The worst day of my life.

It sounds from what you're saying that you're using an 'all in one' package for your website, a few companies offer a service where you get the basic content management system, hosting and domain for a monthly fee.
If this is the case i would agree with your IT consultant, you can get decent hosting your self fairly easily and can get the web designer to upload the files for you, so you don't need specialist knowledge of how to do this.

There are many hosting companies you can use, at the moment I'm using www.unitedhosting.co.uk, they aren't expensive but they're reliable and the customer service is excellent. Don't be fooled by the cheaper hosting options because they generally backfire on you.

As for the actual website design, you're probably better going for a smaller company that specialises in the type of site you need, because larger companies generally charge more just because they're used to big orders. Its tricky.

Best of luck, let me know if you need anything.

- Dan
www.quicksilvercreations.com

Hi Kat,

By all means send it over, if you can include a link to your site also that would be great, i can't remember what your url is.

Zen Cart has a good repuation as an e-commerce system, I use OS commerce but it has a lot of issues that need fixing on each install, not to mention the add-ons you can (and may have to) download depending on what extra features you want, its not the best choice if you're not a PHP programmer ;)

- Dan

Hi Kat, we got our domain name back in February and have only just got the site up. It is not the agreed design or anything else but at last there is something there. Take heart there is always someone worse off - that never helps does it? I think I may take up Lee's advice and have a look at zen cart.

Be slightly cautious when people say better designed websites will generate more traffic and sales.

I think i have said this before but will say again...

A website is like opening up a shop in the middle of nowhere... It is unlikely you will get any passing traffic as no one knows where you are. Even if your shop looks great, has a huge expensive neon sign etc still with no one walking past the window, you will have no customers.... changing the inside of the shop will still make no difference.

Now if you add your shop to search engines etc and all that, and the keywords are right then google and the likes will slowly start to pick up your site. (this can take upto 6 months). Then there is a chance is people are looking for what you sell they may come across your shop. If you sell specialist products it's more likely people will find you. If you are selling something generic then there is pretty much no chance...

Again back to our shop in the real world. If you happen to be say a shop selling say dolls houses, and you ask in the nearest town if anyone knows where to buy a dolls house then the chances are people may have heard of you and will send them in your direction, or if they look in yellow pages you will be the only one listed.
If you asked someone in the street for where you can buy a mars bar then they will prob point you at the large supermarket...

The days when you can just launch a website and expect customers are long gone... I would argue it is probably easier and possibly cheaper to get customers to a high street shop now than online.

You have to think how will people find you and where you are going to advertise. What will make them want to buy from me and how am i different to others offering similar things.

If you take Fantasticals, he is selling very unique products not necessarily available elsewhere, so the chances are people are looking in google for wooden toys etc. and with a well designed site his site will come up. If her were selling say lego, then he will be amongst hundreds of not thousands of similar sites.

As for better designed sites giving more sales, this is more down to once you have traffic then you can look at the point of which people exit. Say you have 1000 people looking a day and only 5 buy, then there is some work to be done, both in looking if they are the right type of visitors and why they are not buying.

If you have only 5 visiting then there is little you can do.

Final words...

Have a look at hosted shopping carts - www.ekmpowershop.co.uk and www.bluepark.co.uk with these you pay a fixed monthly fee and you get a reliable, very well tested, ecommerce platform. Easy to use, no hassle or worries, and features that have been tested by hundreds of customers. They search well, have plugins for all ecommerce platforms and trust me... are a lot cheaper and less hassle than doing it yourself. If you want the site to look a bit less templatey then they or anyone else can customise the site. In my day job i manage the e-commerce sites for a Global PLC and we have spent in excess of 6 figures to get sites that don't offer half of what the likes of EKM and BluePark offer. (We just can't use them due to the unique requirements of the products we sell, but i do use them for Funky Puffin and have never looked back).

hope this helps

A

www.funkypuffin.com