set up a website or pay someone???

i want to sell things on a website, dont really know much about designing one, saw an advertisement for a design for $197 (aus) inc shop cart.
I have checked out everything you get with it, and other ones they have designed, looks very good

What i want to know, is does this sound like a good price, is it better to get a web designer to do it

Also do you have to pay for web hosting each year, and what exactly is it ?

And do you have to pay for a domain name, and every year?

the company offers these services too, $144 for web hosting a year.

thanks
tracy

 

If your budget is very flexible i would suggest hire a designer to make a unique shop design, get a coder to code it for you, and host it.

Yes you have to pay for domain+hosting every year, though many web hosts can be paid monthly, but paying onetime annually brings in peace of mind and sometimes discounts also.

If if you are in the mood of not-to-spend-as-much and more of a do-it-yourself person i would suggest few links

For hosting - http://www.thiswebhost.com/order.html [the first plan would do good for your single website.]

For the site i would suggest you use Wordpress. And watch this video to see how to make yourself a Ecommerce shop site within few minutes with a free wordpress plugin.

That free plugin is this E-commerce - http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/

And good thing is there is also a free theme, readymade to work like a shop with this plugin, take a look http://shoppingthemes.com/demo/

So with some customization, you can have a fully working, minimal, yet clean looking online shop for no cost apart from hosting. If you have specific coding doubts u know where to ask for help

 

You could look at hosted shopping carts like:
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/.

 

I would suggest that you choose an open-source content management system (CMS) yourself. There are many options for e-commerce; do your research and pick one. Open-source solutions are great because they're free to use.

Then you should hire a web designer to design the site (stating the CMS you're going to use so that he or she is aware of the design limitations), after which you should hire a web developer to code the theme and install the system for you. Hiring professionals may cost more initially, but it would be beneficial to your business in the long run (as opposed to trying to build the website on your own).

 

You could use a Content management system and then have somebody design the website for you and then install the new design. There are many Content management systems that provide the shopping cart functionality which is free to use. I would strongly recommend wordpress.org.

 

I think you should go with a web designer, coz they provide exactly what you need!

 

Wordpress is only a good choice for blogs and magazine and such. For a website to sell things I recommend Joomla. I do Joomla designs. PM me if you need a design.