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npolly0212

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 21, 2015
1,374
463
Hey all,

I recently purchased a domain for a small little website that I want to build for a little side business I run..With that I have the option to use these: WebsiteBuilder, WIX, Wordpress, Weebly, and Ecwid Online Store.

Its just gonna be a simple little 5-10 page website MAX and want to have the option to have a store so that users can purchase items. Only thing is I do not know how to code in a store myself personally so wondering which would be the best to use to design, and have a store?
 

npolly0212

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 21, 2015
1,374
463
I think it depend on your target.
Ex:
if landing page -> HTML
Blog: wordpres, joomla
and another framework.
I will be using it to have a little store on it and such. for a little sideworking business I do.
 

Dingster101

macrumors regular
Jun 1, 2015
161
78
If you know HTML you are good. I would addSquarespace as an option as well for drag and drop sites.
 

csurfr

macrumors 68020
Dec 7, 2016
2,310
1,748
Seattle, WA
If you don't know HTML/CSS/PHP/JavaScript etc, AND you want e-commerce, then you're probably best suited to use one of the options described above (Wordpress, Joomla). There are quite a few different plugins for Wordpress that will set up a shopping cart and link to PayPal and the like, however be very careful in which one you choose should you want to have a card processor. A lot of the *free* ones aren't going to be nearly as secure as those with paid options as they aren't updated as quickly, not to mention support will be scarce.

As far as DB goes you'd most likely be just fine running MySQL.

Keep in mind if you register a domain with some of those site builder tools, they might state in the agreement that THEY own the domain, not you, which can make switching hosts down the road a bit of a pain. You're better off registering the domain with someone like DreamHost and then just building your site with another tool as opposed to just jumping onto the Wix bandwagon from the outset.

Edit: I missed the part that you registered the domain on your own, so my third statement doesn't necessarily apply.
 
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cyb3rdud3

macrumors 68040
Jun 22, 2014
3,292
2,047
UK
If you are thinking of running a store then don’t even begin by thinking you can build this yourself from scratch and not have huge security holes.

Especially as it is just for a small sideline business, and not trying to the rude but the fact that you are asking the question is already a clear indicator to not build it yourself.

Then the other considering is marketing and seo. What do you think will make customers come to you and find you? What marketing budget have you set aside that makes you think you will compete in brand recognition and searches that will make visitors come to you and buy from you.

It is often something that is overlooked in my opinion. The days of just setting up and online shop and customers will come are long gone.

You aren’t clear about what you will be selling and offering to buy online, but have you considered to just offer it through some of the big online marketplaces like Amazon or eBay? Let them do the hosting, security, payment processing, seo, marketing etc.

If you are still of the opinion you want to do this yourself, then I agree with a previous recommendation; WordPress and WooCommerce are a pretty good combination.
 

kevinjohnson20

macrumors newbie
Apr 20, 2015
20
1
London
If you are looking to develop a website with around 5-10 pages then Wordpress can be the perfect option. You will only need to spend around 1 or 2 months to develop an amazing website in the wordpress. To build a website in wordpres, you do not require the coding language! Just do a little bit research on the Wordpress!
 

D.T.

macrumors G4
Sep 15, 2011
11,050
12,460
Vilano Beach, FL
If I was going to setup a store front, I'd use a complete solution option that provided hosting, web services (with managed infrastructure, security), store (product management, transaction processing, etc.) all bundled up.

https://www.shopify.com

https://www.squarespace.com

https://www.wix.com

I don't mean this in a negative way, but based on your line of questioning, it sounds like you'd be better off with as little site overhead as possible, and more focus on the product sales (i.e., see post #11 by @cyb3rdud3 )

Edit to add Wix, I posted off the top of my head really quickly, but that's a notable omission (thanks @ImBuz)
 
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npolly0212

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 21, 2015
1,374
463
Thanks for all the comments everybody!

I actually know HTML/CSS well and whatnot, but the database stuff is the stuff that I dont know (which is why i was asking) I am used to looking at a design and coding that from scratch with the HTMl/CSS/Javascript and such so i know all of that. But with all of these i dont need to do that since its just going to be a basic little website to market a few items that i sell to friends/others around the area I live
 

csurfr

macrumors 68020
Dec 7, 2016
2,310
1,748
Seattle, WA
.....But with all of these i dont need to do that since its just going to be a basic little website to market a few items that i sell to friends/others around the area I live

This statement right here is your key. If you’re going to be selling items, you really need a database. You’ll be using PHP to pull the items out of your database and display them on the page. Otherwise you’re hard coding every single item into the html, and killing yourself with editing code. Do you really want to have to jump into your html every time you want to add / remove an item?

With PHP / MySQL you can enter the item, description, photos, qty on hand, etc, and have it displayed. It is much faster (literally 30 seconds depending on the amount of data) to insert a new item into a database than it is to code it into a site.. not to mention sorting and filtering options that having a database will provide you.

You’re probably best suited to crank up a wordpress install (which will create a database that you can add to, or just create a specific one for the e-commerce, which is more secure), and find yourself a decent plugin to help you manage the rest if you’re not comfortable with PHP / SQL.

Again, and I can’t stress this enough: You’re just shooting yourself in the foot every time you wish to add, remove, change items if you don’t.
[doublepost=1524729655][/doublepost]
If you are looking to develop a website with around 5-10 pages then Wordpress can be the perfect option. You will only need to spend around 1 or 2 months to develop an amazing website in the wordpress. To build a website in wordpres, you do not require the coding language! Just do a little bit research on the Wordpress!

Technically you’re correct, but there are tons of things that you cannot do in Wordpress unless you know php and know how to register the Wordpress functions. A lot of our clients come to us with things they expected to be able to do with wix, wordpress, etc without knowing code, only to find out that they have either destroyed their theme, broken a nav, or messed up their layout. At a bare minimum anyone attempting to admin a wordpress site on their own should find a book on the latest version. As well as learn not to click the big red button (also known as update). It is not your friend if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.
 

abbeyon

macrumors newbie
Apr 24, 2018
5
0
For a wesbsite with 5-10 pages Wordpress will be lovely and easy to manage, can also go with shared hosting as it lows operational cost
 

D.T.

macrumors G4
Sep 15, 2011
11,050
12,460
Vilano Beach, FL
This statement right here is your key. If you’re going to be selling items, you really need a database.

[...]

I believe they were saying they don't need to learn (or implement) the tech themselves, since a few, outstanding turnkey options were suggested by myself and others (not that the solution didn't need X/Y/Z architecture).

:)
 
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csurfr

macrumors 68020
Dec 7, 2016
2,310
1,748
Seattle, WA
I believe they were saying they don't need to learn (or implement) the tech themselves, since a few, outstanding turnkey options were suggested by myself and others (not that the solution didn't need X/Y/Z architecture).

:)

Note to self: don’t read the forums at 1am after staring at hundreds of lines of php / javascript for about 10 hours. ;)
 
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andrewmarich

macrumors member
Nov 9, 2017
52
68
I use Squarespace, it’s pretty good.. There always seems to be some major limitation in everything I’m trying to achieve, I find myself cursing them a lot..
 

D.T.

macrumors G4
Sep 15, 2011
11,050
12,460
Vilano Beach, FL
Note to self: don’t read the forums at 1am after staring at hundreds of lines of php / javascript for about 10 hours. ;)

I may still be totally off base, it just made the most sense in the context of the entire thread. Who _really_ knows? :D

I'm out of my mind after 10 minutes of Javascript ... always more than happy to flee back to something like some C++/Python ML work :p
 

organicCPU

macrumors 6502a
Aug 8, 2016
827
287
A shop is a shop is a shop, is it?

First I wonder why none brought in Magento. Magento is an e-commerce platform written in PHP, utilising MySQL. It can be installed on an Apache or nginx hosting platform. That would give you full control over everything without the need to code a shop from scratch. Even if you'd like to code a shop from scratch, you should review Magento's source code.

IMO, a minimal shop is consisting of one or more representational pages for the article(s) you offer. It's good to have a database for the items, but for ten items that doesn't change frequently it's not a must. Then there should be some kind of form to order your items. That's where a server side scripting language comes in. Probably, you did some forms with basic PHP in the past. You could simply send a form to your email, containing the order and delivery address. Send your stuff to the purchaser with a printed invoice and wait for cash transfer. In theory you should know everything you need for some really primitive shop. If that's what you're asking for, then just keep it simple. What would make it more demanding is a customer login, shopping basket, transactional emails, different options for payment, verification of credit cards or addresses and of course there are lots of security considerations.

Let's say you just want to code a bare basic shop from scratch, but with a database for your shopping items, you could set up a local dev environment like MAMP or Softaculous AMPPS stack (building containers with Apache or nginx, PHP and MySQL with Vagrant or Docker is another alternative, especially useful if you are developing many projects with different requirements). MAMP or AMPPS give you phpMyAdmin out of the box. With that you can setup a database to your liking and pull the items with PHP into your frontend layout. Planning a database has its pitfalls and you should learn the basics about SQL and normalisation if you dig deeper into that. I've found it a big help to design the database visually with MySQL Workbench CE. On the PHP side, you can choose to use the mysqli connector that only supports MySQL or some generic connector that can communicate to different databases with the same syntax.

Because you said that you can code JavaScript, I'd like to add that there is another completely different approach to things today. You could also use JavaScript with a Node.js server instead of PHP as a backend language. In that case, it's common to either use a NoSQL database instead of a SQL one or if you just need a few items, plain JSON files should work, too.

As a final comment, if you decide to go the easy way with Wix or Shopify, always read all the terms of service and legal stuff, especially those from needed add-ons (shop module) really carefully. There are countries, where those shops are not conform to local law and you'd end-up with a system that works, but doesn't cover your distribution area requirements.
 
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bobbydaz

macrumors regular
Jan 24, 2009
194
62
UK
For a simple online store - WordPress + Woocommerce. Forget Wix etc. I’ve built small stores and big stores using this set up and they are secure and reliable.
 

lynchdavidh

macrumors member
Feb 14, 2018
63
23
New York
I'm a big believer in self-hosting a WordPress.org website. Cheaper and more customizable than clunky page builders like Wix and Weebly. There are plenty of WordPress hosting companies out there but the two I usually recommend are SiteGround (for beginners) and WP Engine (more advanced web creators).
 
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