# Survey On Website(s)



## NC Wood Art (Mar 11, 2012)

I currently have a free site thru weebly & a paid site thru Network Solutions -E commerce site with NS. The cost are eating away at my bottom line. I am paying $52.00 for monthly service on NS & $30.00 for paypal pro to accept credit cards. 

Who does everyone else use? And pro's- cons?

Bill


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## IPD_Mr (Mar 11, 2012)

There are a lot of options out there hosting and cart wise.  What shopping cart are you using or are you using a menu driven cart provided by NS?  

Unless you have a full blown merchants account the PayPal pro is the way to go.  You can use the standard Paypal merchant account but that would requite the customer to pay inside of PayPal where the Pro account with the right software does it all behind the scences.


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## NC Wood Art (Mar 11, 2012)

The shopping cart is Network Solutions e-commerce packaged, First year it was under $600 per year but after that they keep slowly jacking up the cost.

My paypal account is business account, my Hydroponic's business is steadily growing, I just added my pens & knives to the same business just for ease of reporting income & keeping records straight.


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## IPD_Mr (Mar 11, 2012)

Well then the PayPal is irrelevant then, so your other issue is the website.  For that I would recommend a good quality stand alone shopping cart program.  There are several options out there both cheap and expensive.  Generally a shopping cart license would run you under $200 for some of the better ones.  The next trick is to find a hosting company that knows the shopping cart software that you choose and are reasonable as well.  Hosting should run you under $30 a month and even less if you pay quarterly or yearly.  That savings alone saves you the initial investment of the cart software in the first year.

Here is a problem with many shared hosting companies:  The will limit the number of connections to your database.  1and1 is known for a 15-20 connection limit and they will not change that.  Why?  Because they overload their shared servers for maximum profit.  If they allowed all those connections then they could not load as many sites on a server as they do.  Watch your business as it grows and get away from shared servers when you can.  While they are good for small businesses, if you have any kind of traffic volume then VPS and dedicated are the way to go.  Prices for those will vary as well so find a reputable hosting company that doesn't over charge.  NS is know for being pricey.

Hope this helps a little.


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## toolcrazy (Mar 12, 2012)

My company doesn't limit database calls. But, it isn't an issue anyway if you use the correct software. I'm a big fan of Zen Cart, plus I'm a bit of an expert. Let me know what you need and I'm sure we can work something out.


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## BarbS (Nov 24, 2012)

I'm no expert on these choices, but I've been happy with VistaPrint; I have unlimited pages, Site Builder, music and video apps, a wide variety of templates, and basic Stats, plus a free mobile site added on, all for $20/mo.  They do all the work, I just load my product and go through PayPal shopping cart for payment, or offer e-mail contact for checks or money orders. It has been worth it to me, with matching business cards, banners, T shirts, calendars and Chrismtas cards at reasonable prices. Can't beat it!


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