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[rainhero]

Okay I'm hoping I have this in the right place, but if not please just forgive me and move it for me, thanks. I've been asking around about this at different places hoping to find out what will best help me with my current decision and thought I should share it here and hopefully get some amazing strong level-headed advice from you guys. Especially if you already run a business, or make a substantial amount of money online.

I have been mulling over the idea of creating a website geared towards my business for months now, but I'm not sure how to go about it, or if now is even the right time to start.

I have been selling my product online at eBay and Etsy for awhile now, mainly eBay though. At the moment I have redesigned my business cards, and am looking into designing custom packaging for my product as well. I like the fact that eBay and Etsy are well-known marketplace websites so there is always a lot of traffic, but they tend to charge a lot of fees on everything. After awhile it adds up if you have to pay listing fees, commission on sales, and a end of the month fee for all things sold again. I'm tired of all the excess fees and I think perhaps it is about time to make my own website to sell from, and also equip it with Adsense for extra income.

The problem with this is I am not well known in my field yet so I won't have a major following to know that my site is there, and the main problem is I don't know anything about coding or building an ecommerce website. So that brought me to thinking I should use a middleman like Wix or Shopify, but websites like those don't really seem to work with adding Adsense to my knowledge and I am not completely sure which would be the best fit for me as far as having to pay a monthly fee for hosting, adding adsense, and still having the website design I want with the style I am going for.

I tried to go the way of Fiverr and see if someone would make me a website/blog with ecommerce, but the guy who said he would make one with everything like SEO optimization etc for $5 came back and said that it would be an additional $65 after I purchased the gig, which I canceled.

So will someone please tell me what my best course of action is at the moment? I am really new to all of this, but it is my dream to run this business and I don't want to give up without giving it my best shot. I just need a lot of guidance.

 

[suresh]

Building an Ecommerce site is not hard as you can see their are so many open source scripts that can be made into best Ecommerce site. I have made one shopping store using Prestashop and really it made me excellent.
I would like to help you, if you get a sample site that you want to design. You have to invest some money into this as it is the first important thing to run a business.

again let me know your budget and the niche of your Ecommerce store.

 

[rainhero]

Thanks @suresh ! I could use all of the help I can get, I really appreciate you giving me some tips and advice. I actually hadn't figured out how much of a budget I wanted to spend on creating the website yet. I don't have chunks to blow as far as funds are concerned, but I do want a website that is easy to run, but stylish. I wanted a shopping store, but also a page dedicated to blogging there as well that way I can add my adsense account to it and make a little extra income.

The niche I am in is Miniature Dollhouse Food Collectibles and Food Jewelry. All of the miniatures are in 1:12 scale which means 1" inch per 1 foot of the size of the item I am making the replica in. Most things come out to be about 1" inch to 2" inches high. The business cards that someone designed for me showcase some of my work so here is an image of it to give you an idea. I removed the personal info already.



As of lately I haven't been selling an entire lot, but I think it's because I don't have very much in my shops recently because of all the fees for listing. Plus I need to retake all of my photographs with a white background so everything will look more uniform. I used to take pictures using different backdrops and it made my shop look like a mess.

 

[loliveroliver]

Okay I'm hoping I have this in the right place, but if not please just forgive me and move it for me, thanks. I've been asking around about this at different places hoping to find out what will best help me with my current decision and thought I should share it here and hopefully get some amazing strong level-headed advice from you guys. Especially if you already run a business, or make a substantial amount of money online.

I have been mulling over the idea of creating a website geared towards my business for months now, but I'm not sure how to go about it, or if now is even the right time to start.

I have been selling my product online at eBay and Etsy for awhile now, mainly eBay though. At the moment I have redesigned my business cards, and am looking into designing custom packaging for my product as well. I like the fact that eBay and Etsy are well-known marketplace websites so there is always a lot of traffic, but they tend to charge a lot of fees on everything. After awhile it adds up if you have to pay listing fees, commission on sales, and a end of the month fee for all things sold again. I'm tired of all the excess fees and I think perhaps it is about time to make my own website to sell from, and also equip it with Adsense for extra income.

The problem with this is I am not well known in my field yet so I won't have a major following to know that my site is there, and the main problem is I don't know anything about coding or building an ecommerce website. So that brought me to thinking I should use a middleman like Wix or Shopify, but websites like those don't really seem to work with adding Adsense to my knowledge and I am not completely sure which would be the best fit for me as far as having to pay a monthly fee for hosting, adding adsense, and still having the website design I want with the style I am going for.

I tried to go the way of Fiverr and see if someone would make me a website/blog with ecommerce, but the guy who said he would make one with everything like SEO optimization etc for $5 came back and said that it would be an additional $65 after I purchased the gig, which I canceled.

So will someone please tell me what my best course of action is at the moment? I am really new to all of this, but it is my dream to run this business and I don't want to give up without giving it my best shot. I just need a lot of guidance.

Hello,

perhaps it would be good if you told us something about your business? Where do you sell besides Etsy and Ebay? What would you like to have on the website?

A blog? Forum? Just your products? Do you wish to simply make money selling your products, or do you wish to earn on ads as well?

All of this will be a factor in deciding what would be the better option for your business.

Kind regards,

Oliver

 

[xTinx]

Since you've been selling stuff at Etsy and Ebay for some time now, it would be more convenient if you really build your own site and give your business additional legitimacy. Regardless of the nature of your business, you have to take careful note of the following before putting up a website:

1. How much are you willing to invest? Do you want it free or do you want it hosted elsewhere with your own personal domain?
2. Having HTML & CSS skills would spare you the cost of hiring a web designer. However, if you're willing to pay for web design services, then it's your call.
3. A website can produce additional sources of income once it receives sufficient traffic so building one furthers your revenue generation.
4. Leave no stone unturned. It doesn't hurt to have secondary websites to support your main online store.

Good luck with your website!

 

[vinaya]

Get a domain host your domain install eCommerce software (shopify for instance) and run your you selling business. Alternatively, you can also use Content Management System like wordpress and integrate e commerce plugin such as woocommerce You can also link your ebay and etsy account with your website. If you can also work as ebay partner on your website

 

[rainhero]

This is going to be a long post, lol. I'm going to answer everyone's questions as best as possible without trying to quote each post so bare with me.

Hi! @loliveroliver Okay, my business is selling 1:12 scale replicas of food for dollhouses and collectors of dollhouse and miniature items. 1:12 scale is a traditional scale (ratio) for models and miniatures, in which 12 units (such as inches or centimeters) on the original is represented by one unit on the model. So mostly everything is about 1" in size to about 3" at the most for me so far.

I sell these as dollhouse miniatures, collectibles, charms, and also food jewelry. Lately I have been doing a few custom orders as well, taking the image I am sent and making it 1:12 scale. All of my items are made out of polymer clay which has to be baked to become hard.

Besides eBay and Etsy, I have just started selling on Fiverr.

On my website I was hoping to have a blog so that I can interact with customers, I can just talk about everyday life as a miniaturist, and even just post my thoughts on things that happen throughout my week that might be of some interest or even help to someone else. I used to run about 3 forums in the past, not all at once though, and I only knew just a little about editing code. Mostly everything ran on a template that I just had to edit or refer to an FAQ that would tell me how to make modifications on whatever I was hoping to do. I also enlisted the help of others by recruiting other people in the same fandom as mine, to make graphics, or who know more about coding than I did.

I really did want to make money off of more than just selling my items, hence why I also started my youtube channel making tutorials and doing unboxings. I wanted to attach my adsense account to my website so that I could hopefully generate income that way as well.


@xTinx As of right now my funds aren't super amazing that I can put hundreds of dollars into building one, so I'm not exactly sure how much I would like to invest into it. I wanted to have my own domain name because I do think that it's easier for fans of my work and customers to find me without a hassle, and I think also professionally linking my name to a website ending in ".com" would be better than sending them someplace they may not remember without having it bookmarked like "sitename.here.this.com" you know.

Yes I totally agree with this, and I know it would really help me out cost-wise in the long run, but I have tried too many times to learn it and I just can't do it. My father always says you should never say the word can't because with effort you can do anything, but this is something I just have a tough time with. I have tried on numerous ocassions to learn and read up on it, but for some reason it just won't get through to my brain. So if I can't use a template that is easily editable with basic functions I will have to enlist the help of an expert.


@Vinaya I had been thinking about looking into shopify, but as of right now I still haven't searched it out yet. I was looking more towards a different content management system than wordpress because in the past I tried to work with them and it was a disaster. I haven't looked into it lately though so it's worth a shot to give everything a proper look nowadays.

Thank you all so much for your advice and input on this. I really appreciate all and any help with figuring this out and choosing my best option for the future.

 

[xTinx]

@xTinx As of right now my funds aren't super amazing that I can put hundreds of dollars into building one, so I'm not exactly sure how much I would like to invest into it. I wanted to have my own domain name because I do think that it's easier for fans of my work and customers to find me without a hassle, and I think also professionally linking my name to a website ending in ".com" would be better than sending them someplace they may not remember without having it bookmarked like "sitename.here.this.com" you know.

Yes I totally agree with this, and I know it would really help me out cost-wise in the long run, but I have tried too many times to learn it and I just can't do it. My father always says you should never say the word can't because with effort you can do anything, but this is something I just have a tough time with. I have tried on numerous ocassions to learn and read up on it, but for some reason it just won't get through to my brain. So if I can't use a template that is easily editable with basic functions I will have to enlist the help of an expert.

Just do it at your own time and pace so that you don't burn out. Plan it carefully, one day at a time, little by little, step by step. By the way, I found this site http://www.freenom.com/en/index.html?lang=en and they're offering free domains. I'm not sure if it's .com, though. With the right SEO strategies, it might not even matter if your site is .com or not. Good luck! Don't give up. You'll be able to complete this project before you know it.

 

[Host4Biz]

I think Wix could be a good option to get started. But they do not offer full functionality over the long run and perhaps you will have to redesign the site in the future and from this point that could not be really good as for your SEO.
So better start with web application you aware with and with developers which willl be able to help you.

 

[Ranamal]

No doubt the best website builder is Wix you can try it and create one very easily and it has the best templates to customize our site, go for it

 

[Flower]

Well, it's good that we have couple of experienced e commerce members on the forum . I don't really have an idea but I will follow the comments closely to learn.

 

[AlexHost.com]

The best way to start website or blog, is always LOOK professional. Free blogs shows you don't care about long term. It gives users impression that is not a serious project.

You can find Web Hosting Shared for only 10€ yearly to start your own blog!
https://alexhost.com/shared-hosting/
Is not expensive, actually Web Hosting Shared for 10€ yearly is very cheap!

In my opinion if you look to have your own store, you can't go with free wix or shopify... unless you buy a domain, and if you use free domain, no one will buy from you.

 

[ChizzyWrites]

Why not source the help of experts to help you build one. There are lots of good website creators on different freelancing platforms like upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer. I am sure you will get help there with a little token.

 

[Balint098]

Buy a domain name related to your niche or brand, buy a good hosting, build your website, create content, drive traffic, profit.

 

[ELSA-ELI]

Would have loved wether this was a success story for the person who wanted to create their own site.

I would also agree that an ecommerce website was the way to go looking at the magnitude of the features needed on the website.

 

[Balint098]

First of all, what kind of website and niche you want to target? If you want to build eCommerce website then go with Shopify or WooCommerce, otherwise try WordPress as CMS.

 

[Lobardi]

Shopify is good if you want to set up an ecommerce store and don't feel the need for specifics or have any fixed requirements along with doing drop shipping for your business while the best option is to have a custom store because it allows you to rank better in google for keywords and have good number of sales as well in the meantime

 

[Balint098]

Depends on what kind of website you want to create. If you want to create an online store, then go with shopify. Wix is more for blogging. WordPress is better for all kinds of sites, especially with the additions of plugins, and is very flexible to work with.

 

[Ivanr01]

You can set up almost every type of website on the WordPress. Shopify is a good service as well but that's costly for the starters and you might not be able to get a hang of that in your early days do its better to go for WordPress or low cost solutions actually

 

[Jolito]

I am only going to advise you to study a website in shopify if you want to start a business or e-commerce website. I will generally prefer that you should go for WordPress if you want to create a general said something like a blogging site or a cryptocurrency site. They have a larger community and better resources to take care of your needs.