Building a website - website?

[Parks 788]

So, this forum seems to have more people that could answer my question than other forums I'm on.

I want to build my own website that I can sell some of our used construction equipment on. The issue is that I am not much of a techy guy. I browsed around Squarespace but that place seems a bit confusing. What other websites are out there that assist individuals with setting up their own websites. I don't mind spending a reasonable amount of money for the guidance. What do you all recommend?

Thanks

 

[YukonGlocker]

Wix has a slick system, especially if you need an online store with your website. Or, are you wanting to pay someone to build it for you?

 

[MrShooter]

You in the okc area? Im in the excavation business, I might give you a shout sometime.

 

[slas]

I've built a few over the last 10 years. If you're wanting to sell online and accept payments it gets more technical tying electronic payments into an account, easier with something like paypal but I don't like giving them so much of my money. If you're just wanting to advertise the stuff for sale locally it gets a lot easier. Like the above poster said Wix is a viable option., I haven't used them myself. If there's anybody a bit technical that can help you can look for a template, there's tons out there. Find a design and color schema you like, download it and put in all your pics and text. You'll then buy a domain name, many use godaddy, I use networksolutions. Then you'll buy space for your website, somewhere like hostgator. You'll upload your "new" website to your host (hostgator) and point your domain name to that website.

 

[donner]

are you wanting a setup where by people view something and then click and purchase? Or are you just showing what you have and expecting people to call you and come see the equipment?

If you're just showcasing things, a simple site is easy. Perhaps something driven by wordpress so that you can easily update it.

If you're wanting to accept payment through the site then it does become more complicated, but can still be done. Stripe is a good processor that doesn't tie you to a subscription and had some nice integration tutorials.

 

[NightShade]

To be honest if you have a piece or two to sell every now and then building a site out will probably not do much good. You would honestly be better off posting it on Ebay in their heavy equipment section or one of the other sites dedicated to selling equipment.

If you have a constant supply of stuff you sell you need to realise that you will have to do a lot of work to get people to your site. You can easily register in a search engine but it could take years before it gets high enough in the rankings to do a whole lot of good. This means you will need to post pictures and such on places like craigslist or backpage in the for sale sections in your market area's. I have never dealt with the generic DIY builder sites but if you think they are difficult to navigate and deal with for setup some other stuff can be worse. I use Drupal for a lot of what I do to manage the pages and linking and there is other site software that will do the same but you will have to set things up and then manage the install or rely on your hosting company's automated system to do it for you. I don't think it's hard but my wife stares at the stuff like a monkey doing a math problem. Once the site is up you will then have to fill in the content so you will probably either want to get a WYSIWYG editor that will work with the software or find something that you can use on your computer to edit the content and then either copy and paste the HTML or find another way to load the code into the pages.

If you honestly want to try a DIY I would suggest that you take an old computer and toss Apache, MySQL, and PHP onto it and mess around before you try and go it alone with something like hostgator. There are versions of Linux that are ready to go with some minor setup and selection, one off the top of my head would be Ubuntu Server. Download the ISO, install the os onto a computer that you have sitting in a corner collecting dust after you retrieve anything that you want to save off of it and go from there. And remember Google is your friend when you do all of this.

https://www.google.com/search?q=install+ubuntu+LAMP+tutorial
https://www.digitalocean.com/commun...-drupal-on-an-ubuntu-14-04-server-with-apache

There is tons of information out there to help walk you through anything you want to do but if you have problems you may be better off having someone else do it for you. This is especially true if you want to deal with a lot of items that may rotate quite a bit. And at the beginning it will be slow and you will still need to cross post to drive traffic to your site. With items like this unless there is going to be shipping involved I would not even consider doing online payments as you will have a nice two to five percent bite taken right off the top of the sale price. It's easier to say cash and carry if they are going to be picking up IMHO.

 

[Parks 788]

are you wanting a setup where by people view something and then click and purchase? Or are you just showing what you have and expecting people to call you and come see the equipment?

If you're just showcasing things, a simple site is easy. Perhaps something driven by wordpress so that you can easily update it.

If you're wanting to accept payment through the site then it does become more complicated, but can still be done. Stripe is a good processor that doesn't tie you to a subscription and had some nice integration tutorials.

You in the okc area? Im in the excavation business, I might give you a shout sometime.

Donner and others. I just want to showcase what we have available. No online purchasing and prefer the buyers call or email me directly as the purchasing of equipment can be a bit of a process. While our company is VERY large and already has a used equipment website, I have been given permission from management to set up my own website targeted to Hawaii (where we have no locations currently). I have already made huge headway in Hawaii with sales and want to see if I can significantly increase it with a website. The company I work literally has approx $1 Billion in equipment to sell each year.

Mr Shooter. If you are looking for anything I can still help you even though I am in SoCal. The interesting thing is that most of what my customers have purchased are reach forks (telehandlers) and all but one have come from Oklahoma and Texas. Shipped to CA and then on to Hawaii. Let me know what you are looking for and what budget you have and I will search my fleet in OK and nationwide. I'll send you a PM with my contact info.

 

[Burk Cornelius]

Wix has a slick system, especially if you need an online store with your website. Or, are you wanting to pay someone to build it for you?

www.wix.com

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