Congrats and good luck first of all mateYou can definitely do it yourself and pretty cheaply. Credit card transations is a bit more on the complicated side, PayPal is much easier, at least in the beginning. 1) get a domain . I recommend godaddy.com2) get a hosting account. I can recommend webhostingbuzz: http://tinyurl.com/yb4xz4eI ve used a handful of webhosting companies and to be honest their support was the first that seemed to really be on top of things. Whichever hosting company you choose, I say go to the live chat at odd hours and ask presales questions and see what you think of the company. That is why I would pick webhostingbuzz (even over hostgator)3) Get a paypal account. You will see a Merchant Services tab and you can generate your own link and button and PayPal will give you the HTML to use4) If you know HTML, you can design it on your own. Otherwise you can use wordpress to get yourself going quickly (and then use html and graphics skills to really spice up the site). Wordpress is limiting if you want a lot of interaction with the user but it s good for general layout ideas. There are actually some great HTML resources out there too. My personal favorite is Web Design Mastery because when I first bought it I was expecting to open up the book and learn HTML right away and instead the entire first book had NO HTML in it - all she talked about was what makes effective web design for marketing and usability - that was new to me and I really liked that approachhttp://designmyownwebsite.net/go/web-des��good luck!
You can do it yourself if you learn how to do it. There are several books on the subject of web page design. Consult your public library to see what they have. If you find a book that is really helpful, you might want to buy a copy of it. There are several people and companies out there that create/maintain web pages, if you want to spend the money to have it done professionally. Accepting credit cards and Pay-pal need to be set up with those institutions. They may even provide the software you need to process the orders. Talk to your bank or the Small Business Administration for pointers.
You can set up a website at moogo.com. They offer free website creating and then you can decide if you want to pay them to have additional services (such as an online store). It is completely free for you to set up a website with them. It is actually really simple too. I had never done it before, but was able to create a website on my own.Then, you can set up a merchant account with PayPal and that will allow you to accept money through your online store via PayPal. They do charge a monthly fee for that service though.
You can sign up with hostgator or any other hosting place, they offer ecommerce templates for free, then all you have to do is add your own products, prices and settings. Very easy to do and cheap. Check out http://www.hosting4beginners.com good place to start.
http://www.goebelmedia.comLow cost great service!
Check out the freebie DIY ecommerce website builder - www.viviti.com which comes with shopping cart and PayPal options. Of for a paid website: www.homestead.com.Good luck!
