Hello everyone. I currently have an e-commerce site that's getting old and looking dated. It was designed (and hosted) by someone I hired almost 15 years ago. I know I'm way overpaying for monthly fees and would like to get away from this company due to their lack luster customer service. I sell health books only, and although the health book market was very good at one time, sales today are only a tiny fraction of what they once were. I don't want to close the website -just narrow it down to maybe the top 100 or so best sellers. I have a graphic design background and I've taught myself some basic HTML. My question is: why do I need a typical e-commerce approach to redoing my website (ie: Magento, OsCommerce etc)? I've spent the last few days studying e-commerce templates and have come to the conclusion that they are basic "overkill." To this day, I have no idea what a "wish list" or a "compare products" link is supposed to accomplish. And I'm supposedly in the business! I would really appreciate any feedback along these thoughts. Thanks.
If you mean eCommerce where customers can order online, HTML is not enough. If you mean eCommerce where your customers contact you by phone, email, etc, to order then HTML will work just fine. My website is of the second type and for the last 5 years has been doing just fine with just HTML and JS. Of course, my products do not lend themselves to online ordering, so I must have the personal customer contacts for the sales.
If your site is going to collect and save information from people, it can't be done in just HTML. It would need a server-side application to run the store (like the ones you mentioned) and a database to save everything in. The cost of hosting shouldn't be overwhelming though, maybe about $100/year for a basic plan.
EVERYWEBISTE IS MADE WITH HTML AND CSS but not every website needs a programming / backend language like PHP, SQL, ASP.NET, etc. With that said it depends. Are you looking to have a login system, a shopping cart, a form to submit stuff to, are you saving information of the user, are you going have a static front-end (same products, minor modifications) or a dynamic back-end (you submit a form, server pulls products, etc. easily), etc. there are a ton of questions you need to ask yourself. If you don't want to do any of that, and just want to have some HTML pages that you customize yourself and than put a "buy now" PayPal link at the bottom - than YES it can. I wouldn't call this an eCommerce site, but hell you are selling stuff so I guess it would count. If you are looking for any of the above, than no. But, there are TONS of free solutions out there of pre-made shopping carts that you can just customize the look via HTML and CSS - if that is what you were going for.
HTML is not enough... But for better work i'd advise you this service service: http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/show.php?catid=3&category=ecommerce
If your selling a single book basic HTML and paypal will suffice. If you have multiple items use an open source cms and an ecommerce plugin.
It has been enough for me for over 14 YEARS. Depending on his products, it COULD be enough for him. Most likely is not enough as most eCommerce products work best with backend server support.