computer info

[Adger Smith]

Are there any canned programs that allow (help) a guy to sell off his website? (parts and machine work)
Need something that is easy to use,easy to navigate, for dummies.

[Dave Koehler]

Adger,
Let me see if I can make this as painless as possible.
Stuff needed:
>A decent digital camera
>A software program to crop and clean up the photo. Paid or free both work.
>A web site creation program. I have been through several. This one, hands down. http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/
Easy to use. More or less copy/paste/typing. Great support via a forum.

>A web host. I use this one. https://www.a2hosting.com/
> A web site domain name: You can get this through A2.

Collecting money.
The webbuilder program has some built in store set ups that you may or may not like.
Most of the time a middle man is needed to gather the info and send it to you.
I currently use this one: https://www.americommerce.com/
How it works. Customer checks out with all the pertinent info. That info goes through americommerce. They drop me a notification email that the eagle has landed. I get the info from them, fill the order, run the card through my cc machine and ship.
If you have a UPS or fedex account your biz software may be able to print the shipping label saving a step or two.
This is different from places that the computer does all the work, charges the customer and so forth all automatically.
That works fine for big companies with many minions. For our type of work I often see stuff ordered wrong. A quick call squares it up.
The advantage to me is that I avoid partial or full refund charges. They get money when you process the card or if you issue a refund, partial or full. Gotcha coming and going so I avoid the going whenever possible.

I don't use the Americommerce store program as it does not match my style but the offer is there.
Speaking of made for you sites and stores. I would avoid them. Boiler plate sites always look like 1990. After a while you can spot them. Tire stores come to mind. Generic with nothing that sets them apart from the next tire shop. Also you have no control over what goes where.

A nice thing about the web builder program is that you can get it all set up and tested before uploading to the net.
I suggest doing this during the winter months because as you go along you realize you don't like what you laid out the first time around.
When it comes time to change some pricing you just work on that particular page and upload it.
Once you are semi satisfied go hunting for a host.

One more consideration is security. You will be need to ask for a SS certificate setup when you get your domain name and host. That's the https: you see these days. I also recommend upgrading your malware killers. This works real well. https://www.malwarebytes.com/
A VPN is a good idea. Malwarebytes offers one as well as other places.

You can dig around my site to see how I did things