How do you set up a website?

How do I set up a website to sell handmade items?

• I'd like to go about selling handmade items on the internet through my own website. However, it's proving to be a little more difficult than I anticipated. D: I know that you have to buy a domain name, but there are so many places ive found to do so... (and a lot of them are scams!) It's hard to know which place to pick. Someone told me to look into Godaddy,com, but I have read numerous bad reviews and I want to look into a better alternative. Suggestions? The prices i've seen thus far for having your own website range from about 3.99 to 7.99 a month on average. Is that a reasonable amount? Should I expect to shell out more? Also, where could i find some basic tutorials on how to decorate the website with HTML and whatnot? ive got a few friends that can help me out but I think it would be beneficial for me to learn the basics first. The website would need a way for people to pay me of course, but I've been strongly advised to stay far away from Paypal. What are some other options? I understand that I will have to pay taxes if/when the business becomes successful, but is there anything other technical law type things that i should be aware of? Do I need a license of some kind to be allowed to sell things on the internet? Some people say yes but others say no, so I'm really not sure what to think here... Please keep in mind that I am aware of websites like etsy and ebay where I could these items, but I have no interest in this. I want MY OWN website with MY OWN name. I know its a lot of questions, but i have a lot of work to do and I don't want to run into this blindly. I really want to be successful with this and I'm willing to spend a lot of time an effort into it. Any other additional information on this subject would be welcomed. Thanks in advance!

• Answer:

  Wow there are many questions - I'll try to see if I can cover everything. Taxes - unless your business gets really big, then you don't need to worry about this. In fact many small-scale online businesses get away with this. If you were thinking of making it an official sort of thing then I'm not really sure about this. Website hosting domain - Try www.blogspot.com. The up side is it's free, but the down side is it's going to have 'blogspot' in the site name. Nonetheless I know heaps of shop owners do use it just because of its easy usability, and I'm a shopowner myself at http://the-red-jewel.blogspot.com and I find it an excellent website hosting domain. Fuss-free and easy to use. P.S I hate using ebay to sell things because all the little fees and things just add up to so much at the end, you hardly make any profit at all! Regarding html for your shop, it depends on what you're intending to sell. For me I learned html through trial and error, or you could head over to www.blogskins.com and apart from offering free blogskins, their forums there are quite useful too. You can experiment with the code yourself, it takes a while but you'll get there eventually.. Why would you stay away from PayPal? I use it and it's great, reliable and a perfectly logical method of payment. It's the only way you can receive payment from international customers so I wouldn't advise you to close off that option too fast. For domestic orders perhaps consider setting up internet banking with your bank account and getting customers to do electronic fund transfers there. Hope this all helps. All the best with your business venture.