Kyle I use web.com it’s really easy to build one from the ground up there.

www.stretchandpress.com

I went thru the same thing, Kyle. Luckily, I had some knowlege of Dreamweaver, and I worked with my friend to get the look I was going for. needless to say, I’m on my own now, and feverishly trying to get changes done before my dreamweaver trial runs out. (new computer, new os)
It’s hard work, but, stick to it, if you have some base knowledge, you can do it. even if you can get minor help from a pro, it will save you $$$. good luck!

I’ve gone through a company called Volusion (volusion.com) for my website since November 2007. I added a second site to my account about a year ago. The first site costs $39.95/month to sell up to 100 products. The second site is $19.95/month which includes up to 20 products. On top of this price, I pay about $75.00/year for an SSL certificate for each of my sites. This is a must when you sell online.

Volusion offers several free templates to choose from that may be customized in a variety of ways. They also have templates you can purchase. Both of my sites were built using a free template called “Zen.”

In order to make changes to my site, I go to an administrative area that lets me manage my orders, reports, inventory, marketing, customers, design, and settings. I have pretty much all the features I need and then some… shipping options, free chat software, coupons, gift certificates, newsletter, email list maintenance, etc.

One of the things I really liked when I first signed up with them is the fact that they have video tutorials that take you through pretty much all the set-up steps and features. Whenever I had a question (and I had several in the beginning) I went to their website and opened a chat window with their support department.

I would definitely recommend them. I don’t think you can beat this price for the service, especially if you’ll be selling less than 20 products.

If you’d like to check out my sites, they’re at http://www.photoweights.com and http://www.condompaperweights.com.

Here’s another option.
http://www.homestead.com/

Looks pretty easy for the beginner.
Only $4.99/month
after 30-day free trial

Heather, your website looks fantastic. Looks professional and easy to navigate. I took a look at adobe Dreamweaver. I don’t have the knowledge to work with that program.

hey, thanks for the compliment!
well, the only reason i know some of it is b/c in college I took a web course. even THEN i couldn’t comprehend everything. now, i can do basic stuff, add picts, links, etc… again, this was a collaboration of my friend (who did most of it) and myself- i keep adding invitation picts by myself, and any other small info that needs updating.

What is your web address, Heather? I’d love to take a look.

I started out using Dreamweaver, too. It was a great program to use. In the beginning I hosted my site using my free space with Earthlink and found a shopping cart solution (mals-e.com) that was also free. (Google Cart and Paypal are also options).

When sales began to pick-up, I switched to a web hosting company which cost about $75.00/year. When sales continued to climb, I needed to find something that automated many of the things I was doing manually – invoicing, email notifications, reporting, etc. This is when I started to look for some ecommerce solutions and found Volusion.

I gave homestead.com a trial run about 1 1/2 years ago. Based on their customer service alone, I would avoid them. (They may have improved their service since then). Homestead transferred my ‘.com’ to their server after I specifically asked them not to. As a result, my website was down for nearly two days. Dealing with them by phone during this time was a nightmare.

www.thebrideidea.com
i also use network solutions to host my site.

I use godaddy.com, only cost about 9.95 a year for the domain and 8.95 monthly for hosting and site builder, there is another fee not much but cant remember how much. altogether not too bad, though you cant use your own template not too bad.

I love your site, Heather. It looks great!

I also like your site Heather. Thanks for the advice everyone. I ended up buying dreamweaver and flash so my intention is to learn the software while making my site. Once proficient I’ll work on elance.com to make my money back. I figured this to be the most beneficial, this way I can design my logo and site exactly the way I see it and use it for future development for one price. I’ll use a host from a top 10 list that is roughly $6-$8/month.

I love Dreamweaver and Flash. I always use Dreamweaver when I build a website. I took an continuing education course years ago to learn them. My skills are a little rusty, but if you have any questions, I may be able to help.

I think I’ll be alright. The amount of FREE tutorials online is outrageous. I bought CS4 (newest and greatest haha) but the CS3 videos help as well. I just bought it this week and I already made my first logo, flash intro, and just have to figure out the meat of what I want on my website. The thing that worries me is making forms and having them emailed to me. I’ll figure it out though.

Note – I live in a hotel during the week and hardly do anything most days at work so this is not representative of how easy the software is…I just have free time and youtube is the best instructor.