tech help? (website, shopping cart, paypal)

[opabinia]

I want to sell greeting cards from a web site. I'd like to buy a site template from templatemonster.com, connect it to a shopping cart of some sort, and give customers the ability to use PayPal. I have no idea how to do this, but I have a lot of beer. Can someone help me out? My guess is that it's pretty simple stuff, but I don't know the order of operations at all, and I keep psyching myself out. I'm afraid to get stuck doing something the wrong, cumbersome, or expensive way on account of some easily-avoidable mistake. Somebody please help me over this big, dumb hurdle. Seriously, lots of beer.

Comments

[synaesthesia.livejournal.com]

Are you set on doing this from your own website, or have you considered etsy?

My shop: http://gravenfragments.etsy.com/

Totally quick and easy. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah? I don't do beer but I'm happy to offer opinions/advice.

[pir.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Both paypal and google checkout have facilities for doing some of the shopping cart stuff for you and dealing with the credit card bit but it's still a royal PITA. For small scale things a service like etsy is great and if you outgrow it or decide to change later you'll hae a much better idea of your needs.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm curious -- can he make his own site for the product, but embed an etsy storefront into the site for the shopping end of things?

I'm still getting familiar with etsy. It seems more geared to crafting/costume/small-scale product design than printed items.

R. -- I think templatemonster.com looks interesting. Whether it fits your needs best is another question, but I'm curious enough to look into it myself for various reasons.

[pir.livejournal.com]

No idea, I haven't used it personally.

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

crap that was me, and I logged in, but it ignored me! :P

[synaesthesia.livejournal.com]

Nope, the shop and its listings all live on etsy. The photos, too... I don't know of any way to visually embed it anywhere, you can of course link to it from your main domain or website.

Actually there are tons of paper people on etsy: some really lovely letterpress happening as well! Small-scale, yes... Mr. R, are these handmade by you? Otherwise forget everything I'm saying about etsy 'cause that goes against their terms of use if you're reselling another's product. Their definition of "handmade" does include a situation where you were using your own photographs to make cards that were professionally printed elsewhere.

[(Anonymous)]

etsy does seem to be the win.

once you have scale issues
you can hire someone for real to build you a real site
with all kinds of proprietary goodness.