[fine69]

While this might not really be just domain name based information that I'm asking for, posting it here nonetheless.

My wife runs an ethnic clothes manufacturing unit and we started using facebook as a medium to market ourselves.The number of "likes" the page gets is increasing slowly but gradually.

I wanted to know if its better to get my own domain name, I mean it does make the brand a little more professional. So here are my requirements, let me know the best & cheapest way to achieve this:
1. I would definitely like a website and have it hosted.
2. I would want to put photographs of our collection and would want access to upload new pictures as and when we make new garments.
3. To be able to "easily" make changes on the website, like defining new categories, moving items within categories, listing/modifying price etc.

Lastly, how much does a payment gateway on a website cost?

[klassics45]

Originally Posted by fine69

1. I would definitely like a website and have it hosted.
2. I would want to put photographs of our collection and would want access to upload new pictures as and when we make new garments.
3. To be able to "easily" make changes on the website, like defining new categories, moving items within categories, listing/modifying price etc.

Lastly, how much does a payment gateway on a website cost?

1. Definitely need a website if you want increase the value of your brand.
2 & 3. It depends on the level of your expertise in understanding these CMS tools. You can set a simple website with shopping cart with wordpress. or get a better website done with ecommerce tools like prestashop.

For payment gateway, you can try instamojo, its a new startup group from bangalore and they have a very friendly setup. Other big groups like CCavenue, EBS or payzippy are available. I think, all gateways take a % for each transaction.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by fine69

I wanted to know if its better to get my own domain name, I mean it does make the brand a little more professional. So here are my requirements, let me know the best & cheapest way to achieve this:

I would suggest that you create a Blog and tie that with your domain name. Look and feel of the blog should be professional. Example in similar business:

http://anabeliahandmade.blogspot.in/

Cost of domain name : ~500 per year
Cost of Blog hosting : 0
Cost of Graphic designer to prepare theme : Free to Few lakhs for good agencies

How to use your own domain name with Blog:

https://support.google.com/blogger/t.../1233381?hl=en

Originally Posted by fine69

Lastly, how much does a payment gateway on a website cost?

This would cost you upfront setup + ~10% commission per transaction for low volumes. Higher volumes will bring down cost to ~2 - 5% (E.g.: Amex 5%, Netbanking 2%).

[fine69]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

I would suggest that you create a Blog and tie that with your domain name. Look and feel of the blog should be professional.

You're suggesting I create a blog simply because then I wouldn't have to pay hosting fees and can work with just a registered domain name?

Honestly I tried creating blogs earlier but my zero HTML knowledge made the blog look ridiculous because I could only use the not so good readymade templates. I'm sure there must've been a lot of development in this area since I last tried it about 3-4 years ago so any pointers that require least knowledge of HTML or anything related would be helpful.

However, wouldn't blog mean that my website would actually be a blog instead of a flipkart like e-store?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by fine69

You're suggesting I create a blog simply because then I wouldn't have to pay hosting fees and can work with just a registered domain name?

Hosting fees is not a concern (There are good options starting from ~1500 a year). Work required in getting it up and running + keeping it free of spam + p*rn is significant.

Primary aim is to reduce "IT" work as much as possible and focus on business end. Blog / CMS / e-store etc are means to this end.

Business issues like how to communicate, which product to highlight, keep facebook etsy / pinterest channels alive.

With Blog, you can decide on these things and write a post with Nice Picture + teaser to post on facebook (and pull users to your site for more).

For users, you Blog should look like a professional site.

Originally Posted by fine69

Honestly I tried creating blogs earlier but my zero HTML knowledge made the blog look ridiculous because I could only use the not so good readymade templates.

Even before crating one with html, try to look for others doing similar things.(Etsy/ pinterest are good places to begin)

Once you have a "communication" bit figured out (E.g.: Site that I mentioned in previous post highlights certain product categories), shop for someone who can design the theme for you.

Originally Posted by fine69

However, wouldn't blog mean that my website would actually be a blog instead of a flipkart like e-store?

Ideal way is to have both.

1. Site (Blog or otherwise)
2. Flipkat/Amazon et. el. for actual sale

If it is an off-beat item, user might not search for it on Flipkart.

Building something of your own will cost a lot of money.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by fine69

1. I would definitely like a website and have it hosted.
2. I would want to put photographs of our collection and would want access to upload new pictures as and when we make new garments.
3. To be able to "easily" make changes on the website, like defining new categories, moving items within categories, listing/modifying price etc.

Lastly, how much does a payment gateway on a website cost?

First you would need to buy a domain name. Its about 600rs/800rs per year. Namecheap is a good registrar I recommend.

Now it comes to hosting.
Hosting is broadly of 3 types

1. Un-managed VPS
Here you get a server (virtual or full depending upon capacity requirements) and internet connection to the server. You have to setup control panels, software blah blah blah. So if you are a system admin, you can go there. Cost starts at about 100$/year for a decent package
2. Managed hosting
Here you get a "hosting account" with X GB of space and X GB of bandwidth. You get a control panel, where you can easily setup your domains following instructions, create accounts (eg ceo@fine69.com, cfo@fine69.com, masterji@fine69.com). You can also arrange to have email forwarded to your account in gmail or whatever.
Some technical expertise is required(eg how to make a wordpress site)
Cost is about 5$/month
3. Fully managed hosting
Here you approach a web design company, pay them some 10,000-15000rs. They design your site, and then there is a maintenance and support charge.


My recommendation.
Get a managed hosting package. Then hire somebody to do wordpress design for you. You will find many freelancers willing to set it all up for 4000-5000rs. Its trivial.

You can look at upwork, hasgeek etc., for people who can do this for you.

Now lets come to the selling part. Here, rather than a payment gateway on your site, sell through amazon etc., They will take 10-11% as fees, but you get a much wider audience. If you have a niche but dedicated audience you go your own site payment gateway and shopping cart route. But if you want to expand big, go for amazon etc.,

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Get a managed hosting package. Then hire somebody to do wordpress design for you. You will find many freelancers willing to set it all up for 4000-5000rs. Its trivial.

Getting such a solution up and running is trivial, keeping it running is not (Wordpress version upgrades, Template upgrades required by newer versions etc).

It easily becomes a part time job to keep up with spammers and those injecting content surreptitiously by mass scanning Wordpress sites for vulnerable versions.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Getting such a solution up and running is trivial, keeping it running is not (Wordpress version upgrades, Template upgrades required by newer versions etc).

It easily becomes a part time job to keep up with spammers and those injecting content surreptitiously by mass scanning Wordpress sites for vulnerable versions.

That costs about 1000-2000 a month. Even less if you are not the kind who wants all kinds of templates and the latest shiny.
That said, its the cost of doing business. I do not think any business will mind paying such a maintenance fee over and above the the hosting fee.

That said, if he goes the amazon way, and does not integrate shopping card etc., and keeps site as a live updating information blog about products, fashion etc., there is not much to worry about.

There is no customer data with you, and weekly backups will enable you to delete everything and restart if there is compromise. That of course means giving 10-11% of the sale price to Amazon.com etc.,

[rajeshsundaram]

Originally Posted by fine69

While this might not really be just domain name based information that I'm asking for, posting it here nonetheless.

My wife runs an ethnic clothes manufacturing unit and we started using facebook as a medium to market ourselves.The number of "likes" the page gets is increasing slowly but gradually.

I wanted to know if its better to get my own domain name, I mean it does make the brand a little more professional. So here are my requirements, let me know the best & cheapest way to achieve this:
1. I would definitely like a website and have it hosted.
2. I would want to put photographs of our collection and would want access to upload new pictures as and when we make new garments.
3. To be able to "easily" make changes on the website, like defining new categories, moving items within categories, listing/modifying price etc.

Lastly, how much does a payment gateway on a website cost?

Mostly with e-commerce solutions you get what you pay for.

Try shopify.in which is known to offer better packaged solutions. But they are not cheap. Their PROFESSIONAL edition costs Rs.5k / month which gives a better packaged ecommerce solution.

To give you some background of the real-life problems you may face .. read below


Decide who will be managing (design updates, coding, domain, hosting etc) the website? You or a Web Design Company?

Web Design Company
Many business owners generally do this - Hire a Web Design company to host a website, integrate shopping cart and sign a AMC to run the website. This is ideally peaceful solution given that your interaction with the website is - just managing the categories, following up orders, changing some contents etc. The AMC will take care of website uptime, downtime, design, layout, technical issues. The cost may be higher but in the long run this will prove to be the easier thing. You can concentrate on your business instead of breaking your head with the ever changing nitty gritties of the website trends.

The problems arise only when that web design company runs out of business. So to avoid running into dead-ends, ensure you too have a master access to domain control and hosting server. In case if you are not satisfied with their service, you can switch to another easily with the master access. Everything must be included in the agreement. Always book the domain in your name and address.

[or]

You
If you decide to do everything yourself - you need to have a lot of time dedicated during the initial period of the website. And then you need to know a lot of things or have atleast one or two web design guys to assist you to launch the website and keep it running. This is a total-control mode, cost-effective. But this will prove a tedious job if you do not know anything about managing an e-commerce site.

Many people will tell you that hosting a website is easy - Just buy a hosting package, book a domain, install Zencart or just tie-up with Shopify to start. All those things will work fine, but only with the default settings. The moment you try to customize things you will run into problems. So you must have good knowledge about the code (html, css, js) and to a larger extent - php or asp.

This may not cover the entire spectrum of ecommerce story. But should give you some clarity.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

That costs about 1000-2000 a month. Even less if you are not the kind who wants all kinds of templates and the latest shiny.
That said, its the cost of doing business. I do not think any business will mind paying such a maintenance fee over and above the the hosting fee.

That would be 12- 24k a year.

From Business point of view, it might be better to pay that 12k - 24k to a good designer and spend nothing on hosting.

Site / Blog can be hosted on Google / Microsoft / Yahoo platform that is free and takes care of all IT issues like security / backup / spam / integration of comments with facebook + quora + pinterest.

[coolclouds]

Hi !

I'm trying to create a 3 or 4 page website for a product. I already registered the domain name and has a hosting package which I bought for another site. This package allows one more site hosting and trying to use that. Its mainly a product brochure and no database required.

Have created websites long time back using Front Page and other tools available those days but no idea about latest tools.

What are the easy to use tools available online for designing sites? I am Ok with paid services to avoid unwanted advertisements.

Thank you!

[fine69]

Thanks for your inputs guys. I read upon the subject a little and I think I need to share with all that I really don't have ANY time managing the website, except weekends where I'd only like to upload photos and prices.

The kind of garments we make are not really the ones that sell online that much. The range is 10k onwards and there's a very rare breed of women who'd be willing to spend this kind of money without really checking out the stuff in person. So having a gateway was just a thought but if there's significant upfront cost then maybe I'd skip.

I used etsy a little while ago and got a showroom owner from Boston through etsy so for me I think running a blog makes more sense. Tie it up with facebook and spend my time marketing my stuff, probably direct them to etsy or ebay if they wish to purchase something. Using etsy for selling and facebook/blog for marketing makes more sense to my kind of business, what do you guys think?

EDIT: While the ultimate goal is to sell, but then primarily I wish to market myself so having an e-store might not be that wise a decision. A regular blog with good photos and some write-up makes sense I think. So pointers for blog templates or anything else that I need to know?

[hserus]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Getting such a solution up and running is trivial, keeping it running is not (Wordpress version upgrades, Template upgrades required by newer versions etc).

It easily becomes a part time job to keep up with spammers and those injecting content surreptitiously by mass scanning Wordpress sites for vulnerable versions.

Too true. I think I lost count a long time back of the number of phishing sites hosted on hacked wp installs - either not updated or because of poorly designed plugins.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by coolclouds

I'm trying to create a 3 or 4 page website for a product.

Have a look at Blogger.com . It is a Google property, so they take care of Hosting / Security etc.

Advantage:

1. Completely Ad free
2. Easy to update/ Modify
3. You can pay someone to create a theme specific to your product if required.
4. Free
5. Paid option once you hit the limits

Originally Posted by fine69

Thanks for your inputs guys. I read upon the subject a little and I think I need to share with all that I really don't have ANY time managing the website, except weekends where I'd only like to upload photos and prices.

I think "completely hands-off" kind of package would work for you where you do not have to worry about site at all.

Blogger.com / Google sites / Azure Web App are all free and fit the need.

Ideally, budget for 50k - 1 lakh for a good designer to setup the theme once. You can find pretty good free ones as well.

[joe1980]

For almost a year, I hosted my web app that I build using Play / Scala / MongoDB that served online exams, my blogs, photos. I used a free template from (http://www.styleshout.com/). I finally had to give up as it was getting expensive for me to pay it every month.

I'm now willing to get my app back online. Could anyone suggest me some good JVM hosting providers? I would need a minimum of 4 GB RAM to support my app! Any suggestions welcome!