Hi,

I want to as inexpensively as possible:

register a domain; and

get a simple website where I can post a few pages of info about my homemade CD's of original songs.

I'd like to be able to post a few (very few) photos and probably some mp3 samples.

I'd like to be able to accept credit card orders online (although I haven't a clue as to how this is done).

So:

1) Technically speaking, what do I need (how many gigawhatsits of thingamawho's etc.);

2) From which reliable and honest, but cheap service provider would you recommend that I get it?; and

3) What other website features/ considerations does a new entrepreneurial venture need that I am overlooking?

Thank you immensely for any guidance!!!!!!
:)

What you're describing is basically a personal site. You'll want to start small, and increase your hosting plan size as you need the resources - that way you can avoid paying for resources until you need them.

To figure out how much disk space you'll need, try and guess how many pages you'd have in your web site. Using 2K for each of those pages, add in the file size of your MP3s and photos. Then, just to be on the safe side, double that figure. It's not reliable, but it will give you a ballpark estimate.

For bandwidth, again, start small. You'll probably want to start with at least 3 gigabytes a month. You may need to increase your plan size as your site gets more visitors - but again, until you know how much bandwidth you're actually going to use, start small. Also, find a host that makes it easy for you to upgrade, downgrade, or buy extras (extra bandwidth, extra disk space, what have you.)

For accepting credit cards online, it's not all that difficult - you'll just want to sign up with either a 3rd party processor and / or Paypal.

Since you do plan on offering MP3s for download, once you do choose a host, communicate with them. Tell them the file names, and give them a document (or email) stating that you own the copyright to those songs.

That's enough to get you started!

Lesli,


Thanks so much for the info!! This is very helpful! :) :)

I'm still about 3 or 4 months away from having my first product ready, so I'll probably wait a little longer before buying webhosting. But I did look at your site and it looks like just the sort of thing I'm looking for.

My only experience with website design has been creating a few free webpages in angelfire. This may be a dumb question (in fact, I'm not even sure how to phrase the question), but I am wondering how hard it is to recreate in a paid site (like scribehost) a website that was originally created in a free site (like angelfire, tripod or geocities)? :confused:

A big advantage to paypal is you can get an account without having to pay a setup or reoccuring charge. So you might as well offer that means of payment. Third party credit card services often charge those monthly fees.

The disadvantage of offering paypal ONLY, is that many more people online have credit cards only, not paypal also.

As far as transfering the pages you have already, if you built them with software specific to that host, you may have so much trouble getting them to work, it may be easier to recreate them with your own software.

As I've been thru that, here's two very useful tools to reproduce existing pages if you want to keep very much the same look - "jruler" and "dotcolor". You can find the free download sites by search engine. The first permits you to measure in pixels,inches your existing page elements and spacing, the second allows you to read the color code for any spot on your page.

Hi anonymoose,

Don't worry - there are no dumb questions. Well, perhaps "does chocolate come in any other flavours" :D

If you've created pages with Tripod's or Geocities' web page builders, it should be a pretty easy matter to transfer them to another web host. Just save the pages to your hard drive, make sure you save all the images as well, and then when you get your new hosting account, just upload the pages and images. You may have to do a little bit of editing, to remove any of the banner code that those free page builders will add to your pages; but that's a pretty simple thing to do. Most web hosts (Scribehost included) have lists of resources for basic HTML help and reference guides, for when you do want to edit the pages but if you don't have a way to do so easily yourself. They may also offer design services, or be willing to help you out with the occasional bit of minor spot-fixing.

Maintaining them is where you'll find yourself in a bit of a fix. Many web hosts will offer a file management tool, but that's much different from the WYSIWYG page builders available at the free hosts. You'll want to get yourself a program that lets you edit the pages on your hard drive - there are quite a few out there that work kind of like the easy page builders, where you don't have to work in raw HTML until you're ready to.

For payment providers, Gordo's got a point: if you go with what's known as a merchant gateway, you'll incur monthly fees. Going with a third-party processor solution like 2checkout or Paysystems (there are others, those are just two companies' names as examples) means that you'll pay a per-transaction fee, though, and not a monthly fee.

During your time to getting your site, ask as many questions as you want about anything you want, here and in other forums. That's the way most of us learned what we know ;->

Thank you Gordo for making the points about credit card payments!

Yes, since I'm starting out very smalltime and don't know if anyone will even buy my product, I definitely want to avoid monthly charges for credit card service. For starters then, I think I'll go with paypal only -- and prospective customers will also have the option of snailmailing me a check (primitive, I know) -- until I get complaints about not having something besides paypal.

Thanks again to living_media for the reassuring words on webpage building! I think I'll try to build a prototype for my site at angelfire. If nothing else, it'll give me some more practice in dabbling in html, and it might help me in calculating how much memory I'll need.

Hi again anonymoose,

For the site you're outlining, starting out with only Paypal and snailmail is a decent idea. When you do reach the point where you want to add credit card processing, you can either go with 2checkout or Paysystems (no monthly fees, just per-transaction charges) or with something like Authorize.net or Worldpay (which are the full merchant solutions, and have the monthly charges). You'll want to crunch the numbers and figure out when you'll be doing enough business per month that you'd spend less money going with the merchant gateway - but again, for the site you're proposing, it will probably be a long time if ever before you need to make that change. A year, at least.

Unless your music really takes off and sales shoot through the roof.

I'd like to make a suggestion about mailing checks, though. You may have already thought of it, so I apologise if I'm telling you something you already know.

Don't accept personal or business checks. Have people mail you either a cashier's check or a money order. Those two forms of payment are same-as-cash, and most banks will let people get them for free. You won't have to deal with bouncing checks, and that will make your life much easier.

I'd disagree on the personal checks. Yes, it is definitely a risk. But all you have to do is wait until the check clears before shipping their order.

It's a standard mail order practice that has withstood the test of time. Simply state that "Please allow 2 weeks for personal checks to clear" or "Please allow 2 weeks when paying with personal check". People know the deal.

I was webmaster and order-fulfillment for an internationally know guitarist, and accepted payments via PayPal, Visa, MC, Discover, Money Order, and Personal Check. 45% of the orders were straight CC, 30% PayPal, and 25% by check. In most cases, those that paid by check would email me stating that "is this ok -- I don't have a Visa and I don't use PayPal". So the need does exist.

Just in case you didn't know, it works like this: you are allowed to wait until a personal check clears the bank. But if the customer pays via Visa, MC, or Discover, you MUST ship their merchandise within 24 hours of charging their card, otherwise they can dispute the charges. This is dictated by the CC companies, and will be a condition of your merchant agreement. PayPal is a bit more flexible, because they are acting as interim.

PM or email me if you need more info.

Originally posted by anonymoose
Hi,

I want to as inexpensively as possible:

register a domain; and

get a simple website where I can post a few pages of info about my homemade CD's of original songs.

I'd like to be able to post a few (very few) photos and probably some mp3 samples.




Take a look at CD Baby (http://www.cdbaby.com/), specifically the Sell Your CD link. The are very reasonable with new artists, and that allows you to concentrate on making cool tunes instead of web hosting. :D

Man, this is great. I feel like I have my own board of advisers.

I've been thinking about the personal check issue. I think I will accept personal checks but tell customers up front about the delay.

I didn't know about the "ship within 24 hours of charging credit cards" requirement. Thanks for the warning, perroloco.

I have looked at CDBaby in the past and sent them some questions. They seem to be honest and upright. They charge a one time $35 fee (very reasonable) and also charge $4 per CD sold through them. That $4 is a nice chunk of the profits, but it could still be to one's benefit to sell through them. For one thing, I believe they give you a free bar code which you can use on your product no matter where you sell it. That's a savings of hundreds of dollars right there. Plus, it's possible that someone who would have never heard of you will learn about your CD when browsing CDBaby's site.

My intention was to include CDBaby in my distribution, but to also sell directly through my website and through other avenues as well (I have some pretty lofty plans for someone who hasn't sold a single CD yet. Next I'll be choosing colors for my limo).

Solid black is always a good choice. Higher resale value, too. Though white also looks nice on limos. Not quite so hearse-like.

Baby blue is right out. Same with robins-egg blue. It looks okay on midsize Chevys, but it's just not right for the block-long stretch jobs.

...seriously...you're evaluating tools to sell on the web. If you were looking at setting up some way to sell CDs through the mail, or through some small rented storefront space, you'd be doing much the same thing: gathering information and evaluating what steps to use when.

:laugh: