Posted by David Segall on 06/01/06 15:32

"verity" <verity.gray@mac.com> wrote:

>
>David Segall wrote:
>> "Violet" <verity.gray@mac.com> wrote:
>>
>> >I'm supposed to be starting up my on-line business in October and I
>> >haven't written any pages yet.
>> >I've made a non-commercial site in the past with 'FrontPage' but this
>> >has to look professional & deal with orders & payments.
>> If "deal with orders and payments" means a shopping cart as in most
>> commercial web sites you _cannot_ write this yourself by October. Find
>> a hosting company that offers this facility and use their web design
>> tools to customize your site.
>>
>> HTML is not sufficient for writing the code on the server required to
>> process orders and payments. I like Dreamweaver for writing HTML but
>> that won't help with the server-side processing.
>
>I think I understand that, you were very clear. I might put it off till
>next year but I shouldn't really because the orders will have a
>seasonal pattern.
>
>Not sure I actually need a shopping cart;
>think I will go for contact by answerphone, fax or email; so would I
>need a shopping cart?
No. You can finish that before October. If you are satisfied with a
simple page like mine <http://profectus.com.au/contact.html>, with
some instructions for payment, then go for it. Once you need any
processing on the server there is a huge leap in complexity.

I suggest you pick a design from <http://www.oswd.org/> because it is
easier to change an existing site than start from a blank page. To
make your life easier when you come back here to ask for advice choose
"yes" in the CSS drop-down on the advanced search page :). You can
download a free thirty day trial of Dreamweaver from
<http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=dreamweaver> so
you can compare it with the HTML editor your tutor recommends.
>Or is it best to do that so I can readily expand - "think big!"
I won't answer that. I have run a one-person business for many years!
>
>I won't be having that many products to start with, mostly stuff I am
>designing & manufactoring myself. I already have a lot of the stuff
>I've designed and used, when I wanted to sell it via a similar site, I
>was appalled at how much commission they wanted just for advertising &
>processing orders.
>For other reasons also, I thought, start small in a small but not
>crowded niche & who knows? :-)
Do it and do it this year. Good luck.

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