Hi everyone, hoping you can help me out here...
I am thinking about opening my own store, just to sell my products only. I plan on using Zen cart, and need to know who you would recommend to host my site. My husband suggested GoDaddy. I am also looking at Zen Cart Web Hosting. I want it to be uncomplicated with awesome support
Also, does anyone have experience with selling from your own store vs a store with other designers. How did it compare? I plan on staying in the stores I am at...but wanted to give this a try as well.
TIA!!
Jodi
I've been wondering the same thing for myself in the future!
You are no help!! haha
Hopefull someone will have some answers...
I don't know about selling in a store, so I can't help with that.
But we (my husband and I) do have many websites that we have done for friends and family and we use DreamHost. We have been with them since 2004. They even have one-click automatic install for zencart and wordpress (along with lots of other software). For us, they have been good.
Long ago I used Dreamhost and had no problems with it. I just didn't want to keep paying for it. I have a free host right now and it's working OK, but I'll be going back to paid hosting soon.
As for a personal store... meh. I had one and sold maybe one thing a month. I've done much, much better in a multi-designer, established site. But if you work to establish yourself you can do well, I'm sure! I didn't work very hard on it. I also think customers are more likely to buy from a site they know is established and trustworthy. Not that a personal site isn't, but you never know. And of course, some of those 'established' sites are run by crazy people! lol
I've also had some luck listing things on Etsy. If it's less than 100MB, you can attach your files to the listing and won't have to worry about sending out download links.
Great info ladies, I also asked in the DST forum and almost every single answer was HostGator. They had a good package with great support so I went with it. I have Zen Cart installed also one click to do, and have figured a few things out. I am taking a break from it today and plan on scrathing my head some more tomorrow over it! I do plan on working hard at it to promote myself..we shall see how it woks out
This is probably THE hardest part of running your own store. Since I went back to work I haven't had the time to really spend on promoting my store. It happened all of a sudden and I wasn't expecting to go back to work so quickly, so I was back to work only a couple weeks after setting up my shop on weebly (which is super easy to do too).
I'm using KVC Hosting and they seem to be very good so far. I've been trying to build my store using WordPress and Woocommerce, but I have really only worked on it for a couple hours and it seems pretty easy to set up a store. I have to get it done this weekend though to coincide with the blog train...
Never, never godaddy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/31/bob-parsons-godaddy-ceo-elephant-hunt_n_843121.html