Hi,

I need some advice on the best way to go about building a web site which has products you can buy and take credit card payments online. I don't want to use encryption - I would like to be able to use the one with the padlock symbol.

Is there any software out there that will help me build an ecommerce site?

Thanks

Hayley

Check with your hosting company. Most hosting companies provide a free SSL (secure socket layer). This is what you are speaking about. You can also prahcse a cert from a few different companies. You need to check though with your hosting company to see which one they support. And then you will direct it over to https. And most hotsing companies offer free e-commerce packages as well to help you get started.

Corey

Thanks for that Corey. I've been looking at what different hosts are offering and they seem a tad expensive. They either a percentage of each sale, expensive monthly hosting charge - do they want a pound of flesh as well! Can you recommend any decent cheap hosting companies ( sterling)?

At the moment the only people who've been on my site are friends and family and I doubt very much if anyone will purchase anything. I'm mainly doing it for experience.

Cheers

Hayley

I only use one company in the US - www.hostway.com - you might check out: http://www.hostindex.com/ or http://www.hostchart.com/ - they might offer some better alternatives. When you say a percentage of the sale, that sounds more like a merchant account? Hopefully one of those sites might be able to provide you with some good hosting. Also - I have always been a believer in you get what you pay for (especially with hosting companies), so do be careful.

Not sure if this is what your looking for, but what about Paypal (http://www.paypal.com)? They might be a US based site, but as far as I know they don't charge you for the service.

What do you call expensive? I've seen IBM advertising a complete e-commerce solution for small business at $500 (US). I've seen many host services offering similar or less pricing. This doesn't seem expensive to me at all.

You are much better off using such a solution then trying to do it yourself without experience.