Setting Up Ecommerce Site - Need Advice!

I am setting up an ecommerce site for a friend selling jewelry. The site will feature perhaps 100 products eventually with different custom options like color, stones, chain types, etc. I need help on the following issues:

1. Shopping Cart. Some have recommended Zen Cart (free) and others have recommended paid carts like Americart. And there are about a couple hundred others. I need something that will allow for options at checkout - will Zen Cart work for this? And with the free Zen Cart, do I need to buy my own Private SSL?

2. Getting an internet merchant account. Is this best done through one's individual bank?

3. Payment Gateway Account. What will work and be secure without breaking my friends bank? Do any of the shopping cart services also provide this service?

4. Hosting. My friend's site will be fairly small volume. Will an inexpensive shared hosting like hostgator.com's $6/mo plan work? I see hostgator has a $15/mo ecommerce plan, but it seems I won't need it if my shopping cart provides Private SSL.

Thanks!

 

Not really sure on 2 and 3 but...

1) Have a loot at Oscommerce and Magento, both are free aswell.

4) For now, as its still small shared hosting will be fine, but depending on how big it gets your friend may have to be prepared to move or upgrade to a new host, or a new hosting package.

 

1.Go for paid shopping cart coz they have more feature and more support incase you face difficulties.You need SSL to make your site more secure.

2 & 3.Just use 2co and paypal as your payment gateway coz both of them is a major player in the field

4.If you have SSL,you need at least 1 dedicated IP.And it not work well with shared hosting.

 

think twice before you start any such project

Its not easy to manage and its not job of one man

i am not discouraging you just keep in mind the recent trends in Industry

Regards

Alex

 

Could you be more specific please?

 

Good luck with your store!

Here is some feedback:

1. there is plenty of shopping carts, see what fits your needs best on the features and customization.. magento ecommerce and x-cart i've heard are good.

2. merchant accounts could be obtained through bank, they will require a credit check for whoever is the one applying, also does the person applying for merchant account have a business established? You would want to process under a business name and through a EIN if in US.

3. most shopping carts would work with a payment gateway and they usually list who they operate with. Be sure to check for compatibility.

4. Hosting varies, SSL could be obtained from your registrar (godaddy for example), usually requires a unique ip for the URL and some Shopping carts make the checkout page secure, which is good for most circumstances.

Research the fees associated... shopping cart, merchant fees (transaction fee, and monthly charges). They can be a lot and if it is a fresh account/business.. you will have to build some relationship before you get best rates for processing.

 

Thanks everyone for the input. I am leaning toward:

1. Shared hosting at HostGator for about $7/mo with domain at web.com
2. Americart Shopping cart
3. 2Checkout and Paypal and possibly Google Checkout too