My mother runs a small business quilting for people with a large computerized machine. She wants to run a website to advertise her abilities and to start a pattern vendor site for other quilters like herself. She of course comes to me, thinking I already have the skills/knowledge to do this (I don't).

I do want to help her, though. I don't know where to start as I have no experience here at all. From what I understand I'll need to buy a domain and use a webhosting company (godaddy?), design or have someone else design the actual website (recommended languages to learn or path to take?), and then set up a server that can handle requests and vendor the digital information (which I assume requires some sort of collaboration with Paypal for instance).

I'm open to both learning the languages myself and creating the website and server database/commands, and to paying someone else to do it. I'd appreciate some help here, knowing where to start and go.

- Prospective thanks

Your steps are pretty much correct. You'll need a domain name and then a host where your site will be to link that domain to. If you're designing the site yourself, HTML and CSS will be your starting point for static content. Once you want dynamic content (with databases and such), you'll want to get into PHP and MySQL. As for actually handling orders and transferring money online through PayPal or whatever on your site, I don't really have any experience or knowledge.

This is because if you find out that say, godaddy, isn't providing for you properly, so you change servers, they will jack up the price of the domain because they can. For servers I'd suggest Dreamhost, I've found them to be the most complete comparatively speaking. (Also, on a slightly dorkier note, I really really like their company culture). And several of my friends that know more about web hosting have suggested it to me, and I value their opinion. It is up to you though.

There are a lot of other websites that are pattern vendors. Your niche is most likely to be in websites like Etsy and ArtFire, with of course broader interest found in sites like eBay even though it would probably take much more searching to find quilt patterns on there that are not made by large companies.

On top of that, you might run into liability problems. What if two users post the same pattern and call it theirs, or another website takes it and calls it theirs. It happens too frequently, and it'll be things your mom will need to protect herself again. Granted, that can be accomplished by incorporating or becoming an LLC, whichever way she plans to go. Oh, and she needs to decide how she's going to handle material posted on the website of things that are copyrighted. Unfortunately, only the person that owns the copyright can file charges. So if someone posts a quilt with Mickey Mouses' head on it, only Disney can file, and they will file against your mom unless she carefully disclaims any fault on her end.

She also is going to have to decide if she'll be taking a cut per transaction (Etsy costs .20 per listing, plus 3.9% of the final price before sales tax and shipping/handling costs, and PayPal also charges a percentage per transaction on the vendor's side), and how she'll account for that/why she charges it (if she does. It is generally accepted Etsy charges because they take the risk that the item does not sell, they host product photos, product information, as well as taking on transaction risk if the buyer falls through. I also think it is to hedge against exchange rate risk, now that they made it easier to convert prices into local currency, but that's just me). And I know this sounds dumb, but knowing the economic climate she may not be able to sell patterns to a certain country, so be wary of that too. I'm sure this is stuff she's already thought of if she runs a business, but it doesn't hurt to be careful.

PayPal offers shopping carts and similar products for online businesses. I found information on it at one point, but I forget the details. It isn't too hard to find it if your mom sets up a business account. PayPal also accepts users to pay with a credit card even if they don't have a paypal account, which is handy.

Customized websites can run upwards of $1000, but some programs are available for much much less. It depends on what type of feel you want.

I know a lot of my advice isn't directly related to coding a website, but does have to do with doing business on a website. Tell your mom good luck!

If you know any programming languages (or if you'd like to learn while doing this), you can create your website using Java or MVC ASP.net (I prefer MVC ASP.net).

Coding a site is what you do if you know what you're doing, are willing to commit to it, and you have a good reason for rolling your own code. I suppose you could try it, but strictly speaking it might not be the best (and certainly not the most efficient) way to achieve your goal.

Kame's advice is probably your best bet.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Nov 18 2010, 11:04 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

As for coding yourself, don't do it from scratch. Use a pre-made framework so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I would recommend something like Latova or even better, Django. For a bit I wanted to code a website with Django, and it went pretty well on the learning to use the framework part of things, but, it took too much time for me to finish. nibbitz.com and curse.com were both constructed with Django.

Latova is an incomplete CMS, Django is a programming framework. It's easiest to go with a real CMS, like Joomla or e107. There are some free ones, but some extensions like shopping carts for them will require you to pay anyway.

I'm slightly unsure how this works, you buy a domain (IE argoiejhtrosirth.com) from a registrar, and then a 'host' where my site will be? What exactly is the role of a webhost? I'm not sure how intensive handling the web traffic will be (I suppose it depends on how frequented the it is) but I do have some old computers laying around that could be retrofitted to be dedicated servers; supposing they're sufficient, I assume then I wouldn't need to use an outside party for servers.

Perhaps I worded myself poorly, my mother doesn't want to create a user content upload market of patterns, but rather to sell patterns that she herself has created. She's been doing this for, I believe, five years and over the course of this period has created a lot of patterns to use on the quilts her customers give her. She now seeks to sell these patterns and any more she creates. So, user upload liability is a non-issue, and I'm pretty sure she's smart enough to not try to sell a goku pattern (not that she has one).

Hmm good to know.

Good and relevant information nonetheless. Thanks!

Well, I've learned HTML before, and I understand the role of CSS (though I don't know it well), and a few years ago learned some javascript too (which hasn't been recommended yet, so I guess it's not that amazing). I'm curious as to what kind of prices to expect; kame says ~1000$? and where to start when looking for someone to do it.

My mom has a steady stream of customers, so it isn't really a big rush to get a website up.

What knowledge would I need to work with these frameworks?

Well with Django there's a lot of documentation, and you'd be coding your server-side code with python. Here's where you can learn to use it: http://www.djangobook.com/

http://yvettesbridalformal.com/
I had to

many services like godaddy offer both a domain name and a hosting package (for the 'low low price of $XX). However, they also offer domains separately from servers, and vice versa.


If your mom is looking to only sell her own, that shouldn't be much of a problem, but driving customers to her site may be. It is hard to trust a website that stands alone, usually. If you want my opinion, this is how you should do it:
Step 1: Have her set up an account on etsy/artfire. Artfire allows you to host five or so products for free, and I think that unlike Etsy, it does not charge you per item sold, only a monthly payment regardless of items sold or listed depending on your package. I never got into using artfire. She'll have to see what works best for her (not to mention, there are a ton of resources on both websites for people who make things).

Step 2: May a wordpress blog. Honestly, I don't like wordpress. I think it is needlessly expensive once you set it up to be completed optimized. But it is surprisingly easy to use. Alternatively, create a blogspot blog. Have her do her journaling and such things there. It is also nice that you don't need an account to comment. I'm not sure if blogspot requires one (derp)

Step 3: Buy a domain, then buy server space from a different provider.

Step 4: Build CMS as you want. You can use invision or bboard or something simple, and as long as you disguise it enough no one will be able to tell. Or use Latova. I like Mike.

Step 5: Build a Portal: Have a "My Shop" or similar link that goes directly to the etsy/artfire/marketplace website. "My blog" goes to your blog, but I'm almost entirely sure you can hook up a blog to a website so that it is kaiasmom.com/blog or something equal to that. Link the community stuff to "my community" and put whatever other pages your mom wants into easy navigation. She can also put up advertisements if need be to generate revenue.

Pros: limited transaction risk, most of it is out of the box, and you could probably code the portal from HTML and no one would be the wiser if you were suave enough, you can change what you need to whenever you need to.

Cons: very expensive monthly. But that's what you get for it being user friendly.

As an added note, a lot of "smart" people think that its okay to use copyrighted materials, as long as you only charge for the cost of production (so, like, the fabric it is printed on) when that is very much not the case. they just aren't sued.

edit: added benefit of using a marketplace is that you are already syndicated there, so you are able to pretty much double your exposure (if you properly syndicate your website with directories, if that's the right term. Many services offer that for free when you register a domain name).

Yeah, that's the client-side stuff. That's what your user interface and page layout would be defined with. To build your own custom online shop, however, you would need server-side code for handling the data clients submit to the server. Depending upon what your hosting service provides, your options might include languages like PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, JVM languages (e.g. Java), .NET languages (e.g. C#), and even server-side Javascript. PHP is fairly ubiquitous, but there's parts to it I don't personally like much.

You're also going to need to store your shit somewhere, most commonly with a database engine (PHP comes bundled with MySQL, for instance), which is another bit of fun along the way. Not to mention you'll want to learn your way around your language's respective platform and possibly also a good framework as well.


If you choose instead to adopt someone else's CMS, mostly you can avoid programming with a bit of configuration wizardry instead. I can't give you a ton of advise here because I basically only code my own apps, which again I'd only recommend if you had a good reason to do it. You often don't want to noob code your own server-side applications for security and efficiency reasons, mostly, but of course it's doable.

Post has been edited 10 time(s), last time on Nov 19 2010, 5:41 pm by Tuxedo-Templar. Reason: Die edit button! Die!