Ecommerce Today,

Magento’s complex design system has really hampered the launch of the new site. It is now a back burner project and using eBay has become more main stream for me. 

The killer with eBay is the fees.  The listing and paypal fee really cut in to any profit to be had.  The eBay market is intense and certain products can sell very quickly. 

Google also posted their SEO starter guide . 

This is a must read for any estore owner or blogger.   

As I outlined in my last Magento Commerce post , I have started down the path of using Magento as my Shopping cart on one of my sites.  Magento is not for Joe Schmoe who just wants to sell stuff fast.  To get Magento to work and look properly you must know HTML and XML. Even better if you know php, css, and java script.  Since I am not expert in these areas, but know a little I have come up with a plan.

I will edit and generate HTML that I need using the free WYSIWYG editor Komposer .  I feel that I can get the site looking respectable and functional by my self.  Once the site is working and back to generating a little money I will hire a professional web design company to redo the design for a more customized look and feel.

Magento is great free software full of features that you can’t find on other open source platforms. Magento is not a quick and easy store that you can put up in an hour or two.  It is going to take days or even weeks of programming to get it right, but after that it seems like it is easy to maintain.

There is more to come about my adventures with Magento.

I have been using a Virtuemart for Joomla for quite a while.  I was never fully satisfied with it’s layout and functionality and it’s code was too clumsy to easily modify.  So I set off to find a replacement.  I was originally looking for a paid full service host,  but then I found Magento.

Magento is an open source eCommerce platform that is built and supported by Varien. Magento has a very nice interface and many top level features.  It is one of the only open source platforms that I have seen in use by major companies.

The download and install on the store on my linux host was easy and straight forward.  I had a sample store up and running in no time. Now, I have to customize the site and make it uniquely PeakRacer.

In the next installment I will share some store setup tips.  Subscribe to the RSS Feeds Here .