Domain, hosting and template for online store

iPwnz

iPwnz

Brutally Honest
Juggernaut
What: small home-based online/offline store. Looking to launch by Jan-end 2016. Everything else is 90% ready.

Problem is I don't know how to build a site from scratch (my coding level is still very low), pro. website builders also usually charge a hefty sum and so I will rely on pre-existing templates which i can customize and learn from on the go. WordPress has many cool-looking templates but their domain cost is a little high. How is their hosting? If possible I would like to register the domain somewhere else and get a free hosting (for now) on WordPress before I move to a paid service. Say, register on namecheap and host on WordPress. Is this possible? The templates provided by hosting sites suck. Or does hosting on another site mean I have to build the entire site from scratch if I dont like their given templates?

I love shopify but cannot pay for their monthly charges.

Also is the current www.primeabgb.com site built from a scratch or used a paid template? I love it and if possible I want to use the same template with a little customization of course. I just find it attractive.

Suggestion for cool-looking templates is also welcome. Paid templates should be only one-time payment. Zero renewal charge or should be reasonable.

I plan to register the domain on namecheap. And host it on hostgator.

I would also like to know the pros/cons of these hosting sites like one mentioned here https://www.techenclave.com/community/threads/domain-registrar-alternatives-to-godaddy.176152/
 
Do you have a budget in mind? How many products will be there on the site? If many then skip Wordpress.

For hosting get a digital ocean or linode server. IF you want cheaper there are choices there too. Set it up and its cheap and extremely awesome hosting.
For wordpress you can buy a popular wordpress theme that supports Woo commerce but often you wont like it cause they look very generic. It takes some design work to make them a bit more...yours. However if you just want one thats functional, it will do.
 
Thanks for the reply. I saw your posts in the "hosting in India" thread and was waiting for you to reply. :)
Products will be many but I'm not sure how much there will be. Anything between 100-1000 I guess. Not fixed. But it will start small.
As for my budget I'm not looking for something "cheap" but reliability is important. Reasonable fees is fine.
I forgot to mention something earlier, I will host 80-90% of the images/videos on imgur and YouTube to save hosting space.
I get what you said about WordPress and Woocommerce but what about the "building the site" part? Will I still be able to use wp themes on DigitalOcean? or do from scratch? And plugins?

How much do professional site builders charge on an average for a small site?
Keeping shopify as the limit breaking move. A friend of mine uses opencart BTW. I tried long ago but I couldn't set it up.
 
iPwnz said:
Also is the current www.primeabgb.com site built from a scratch or used a paid template? I love it and if possible I want to use the same template with a little customization of course. I just find it attractive.
Click to expand...

You should have been able to figure that out looking at the source code.
Theme: Royal - Multi-Purpose Wordpress Theme
Ecomm Module: WooCommerce
 
rock_ya_baby said:
You should have been able to figure that out looking at the source code.
Theme: Royal - Multi-Purpose Wordpress Theme
Ecomm Module: WooCommerce
Click to expand...
Forgive a noob please. And many thanks.
Didn't expect them to use woocommerce tbh. But the theme name Royal sounds very familiar. I might have come across it while browsing wp themes.
I'm almost decided now. I've already downloaded some of the necessary softwares. I'll give them a try once I've finished repairing my laptop. Or I'll ask you guys to help me out.
Which make me want to ask, I need a good PC to use as a workstation no? Build a site on a basic system then move to a workhorse to handle the rest.
 
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Your PC won't be doing any processing mate. You just need a workstation of any sort to code or Paint.net/Photoshop graphics.
If you want to prototype your setup, you will need to setup a Linux server in a VM, setup WP on it to play with. If you're not well versed with Linux/DB/SQL etc then give it a pass; first use free hosting setup where they give you CPanel access or something similar. CPanel will have one-click deployable scripts inbuilt most of the times to help you (free ones may not have that).

Plan before jumping into it. Plan your Theme, categories, web layout, Graphics, Icon bundles. One important part is the text content like descriptions, headings etc. Have that typed up and ready. Read up and use best SEO practices.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. WP+WC it is. And oh it looks like I will need a new PC either way.

Edit: Just noticed that I've just unlocked "Veteran". A veteran who doesn't even have a clue about the WWW, embarrassing. >_>
 
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iPwnz said:
Thanks for the reply. I saw your posts in the "hosting in India" thread and was waiting for you to reply. :)
Products will be many but I'm not sure how much there will be. Anything between 100-1000 I guess. Not fixed. But it will start small.
As for my budget I'm not looking for something "cheap" but reliability is important. Reasonable fees is fine.
I forgot to mention something earlier, I will host 80-90% of the images/videos on imgur and YouTube to save hosting space.
I get what you said about WordPress and Woocommerce but what about the "building the site" part? Will I still be able to use wp themes on DigitalOcean? or do from scratch? And plugins?

How much do professional site builders charge on an average for a small site?
Keeping shopify as the limit breaking move. A friend of mine uses opencart BTW. I tried long ago but I couldn't set it up.
Click to expand...
Haha Im flattered.
Many products will be an issue. I have only glossed over woo-commerce but you have to understand wordpress was a blogging tool then it was pushed to become a CMS and now these modules push it to the limits with stuff like ecommerce. So understand that it was not built for it and hence while its great and familiar for smaller projects, but the moment you will want to optimize your work flow around it and try to build processes around it, it might get harder and irritating.

Better option might be something like Magento and other proper scripts. You get a native Ecommerce script. You can run it unoptimized for starters with a theme you purchase after learning from basic tutorials online and set it up. Shouldnt be hard. And when you are earning money from it or willing to take the next step you can have an expert optimize it or even do a fresh install and import the old data. When I say unoptimized its nothing on the consumer end, its just on your end. The resource utilization with be higher, things might not be cached etc. Start small and once things go good then scale up. That's always the best way.

The resource utilization unless your website is hitting 100 views per second even on a small VPS wont be much. You dont have to get a beast to start with. Something like DO lets you start small and scale up as you out-grow the smaller ones. As for wordpress vs Magento or any other script , getting wordpress setup with woo commerce will be much cheaper. You can probably do it yourself. You can also shift later TBH. Im sure there must be ways to do that.

iPwnz said:
Forgive a noob please. And many thanks.
Didn't expect them to use woocommerce tbh. But the theme name Royal sounds very familiar. I might have come across it while browsing wp themes.
I'm almost decided now. I've already downloaded some of the necessary softwares. I'll give them a try once I've finished repairing my laptop. Or I'll ask you guys to help me out.
Which make me want to ask, I need a good PC to use as a workstation no? Build a site on a basic system then move to a workhorse to handle the rest.
Click to expand...
Haha clients dont know what they are using. They approach a provider and most sell them a store not whats going beneath the surface.

You dont need a big workstation to get started, just any i3 or pentium laptop will do too. Use vagrant + virtual box to setup a demo environment, map a domain to it, install wordpress and fcuk around with it as you like. When you break something start again from scratch or take backups at critical times to prevent the hassle. Its pretty easy. Linux server OS are optimized for very low specs so the virtual machine will be fine even on low specs. My actual server takes 110MB of ram. :p Max it goes to is 220MB. So worry not. Magento will need more but not a lot more. Again you have to experiment. Also be warned this experimentation take a Loooooooong time. Its not even funny how much time it takes to do this stuff. For basic tutorials about setting up linux servers, even locally, go for Digital Ocean guides. They are the best.

PS- You dont need to go for seperate image hosting. Even for a thousand product images you will barely cross 1gb and the requests for static resources barely take any resources. Dont complicate your life with such ideas :p Server resources are very cheap these days.

Instead optimize the image creation process for size and quality and multiple pass so that its transported fast over slow networks too.
 
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I do not suggest self hosting the site unless you have a very good network connection and hardware which can run 24x7 cool. Start with a shared hosting as in the starting you won't be having much traffic for your eCommerce store. WP+WC Setup is not as resource hog as Magento is. Hosting in India is a bit pricier compared to offshore. If you are okay with offshore then my recommendations would be HawkHost, StableHost, CrocWeb or MDDhosting for Shared Hosting. I have personal experience with all them of them. Don't fall for cheap godaddy/bigrock hosting. They are crap in terms of performance. I am running a Web Development and Design Firm, so feel free to ask any questions if you have.
 
@MrIndia sir can you guide me on the logistics and other shipping related informations? Requesting you as you work there/have personal experiences on the subject. Thanks.
 
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