Pleas Help Me Think About This!

[Aminka Ozmun]

Hi!

I'm an author who's interested in building a website that allows readers to download e-books with major credits as well as PayPal, Google Checkout, and Amazon Payment.

I'd also like my site to have a forum and a blog, and even a good-old fashioned guestbook, which I imagine to be something rather like a comment wall! My own domain name and e-mail accounts on it, WhoIs privacy, et cetera.

The thing is, I need e-commerce hosting but the more I look the more I get the feeling that maybe I'm approaching things all wrong.

I've looked at Amazon Webstore, 3dcart, SBI!, Buzzr, SubHub, Goodsie, Shopify, and of course Yahoo! and Bluehost and Dreamhost and I'm fairly confused at this point.

It seems that no one offers everything I need, yet everyone offers lots of stuff I don't.

Is there an all-in-one solution that's specifically geared towards authors, musicians, and artists? Folks who would have downloadable content to offer, with a robust shopping cart dedicated to such commerce.

All the companies I've checked out are geared towards goods, not downloadable files, which must be integrated via third-party apps, it seems, like FetchApp.com and PayLoadz.com.

Thing is, I do want to eventually offer traditional goods, too!

Anyway, if anyone has any advice for me, it'd be much appreciated!

[poika]

well if you haven't found any solution that has everything you need, then perhaps the best way to approach this is to have a custom built website/eshop. it will cost more, but it will allow you to choose everything the way you want.

alternatively, if you still want to stick to ready-made solutions, make a list of all features you need for your website. then think about every feature and make notes whether each specific feature is a must for you, or is it optional. then make a table, that list of features being the first column, and add website/eshop systems (sbi, shopify, etc) as new columns. now, review all systems and depending if they offer those features or not put V (yes) or X (no) in the appropriate cells. see which system gained the most V's for the most important features, and that's the winner.

don't try to make it perfect. having a great website/eshop system won't do all the job. you'll have to have content, you'll have to attract visitors, etc etc. find a solution that has all the major needed features and go with it.

you may also run your website on multiple systems if you so wish. for example, you can launch an eshop on a subdomain like eshop.yoursite.com, then a forum (using another service provider) forum._yoursite_.com, then a blog on wordpress at blog._yoursite_.com, then a guestbook at yet another provider on guestbook._yoursite_.com, and your main website on www._yoursite_.com, which may be hosted in a different place as well.

as i said, don't try to make it perfect from the beginning. don't try to put all the features at once either. make it smaller, launch it, then grow.

[Aminka Ozmun]

Thanks, Poika!

I may well have to do as you advised, spread things out. But because of the expenses involved (minimal as they are), you're more than correct about not trying to make things perfect right at the start!

[Mcoroklo]

I would stick to Wordpress. By using different plugins you will be able to have a normal website, blog, forum and even an ecommerce store. It just takes some time to setup, and the moment you install the e-commerce plugin you probably need someone who knows what he/she is doing.

Building a custom site is horrible. You won't get anything less than 10.000$ which kind of works (and trust me - I've a bachelor in software engineering) ;-)

[Aminka Ozmun]

Thanks, Mcoroklo; I've actually used Wordpress before and am still considering it, though I'm leery of getting sidetracked by technical issues and so am leaning towards ready-made solutions such as 3dcart and SBI!, my two top contenders at the moment.

(Yes, I realize that there's a learning curve no matter what, but I'm hoping to spend more time on content than on figuring out plug-ins!)

[Curtis2011]

Clickbank focuses on selling downloadable products.

I'm not sure if they have everything you need, but they might.

[Aminka Ozmun]

Thanks, Curtis; I do plan on utilizing ClickBank somehow one day, but I'd also like to sell directly from my site!

[Emini Trading Expert]

If you are looking to build your site, I would say focus on the necessities then build from that. Wordpress does have pretty much everything that you need and is very customizable.

One thing you might consider is finding a website that has everything that you are looking for then going to odesk or elance. I have a couple of programmers that I work with on there. Websites run for about $150 - $200. Granted this is using people that are overseas.

[Thunderkeg]

I will recommend you to go for 3DCart or else WordPress.In both you can customize in your own way

[LauraJane]

Hi Aminka,

It sounds like you are focusing on the big picture, which is a good thing.

However, sometimes we can overthink things a bit too much. I work as a web project manager for a web dev't company, and it's a common thing for clients to get hung up on choosing the perfect system... but we don't want you to get stuck there. We want you to move forward and see tangible results!

If you do not yet have a website at all, I would suggest starting with a basic WordPress website with a free theme on your own domain name. This can be done very cheaply -- think less than a couple hundred bucks.

Then you can iterate on top of that, getting a custom design, adding ecommerce to your website, etc.

The most important thing is to get started. Good luck!

[Aminka Ozmun]

Originally Posted by Emini Trading Expert

If you are looking to build your site, I would say focus on the necessities then build from that. Wordpress does have pretty much everything that you need and is very customizable.

One thing you might consider is finding a website that has everything that you are looking for then going to odesk or elance. I have a couple of programmers that I work with on there. Websites run for about $150 - $200. Granted this is using people that are overseas.

I've since adopted WordPress and it's been great! I run all my sites on it, and so far there hasn't been any mission-critical functionality that can't be had with an inexpensive or even free plugin!!

[Aminka Ozmun]

Originally Posted by Thunderkeg

I will recommend you to go for 3DCart or else WordPress.In both you can customize in your own way

I wound up going with WordPress...didn't like being "locked" into one company's "development schedule"...with an open-source offering, there's the feeling that things are happening! It's really interesting; stuff I pay for feels like it's taking forever, if ever, while with stuff that's totally free it's like someone's thinking of just that (a certain feature, whatever), same as me -- if they haven't already thought about it and implemented it long ago!!

[Aminka Ozmun]

You're so right, LauraJane; thanks for the reminder!

I'm a perfectionist oftentimes and so can wind up making things more difficult than need be. Believe it or not, I also work for a web development company (though not in a technical capacity!), so I know what you mean!

I've now taken advice such as yours to heart and am ready to debut my first two sites in another two weeks or so. They will be far from even the halfway decent sites I'd originally envisioned, but they shall have been a good start all the same! As an artist I aim to be "revolutionary" but much of life is evolutionary instead, proceeding by stages....