Thread: Pretty Good For An Old Lady

Hi all,

Finally published my site with all 12 pages linking. Now, I have to set up a shopping cart.

Will someone please proof my site and let me know what you think and also tell me how I can simply, and hopefully free of charge, set up a shopping cart on my site.

www.bubbeesbeads.org

Thanks,
Mindy

Pretty good for a lady of any age, for a man too. Is your page centered? The images on the middle of first page run into text above them. The links I tried work and the merchandise is nice. You might want to read some advise and tutorials on keywords they need work, ain't no fun but important. Good luck with it.

ty so much for your response, will check the index page for centering and also try to find tutorial on keywords.............thank you soooooooooooo much :))

Well done.
Ditto above comments

<ducking> cuz you aren't going to like what I'm about to say.

The shopping cart should have been the first consideration before you started building. You'll have to make changes now no matter what shopping cart you go with.

But - let me give you some ideas. The ones that will let you keep your pages closest to how you already have them - would be paypal or Mal's Ecommerce. Both of those you could have for free - only paying the percentage of sales from the credit cards. Both of those you would be able to work with code to add the "buy now" or "add to cart" by configuring from their sites.

The other options would have been to have used an e-commerce template - some offered through Voda are Soho, OsCommerce and ZenCart. But with those you BUILD within those - you don't build with Blue Voda then add them. So, at this point to use those as they are meant to be used, you would have to start from scratch.

So, first - you have to decide if you are going to get your own merchant account or if you are going to use Paypal for payments. If you decide on Paypal - then you have the first 2 options I gave free. If you get a merchant account, I don't know if either of them would be free - I know Paypal wouldn't be - then it becomes there pro version which has a fee.

There are also methods that cost something that you could select. I use a cart called Cart Manager. It has a low monthly cost, but gives me more options. It is also used by adding code to your site - so, yep, I build in Blue Voda like you did. If you want more info on it - you can find it at www.moxie-enter-prises.com/cartmanager.html - and ask me any questions you have.

Please - don't hit the messenger - it's not as bad as it sounds - but you got the cart before the horse here - it'll just mean a little extra work to get it turned around :)

Bethers you are really amazing. I was just cruising through the posts and saw this one, and once again I am struck by how precise your advice always is, and how right-on your observations. You are a n amazing gift and tremeandous asset to this forum. Thanks .

Mindy, what a cute grandson, glad you have worked out most of the bugs.......love your bead work especially the jade and amber. Good for you! Keep up the good work! Take care now.

Good Work Mindy, you should do well, good luck, very nice site, the only thing that I noticed that I might mention is the size of the photos of the beads ... on the main page, it appears that you may have tugged the handles of the photo out a bit too far, distorting the appearance of the beads, and on the 2nd page where it looks as though you have the same photo there, but twice, side by side, the one on the left looks good, but the one on the right looks a bit distorted ..... consider smaller photos and joining them the way you have done so on the 2nd page to give you the larger view you want on the main page and I think you will have those looking great too .... you are very well organized, able to navigate through the site very well ... good luck with your choices of shopping, I use paypal for my bit of team merchandise we use, and it is free and you do get the coding, but I am limited to pay pal purchasers only, although they can all pay by cc etc., unless they join paypal they cannot purchase from me.

You did good!

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. WHAT LOVELY PEOPLE ARE IN THIS FORUM. I WILL TAKE ALL YOUR ADVISE HAPPILY AND HOPE TO MAKE A BUCK OR TWO WITH THIS, TO BUY CHAIM SOME NEW TOYS.....
xoxoxo thanks again Mindy

Aren't toys wonderful, Mindy?

Liz, thanks for the compliments -

BTW, there are lots of other cart choices out there - I was simply mentioning some of those already in use and liked by forum members - and that I have knowledge of!

Well there is one more option, she could do a paypal cart, but she still will have to add coding to each product to make it work, and there is also Roman Cart, which is sort of like the one Bethers uses, and it will still require some coding. Im not sure of the limits of roman cart are, i know they have a paid and free version, and thats about as far as I have investigated into it.

Karen

I second the BlueGressMusic.. Good work.. Mindy is a good web designer.. now with Beth's tech advice she is about to even get better.

How cool is this.. Mindy just produced an awsome looking site, when I know of people from Mindy's generation that look at the computer as a monster from Dr. Who that's about to jump at them and gouge their eyes with a blunt spoon.. I'm bookmarking this site and showing it as an example.

Good work.

The site looks great . And after having boys and then finally having a beautiful girl , I will most likely be a customer soon. :)