I want to start a website, know nothing about it. Help! 0

[dupont2005]

My advice is if your willing to devote yourself fulltime into building it, your taking on a lot of labor and expense that may or not pay off within two years. I'm assuming your competing against Ebay with there costs vs sales ratio. If you want to do it part time, I recommend against it.

I do not want to spend the time building, but would update it.

 

I sell quite a bit on Ebay, but for books that are not key or UHG, it makes more sense financially to start a site. Even though I do good business with Ebay, I would like to have a good avenue for back issues, and also an easier to navigate system then scrolling through items for sale.

It makes sense for an active eBay seller. I remember when sellers would have a link to their off eBay store in their listings. Is that still allowed? I've looked at a handful in the past.

[Topnotchman]

My advice is if your willing to devote yourself fulltime into building it, your taking on a lot of labor and expense that may or not pay off within two years. I'm assuming your competing against Ebay with there costs vs sales ratio. If you want to do it part time, I recommend against it.

I do not want to spend the time building, but would update it.

 

I sell quite a bit on Ebay, but for books that are not key or UHG, it makes more sense financially to start a site. Even though I do good business with Ebay, I would like to have a good avenue for back issues, and also an easier to navigate system then scrolling through items for sale.

 

I would start an account on Amazon or Comic collector live for those types of books, you don't have to scan and your better off selling on a site with traffic, vs creating an island on your own and trying to bring the boat to you.

[Topnotchman]

My advice is if your willing to devote yourself fulltime into building it, your taking on a lot of labor and expense that may or not pay off within two years. I'm assuming your competing against Ebay with there costs vs sales ratio. If you want to do it part time, I recommend against it.

I do not want to spend the time building, but would update it.

 

I sell quite a bit on Ebay, but for books that are not key or UHG, it makes more sense financially to start a site. Even though I do good business with Ebay, I would like to have a good avenue for back issues, and also an easier to navigate system then scrolling through items for sale.

It makes sense for an active eBay seller. I remember when sellers would have a link to their off eBay store in their listings. Is that still allowed? I've looked at a handful in the past.

 

They banned direct links to sites around the year 2001. I remember removing it from my listings.

[CBT]

the stuff you want to do is very straight forward and boiler plate. Paying 100s or 1000s of dollars is far to much. The only issue with having your own site, is getting customers to actually see it/go to it. If you have an established base, just want to provide them a different method of purchasing from you, take the time to figure out exactly what you need (as most have said), and try to minimize or remove the cost of each.

 

You will have to have costs:

 

yearly for the URL/domain.

monthly for the company hosting the server.

 

 

beyond that just to be able to upload scans with a price and a link to your paypal. With the amount of cookie cutter solutions that exist nowadays. You are talking an afternoons work MAX for someone that knows what they are doing. A couple days if you are going to run a full on shopping cart and test it properly.

 

Using a CMS (content management system aka Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, etc), a free basic theme, and creating a content type (comic book with picture and paypal link), really is barely more than a hello world example. Just don't pay someone a fortune for it, you really dont need to.

Edited June 30, 2014 by CBT

[fastballspecial]

the stuff you want to do is very straight forward and boiler plate. Paying 100s or 1000s of dollars is far to much. The only issue with having your own site, is getting customers to actually see it/go to it. If you have an established base, just want to provide them a different method of purchasing from you, take the time to figure out exactly what you need (as most have said), and try to minimize or remove the cost of each.

 

You will have to have costs:

 

yearly for the URL/domain.

monthly for the company hosting the server.

 

 

beyond that just to be able to upload scans with a price and a link to your paypal. With the amount of cookie cutter solutions that exist nowadays. You are talking an afternoons work MAX for someone that knows what they are doing. A couple days if you are going to run a full on shopping cart and test it properly.

 

Using a CMS (content management system aka Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, etc), a free basic theme, and creating a content type (comic book with picture and paypal link), really is barely more than a hello world example. Just don't pay someone a fortune for it, you really dont need to.

 

What he said above is all true.

 

Its all do-able you just have to have the time and drive to want to learn and update your site.

 

It comes down to a cost vs time argument for your common books. CCL is also a great choice for that because you only have to grade your books not scan them.

 

Think of it like this. If you put 500 books on CCL and they charge you 10% of your sales. (Guessing) Or pay someone 100s of $$ to make you a site that would really be overkill unless you are wanting to be MyComicshop.For me that choice is easy.

 

Now the last question you need to ask yourself is this. Is your time worth more then the 10% CCL will take for selling your commons. Once you answer that then you know what you need to do.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Fastballspecial

[CBT]

very well said, you also have to include the monthly costs of your hosting company into the equation. If you only sell a couple hundred dollars of books a month, its going to be close to 10% to pay the monthly fees, especially if you are paying someone who made the site to maintain it.

 

(I buy from CCL from time to time as well, its a good option and gets you the eyeballs without having to have ways to drive people to your site).

Edited June 30, 2014 by CBT

[Old Fashion PB and J]

I have been reading this, and responding to many PM's. Here are my thoughts.

 

1. I would like a stand alone site. Even though right now it may seem uneconomical, I want to get used to having one operative early rather than late.

 

2. I want good scans for my books. Using CCL with just a grade increases chances f returns, having scans on the other hand decreases this.

 

3. We are working towards an expansion. Ultimately we would like to hit a good amount of national conventions, which should allow us free advertising for our site.

 

4. We currently are sitting on a few thousand books, and probably 1,000 "nice" books that will fit well in peoples collections. These books are more likely to be purchased with other books, rather than individually.

 

5. Good search function. I personally will not frequent a site that does not have a good search function, this is key. Sites like WW Comics, Comic Link are more of the "style" I want. They do not need to be as ellaborate, but similar.

 

my 2 cents

[CBT]

I have been reading this, and responding to many PM's. Here are my thoughts.

 

1. I would like a stand alone site. Even though right now it may seem uneconomical, I want to get used to having one operative early rather than late.

 

2. I want good scans for my books. Using CCL with just a grade increases chances f returns, having scans on the other hand decreases this.

 

3. We are working towards an expansion. Ultimately we would like to hit a good amount of national conventions, which should allow us free advertising for our site.

 

4. We currently are sitting on a few thousand books, and probably 1,000 "nice" books that will fit well in peoples collections. These books are more likely to be purchased with other books, rather than individually.

 

5. Good search function. I personally will not frequent a site that does not have a good search function, this is key. Sites like WW Comics, Comic Link are more of the "style" I want. They do not need to be as ellaborate, but similar.

 

my 2 cents

 

With that info, from the many I listed, i would use:

 

HostGator(address registration and server hosting) + Drupal + Ubercart + Pro Theme(pay for a cheap but good theme)

 

Drupal is not user friendly, so if you want to do it yourself and not have someone else do it, maybe try:

 

HostGator(address registration and server hosting) + Wordpress+ woocommerce + Pro Theme(pay for a cheap but good theme)

 

I havent used it for commerce, but Wordpress is far more beginner friendly

 

[zuulioso]

I have been reading this, and responding to many PM's. Here are my thoughts.

 

1. I would like a stand alone site. Even though right now it may seem uneconomical, I want to get used to having one operative early rather than late.

 

2. I want good scans for my books. Using CCL with just a grade increases chances f returns, having scans on the other hand decreases this.

 

3. We are working towards an expansion. Ultimately we would like to hit a good amount of national conventions, which should allow us free advertising for our site.

 

4. We currently are sitting on a few thousand books, and probably 1,000 "nice" books that will fit well in peoples collections. These books are more likely to be purchased with other books, rather than individually.

 

5. Good search function. I personally will not frequent a site that does not have a good search function, this is key. Sites like WW Comics, Comic Link are more of the "style" I want. They do not need to be as ellaborate, but similar.

 

my 2 cents

 

The biggest expense for this endeavor is time. Whether it is your own or someone else's it will be costly.

 

Just so it is clear I don't have an ulterior motive, I am in not attempting to sell my own services or earn your business. I am too busy to take on another project. I just want to stress that you can do it on your own as many have suggested but I strongly recommend having a trusted professional handle the heavy lifting for you if your budget allows.

 

As an analogy, I could most definitely build a deck for my house on my own by going out and watching videos and reading books and I would save myself a lot of money. But, I will probably take longer to get it done, I might not get it done right, and it would most likely not look as good as a professional that has done it a ton of times.

 

[CBT]

 

The biggest expense for this endeavor is time. Whether it is your own or someone else's it will be costly.

 

Just so it is clear I don't have an ulterior motive, I am in not attempting to sell my own services or earn your business. I am too busy to take on another project. I just want to stress that you can do it on your own as many have suggested but I strongly recommend having a trusted professional handle the heavy lifting for you if your budget allows.

 

As an analogy, I could most definitely build a deck for my house on my own by going out and watching videos and reading books and I would save myself a lot of money. But, I will probably take longer to get it done, I might not get it done right, and it would most likely not look as good as a professional that has done it a ton of times.

 

 

I agree with this, but I also think sometimes people are talked into hiring people who build houses to build them a shed, and pay an arm and a leg for it.

Edited June 30, 2014 by CBT

[dupont2005]

My advice is if your willing to devote yourself fulltime into building it, your taking on a lot of labor and expense that may or not pay off within two years. I'm assuming your competing against Ebay with there costs vs sales ratio. If you want to do it part time, I recommend against it.

I do not want to spend the time building, but would update it.

 

I sell quite a bit on Ebay, but for books that are not key or UHG, it makes more sense financially to start a site. Even though I do good business with Ebay, I would like to have a good avenue for back issues, and also an easier to navigate system then scrolling through items for sale.

It makes sense for an active eBay seller. I remember when sellers would have a link to their off eBay store in their listings. Is that still allowed? I've looked at a handful in the past.

 

They banned direct links to sites around the year 2001. I remember removing it from my listings.

Huh, then they must not have enforced it for a while, because I didn't start buying comics on eBay until 2006 at the absolute earliest, and 2008 before I did it with any regularity.

[BlowUpTheMoon]

[nocutename]

I used to use eCrater a long time ago.  I set up a store front fairly easily myself.  They have the payment module already set up at no additional cost (at the time.  Not sure if there is a charge now)   In fact I ordered books from an eCrater store once too.  I guess if you just want to test out having your own site, then I would suggest finding a cheap or free option and see how it plays out for a month or two.  You need to figure out how to drive traffic and register the site with the different search engines. 

If you go the route of hosting your own and getting it programmed from scratch, I strongly suggest, having an admin module that is easy to use.  Something that will allow full edit control over the content and uploading pictures, etc.

[newshane]

This is a great thread.

 

[littlebull]

Hot to high jack a thread, but is there a board member that can create an online blog?  Wanted to start one and am willing to pay

[littlebull]

anything?

[rogue14]

On 7/13/2018 at 1:45 PM, newshane said:

This is a great thread.

 

Agreed. Lots of good information here.