Website Help? Where to start?

[KKoher]

Hey..so I am trying to start up a website for our store. I really know nothing about hosting, coding, and all the other fun stuff that comes along with a new website. So my question is where do I start? There are like a million host out there, and they each offer like a million additional things to enchance the site (for a "small" fee, ofcourse). I really only want what I need, and not too much extra. I do know I need a site with a store...like where people can add things to a cart, and check out (I don't need the host to process cc for me, I just need the cc info, b/c I can process it here at the store) I need a page which can hold 1000 + items in inventory and one that is custom with my colors and logos and doesn't look like all the other premade sites out there. I also don't want to be paying like a gazillion dollars in start-up or monthly fees. So if anyone has any ideas of who I can use to host, and one that I will be able to build a website on with out too much trouble, let me know.
Thanks!

[OnTheWayUp]

Hey..so I am trying to start up a website for our store. I really know nothing about hosting, coding, and all the other fun stuff that comes along with a new website. So my question is where do I start? There are like a million host out there, and they each offer like a million additional things to enchance the site (for a "small" fee, ofcourse). I really only want what I need, and not too much extra. I do know I need a site with a store...like where people can add things to a cart, and check out (I don't need the host to process cc for me, I just need the cc info, b/c I can process it here at the store) I need a page which can hold 1000 + items in inventory and one that is custom with my colors and logos and doesn't look like all the other premade sites out there. I also don't want to be paying like a gazillion dollars in start-up or monthly fees. So if anyone has any ideas of who I can use to host, and one that I will be able to build a website on with out too much trouble, let me know.
Thanks!

With those requests and your lack of experience, there really isn't much out there that is NOT going to be a template of some sort, thus, I suggest that you hire a programmer/designer to design your site. They will also give you tips on what hosting is preferred or needed, but just by glancing at what you need, depending on the size of your pics, you will need disk space of at least 50 GB, and thats assuming you have small pics of your items and larger pics of the same item.

Bandwidth won't be a problem since your site is just starting out, but I would look into the plans tha have unlimited bandwidth, for when your site grows.

RentaCoder is a great place to find designers/coders for your website. Easy to use, no payment upfront, cheap designers/coders and great quality.
Highly recommended.

[KKoher]

Thanks, I will def. check them out.

[businesscredit]

check out CityMax - The Original All-In-One Website Builder - Home and HOSTGATOR WEB HOSTING - cPanel, Reseller, and Dedicated Website Hosting

[WaterWalker]

Check out Alakmalak.com they are an Indian company but extremely professional and much cheaper than anyone else you will find. They can do shopping carts and all of that, they work with you during the design and don't charge you full price until its exactly what you want. They did my site Three Coins Training - Strength Training, Speed Training, Workouts, Recruiting, Sports Nutrition, Sports Psych feel free to ask me any questions.

Make everyday your masterpiece,

Nick Bosch

[effordable]

you will need disk space of at least 50 GB, and thats assuming you have small pics of your items and larger pics of the same item.

How do you figure this?!?!? On the high end, the largest images should be between 1 and 2 mb, so with thumbnails lets figure 3mb for each product X 1000, that's just under 3Gig

Bandwidth won't be a problem since your site is just starting out, but I would look into the plans that have unlimited bandwidth, for when your site grows.

Nothing could be more wrong!
There is no such thing as unlimited in the hosting world (I'll start offering unlimited storage as soon as I find a merchant that has some of the new unlimited hard drives in stock).
Any host offering unlimited disk space and/or bandwidth you should run away from.
These hosts are overselling to the extreme. Placing as many websites on a server as possible.

There are many open source (free) shopping carts available, however (the last I checked) none of them offered some of the better features such as meta tags per product/category which helps in Search Engine Optimization.
For these, you'd need to look as some commercial carts.
You should also decided on what features you require. Some carts handle attributes & options better than others. Will you be selling virtual/downloadable products?

I would advice with using a third party to handle you merchant services, or contact your current provider to see if they have an online portal.
Storing unencrypted credit card information is a big no no.

[mattSantill]

I recommend hosting through GoDaddy.com ... the tech support is excellent and available 24/7... they offer different packages that should fit your needs. Give them a call and see what easy to use shopping carts they can assist you with.

Also you might consider creating an account with guru.com and let the freelancers on the site bid on the job.

[OnTheWayUp]

How do you figure this?!?!? On the high end, the largest images should be between 1 and 2 mb, so with thumbnails lets figure 3mb for each product X 1000, that's just under 3Gig

The reason why I quoted 50GB is to have room for grow, to add products, and to cover any other images that he made need, and never have to worry about running out of space. It was a rough estimate, 20 GB would do you just fine.

Nothing could be more wrong!
There is no such thing as unlimited in the hosting world (I'll start offering unlimited storage as soon as I find a merchant that has some of the new unlimited hard drives in stock).
Any host offering unlimited disk space and/or bandwidth you should run away from.
These hosts are overselling to the extreme. Placing as many websites on a server as possible.

This is actually true, a quick search pulled up this information on unlimited bandwidth:

So Why Do Unlimited Plans Exist?
Most websites only consume a very small amount of bandwidth and disk space. Web hosting companies that provide unlimited anything as a plan feature are banking on the fact that you won't use very much. Unlimited is a marketing trick to get your business. The web hosting market is very competitive. Although selling plans that pretend to be unlimited can seem dishonest, it does not mean that the hosting company will not provide good service. Check in the hosting company's Terms of Service: there will probably be a note about what "unlimited" really means.

Though, to start off, unlimited bandwidth wouldn't be a bad way to go, since the amount of visitors will be very low, unless major advertising is done.

Go to findmyhosting.com and they will help you find what you need.

[OnTheWayUp]

The company I use for hosting, www.3ix.org - 3iX provides reliable, low cost web hosting 'your friend in the business', offers unlimited bandwidth, and this is what they have in their terms of service to give you an idea:

Server Resource

Any website that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to, CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) will be given an option of either paying extra for a dedicated server / semi-dedicated server (which depends on the resource needed) or reducing the resource used to an acceptable level. 3iX shall be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level.

Multimedia Files

Multimedia files are defined as any graphics, audio, and video files. 3iX's Web Hosting accounts are not to be used for the purposes of distributing and storing unusual amount of multimedia files. Any Web site whose disk space usage for storing the multimedia files exceed 70% of its total usage, either in terms of total size or number of files, will be deemed to be using unusual amount of multimedia files.

So it looks like your ecommerce site would be find with this hosting, plus it is pretty cheap.