E-commerce rookie with begginer questions

I have a website that I'm putting together where the business owner would like the ability to add and remove items from a catalog and sell them on the internet. I have never done anything like this before and am looking for a step by step process or something that can hold my hand through this. It is my lack of knowledge on the subject that causes me to be leary of everything.
Here are the steps that I'm thinking so far (with questions added in parens)

>> I decide if I'm going to use paypal or something else. (Quite frankly I don't know why I would or wouldn't use paypal for my shopping cart. I read somewhere that if I use paypal it should be for a small business and if the business gets big then I should look elsewhere. Can anyone expound on this?)

>> Once I have that down I need to either find shopping cart software or write up some on my own. (I haven't the faintest idea where to look for such a thing, is there open source shopping cart software already out there?)

It's at this point that I throw my hands up and wait patiently for any feedback whatsoever. Thanks to all of you here at Devshed, you've always been able to point me in the right direction.

start with paypal (I assume they support your country), its easier and much faster to use.
once your business gets bigger you should check up 2checkout.com , by that time you will have a better idea of what you need to do.



Look up oscommerce and cubecart, many people use this and you should be able to get help faster if you get into problems.
If you code your own you may get exactly what you need, but finding and fixing bugs and errors will be much more problematic(not recommended unless you are very very good at programming)

both of them support both paypal and 2checkout.
and if you need added functionality just write an addon

Thank you so much, any other suggestions are more than welcome but this is a great point in the right direction!

PayPal is an excellent option if it is supported in your country. Make sure and check with them before you make your decision. I myself use paypal as my small business option for eBay, and my small sites.



OSCommerce is a great shopping cart. If you'd like I can tell you of several free and affordable options. The basics are start with something simple, and easy to use. As your business grows move up to some custom software that you've made yourself. It is always better to make everything custom rather then use others software because then you don't have the issues of copyright infringment, or software malfunction.

Great suggestions, I'm in the U.S., do you know if paypal charges anything?

I've no real input towards your questions; I'd just like to say that your avatar creeps me out.

Well that was a pointless post.

Anyways, yes PayPal does charge minor fees. Just get a business or personal account and then verify it with a bank account, hook up a credit card and go. Even with the small fees you can accumulate that into your overall price.

Or you could use that as a selling point, we take the PayPal fees, not you.

Thanks for the direction, you seemed to be well versed in ecommerce and web design. Which is your favorite ecommerce shopping cart software and why?

My favorite? I don't use a shopping cart, I made my own a while back and customized it based off of a tutorial I found online. I haven't updated it in a LONG time and am not exactly sure where it's at on my pc. Other then that x-cart is an excellent shopping cart that is easily customizable to what you want exactly.