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## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

Drupal seem to be a good price! Uk2.net?


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

UK2.net charge extra for pretty much everything.

The problem with Drupal is that it is a steep learning curve (I work with it everyday and am an advanced user but I know a lot of people struggle with even the basics).

It may be best to go for a standard ecommerce script like osCommerce or Magento.

You will need a server with PHP and a MySQL database for each of these.

You will also need to sort out an SSL certificate to allow customers to connect securely to your basket/checkout system to put their mind at ease.

For payment providers there is a fair amount of choice. The easiest option is to just go with PayPal, but some people are put off by PayPal, so you may want to go down the route of WorldPay or SagePay, both offer PayPal as well as their own credit card systems.

SagePay has a few different types of payment options. The easy one is to send the user off to their site and they fill in their credit card details then once it is complete they come back to your store. The other option is all the details are entered on your site and the user won't even realise that they are using an external payment provider. The problem with this is you need to make sure your hosting and site is PCI DSS compliant.

For your hosting, you may be OK with shared hosting at least to start off with, although be wary as not all shared hosting packages will allow SSL to be installed, in which case you would have to look towards a VPS which gives you more control but isn't as expensive as a dedicated server.

You will also need a domain name, I would suggest you keep your domain and hosting through 2 seperate companies. Any good domain registra will allow you to point your domain to another hosting company who would be able to provide you with the necessary details to do so.


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## Beau Technique (Jun 21, 2010)

The Mr site option is a choice for many now tbh which are wanting to do all the site themselves.
Best to scour the net and see whats best for you.


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

I've posted on a couple of similar threads...

The first question is... Do you want random people to be able to find your site or will it only be for people who already know who you are and what you do.

I.E. if you're starting up www.honestbobsdetailingsupplies.com are you aiming for people who already know about and want to buy from www.honestbobsdetailingsupplies.com or do you want people who are looking for detailing supplies but don't know about honest bob to be able to find you?

At this point you should forget about whether it looks pretty (anyone with half a brain and a few hours on their hand can make a website look pretty) and focus more on how potential customers will find you.

The most expensive part of a decent site has bugger all to do with how good it looks and everything to do with how well it works as a business tool.


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Saying design has "bugger all" to do with it is pushing it a bit too far. Design isn't just colours. Design encompasses user experience which is key to getting conversions as well returning visitors.

If you want to look in anyway professional, stay clear of Mr Site.


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

jamest said:


> Saying design has "bugger all" to do with it is pushing it a bit too far.


You've got it all wrong. I didn't say 'design has bugger all to do with it'. I said that "The most expensive part of a decent site has bugger all to do with how good it looks and everything to do with how well it works as a business tool" and I stand by that.

How well it works as a business tool has EVERYTHING to do with design. You can have two sites which aesthetically look identical even though one cost £200 and one cost £1000. If the £200 site brings in ZERO sales and the £1000 site brings in 1 sale then the £1000 site provides better value for money. If the £1000 site has a decent CMS and the SEO is done properly you're onto a winner and the £200 site doesn't get a look in.

I've sold websites in excess of £10000. In particular I've sold websites in excess of £10000 when we initially lost out to a company that did it for £1500. They quickly realised the £1500 site didn't work as a business tool and ended up coming to us to sort it. Buy cheap, buy twice.

(I changed job at the start of June and am no longer involved in e-commerce sales).


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## Mini 360 (Jul 17, 2009)

grantwils said:


> At this point you should forget about whether it looks pretty (anyone with half a brain and a few hours on their hand can make a website look pretty)
> .


:lol: if only that were the case!


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

Mini 360 said:


> :lol: if only that were the case!


Do a search for free web templates. View a youtube tutorial. You're on to a winner.


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## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

Thanks guys for the advice, i think i will buy the domain name and spend the next week doing some serious research.

I've been looking at buying the domain name from 123-reg.co.uk, if i buy just the domain name from them will they allow me to host it elsewhere, and would i be sole owner of this domain for the 2 years?


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Max-T said:


> Thanks guys for the advice, i think i will buy the domain name and spend the next week doing some serious research.
> 
> I've been looking at buying the domain name from 123-reg.co.uk, if i buy just the domain name from them will they allow me to host it elsewhere, and would i be sole owner of this domain for the 2 years?


Yes, I use 123-reg.co.uk myself and the control panel is very simple and gives you full management of everything you need. Just don't buy any of the extras, just buy the domain (no email etc, you will get that with your hosting).

If you are looking to make a decent business out of this make sure to get .co.uk, .com and .net at a minimum.


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

For buying domains I would suggest www.1and1.co.uk been with them for years.


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## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

Well i have found out the domain i am looking for is available in every way except for .com, looking into it, its owned by some company who are not using it and their contract expires 1/11/2010, do i contact them or?


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Max-T said:


> Well i have found out the domain i am looking for is available in every way except for .com, looking into it, its owned by some company who are not using it and their contract expires 1/11/2010, do i contact them or?


Up to you. You can contact them to buy it off them. Wait until it becomes available, although they may renew it. Go witout the .com and make sure all marketing reflects it. It isn't vital to have all 3, it is just better as it will stop people typing in the wrong domain being sent somewhere else.


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## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

Im now purchasing this site but it is asking me what registrant type i am? 
UK Sole Trader
UK Individual representing self etc?

Its just me who will run the business for now.


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

I don't think it really matters, it is just used in the whois lookup. You can change it later on so don't get too caught up with any of those details.


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## ecksmen (Jun 10, 2007)

grantwils said:


> How well it works as a business tool has EVERYTHING to do with design. You can have two sites which aesthetically look identical even though one cost £200 and one cost £1000. If the £200 site brings in ZERO sales and the £1000 site brings in 1 sale then the £1000 site provides better value for money.


That's a pretty awful analogy - that one sale would need to be in excess of £800.

Personally, and I work in Managed Hosting and we have contracts with some of the biggest uk companies including banks and for us a CMS comes last on the list espically for sole traders and single users who do "everything", espically given the 50 products mentioned.

Important factors I want to point out.

1) Security - if you're accepting CC you want to make sure you're not using insecure software, or on insecure hosting. If you can afford it, pay for a penitration test on the site - a good hosting site will allow this (give them prior notice). 
2) Make sure you have your own backups of the site.


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## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

After looking at many different companies i have came up with the following.

www.Rackspacecloud.com/windows 
Im looking at the $0.04 per hour package, only problem is i would have no control panel and since i have not had a website before could prove to be difficult.

http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/web-hosting/ 
Im looking at the £10.75 per month package.

http://www.switchlink.co.uk/virtual-private-servers.html

http://www.justhost.com/web-hosting 
Im looking at the £6.95 a month package, after speaking to one of their support team i had found out that i would have to pay an additional £34.95 per year for one SSL Certificate, is that good or bad? there is also no pay monthly option unless i choose the 1 month option.

http://www.patrickinternet.co.uk/Business-Web-Hosting-UK.html 
unfortunatly it only says from £2.08 a month so more than likely il be paying more than that figure.

http://www.bytehouse.co.uk/hosting_services/virtualised_hosting/uk-windows-vps-hosting.php 
i was looking at the £20.33 option with this host.

http://www.cwcs.co.uk/web-hosting/windows-professional-hosting/
The other option i had a look at.

If anybody can help me spot the differences and which if any of these hosts are worth going with, i thought i would also say im new to this so im sorry for the questions but if i dont ask i wont learn.

Thanks in advance guys!


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## robertdon777 (Nov 3, 2005)

try www.nativespace.co.uk , very very good. I have a few sites with them.


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

The hosting packages you have listed all differ from one another so they are not comparable.

The only one I have heard of is Heart Internet which I believe was started by some old guys from Web Fusion who are owned by Pipex I believe.

First of all, do you need Windows or Linux hosting? If you are using a PHP based site, it will be more secure, faster and cheaper to use Linux as there are no licence costs.

How busy are you expecting the site to get? If your site is going to get fairly busy then you may want to steer clear of shared hosting and go for a VPS which will be able to take a bit more abuse but you will need to manage the server more than you would with shared hosting.

If you are going to be spending anymore than £15 a month, I would suggest you forget about shared hosting option and go down the VPS option, I would be able to help you get the server set up to your requirements.

To give you a proper answer you will need to list out some specifications.

- Server platform (Linux/Windows) - Are you using ASP or PHP?
- Traffic - How much traffic are you expecting? How many hits per day? Or how many visits per day?
- Space - How much data are you going to be storing? Will there be a lot of images?
- Security/SSL - What sort of payment gateway are using? This will set out the needs for PCI DSS compliance. Look at Thawte/Verisign for SSL rather than using a cheap one through hosting, SSL can be expensive (~£100-200).

Most importantly when chosing a host, get one that allows monthly payment. When you have no first hand experience, having a host without being tied in to a year long contract will allow you to fairly easily switch to a new host with little to no downtime as well as saving you money.

This is why it is important to register your domains elsewhere.


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## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

Well since i have never used im guessing Windows based? i heard you need to be familiar with command line use which im not when using Linux.

To be honest im not sure how busy i will get, this is my first shot at opening my own business im doing it to gain knowledge of running a business, i think it will be reasonably quiet for the first few months and hopefully will get more traffic lets say 30+ views a day but i have never done this so cant estimate.

I have used ASP.net at University but only have very slight knowledge either way ASP or PHP wont i have to learn how to use them, and is there a massive difference?

Storage space i would be looking at having images for the products and various pages for each product with the possibility of having some videos to show use of certain products.

Payment wise probably look at both Paypal and something like SagePay.

Thanks for the help by the way James, and everyone else who have had input, i would be lost otherwise :thumb:


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

I would suggest you look around and find an ecommerce script that you feels suits you best. 

Don't worry about command line stuff with Linux, when looking at hosting you will have control panels to do virtually everything you need to do, if there is anything where you need to go in to the command line you can always post on here or PM me, I would be happy to help.

As you aren't looking at a massive boost, you could look at a small VPS for a relatively small amount.

I have just switched my hosting to ThrustVPS which is fairly cheap and easy to use.

They offer both Windows and Linux based hosting.

But I suggest you first find an ecommerce platform and get your domain sorted, then we can look at which hosting options are open for you.


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## dominic84 (Jan 27, 2007)

My take on it is installing your own cart is great if you want the ultimate in power, performance and flexibility but the trade off is that's going to be a lot more time consuming then going for an 'off the shelf' cart package.

I've personally used http://www.ekmpowershop.com/ before which would do everything you need, is extremely easy to setup, secure, intergrates with most payment providers and comes with hosting included in the price 

Plus you can try it for 30 days so if you don't like you haven't lost anything.

Here is a link to some of the shops they host:

http://www.ekmpowershop.com/ourcustomers_shops.asp


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## Franco50 (Feb 5, 2008)

I was just about to suggest EKM Powershop as well. :thumb:


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## Maxx? (Aug 1, 2007)

In the end i did choose EKM Poweshop, seems like a good package, starting to put it all together now, so hopefully will be done in the next 4-6 weeks! and hopefully i learn alot along the way.

Thanks for all the input guys really appreciated!


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## scottgm (Dec 27, 2009)

i would highly recommend _Media Temple _for hosting!

May be a bit more than what you need however...


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

scottgm said:


> i would highly recommend _Media Temple _for hosting!
> 
> May be a bit more than what you need however...


Media Temple are no better than a lot of other hosts but have branded themselves well and good at marketing.

Also from what I can remember, they have no UK datacentres. When running a UK business with mostly UK customers the extra latency connecting to a US server is not the best idea.


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