Hi folks,
Please bear with me. I am a photographer (with a minor in data analysis) who wishes to set up a professional, fine art photography website. I have been researching business options, websites and all that jazz for some time and have pretty much settled on BlueVoda as a host and website software provider (I’m quite impressed with it, thanks folks!)

I have built a bit of what I want to do with the BlueVoda website builder to see if I can get what I want visually, and it really fills the bill for what I require, visually. I find it pretty easy to build the galleries, the navigation, the "look" of the site.

Now to business: I have refrained from purchasing a BlueVoda account till I find out whether I can set up the business end of the site as I envision it to be set up, and have questions that I have not yet been able to find specific answers for in the communities or the help files.

I wish to sell prints, a 50-100 catalogue max. I would like to use paypal, accept credit cards and checks however this area is where I’m a bit confused.

The Soholaunch software seems to be able to handle all the above concerns however the templates offered do not work for me. It states that one can start from scratch but I don’t see any instruction about that here.?

I wish to have a home page that looks roughly like this:



Can I do this in Soholaunch?

Next is there shopping cart option/s that will allow me to do this?



(Prices and sizes are not accurate, only examples)

I wish the customer to be able to pick the print here then go to the purchase page. Also can I call out the colors, and fonts of the purchase page/s

If not, is there a cart option or add-in to the BlueVoda software that will allow this?

Thanks much for any help you can give.

Jules

To make it look like you want - I would continue in BV and add a shopping cart to it. If you are intending to only take Paypal, you could talk to Naval about the methods he would have to allow you to integrate your special options with what is available from Paypal.

You could pretty much set up the page as you've shown using a cart like I do with BV - and that's CartManager. It's not free, however.

Especially in your case, I think you are better keeping the site to showcase your work and adding a cart, rather than deciding on a cart driven site (like Soho). But that is only my preference :)

__________________
Beth
A Child's Palace - Pinata Palace - Moxie Enterprises

SEO and Marketing Tools
SEO - The Basics

Bethers,
Thanks so much. I was thinking that the answer would be to stay with BV and hammer out some kind of cart, but wasn't sure. It's OK if a cart isn't free. I don't expect to set up a serious business for free so some costs are expected.

Thanks again, I will check out CartManager

Jules

Is CartManager available through BlueVoda or is it 3rd party software?

Thanks

Jules

It's third party - you can find info on it and try it for free here:
Cart Manager

You could also check out Mal's E - they have a free cart - but I think for what you'd want to do, you would need the paid version of theirs also. I use CM - so that's where I think first.

__________________
Beth
A Child's Palace - Pinata Palace - Moxie Enterprises

SEO and Marketing Tools
SEO - The Basics

Thanks much,

I agree. CM looks good, customizable and they are not that very expensive..

I like your sites and living in Texas I am well familiar with Pinatas. I have swung at a many of them, and now my kids bash them pretty regularly to their glee.

Cheers

Jules