Online Businesses

[GuerrillaUnReal]

So this place has always been a cornucopia of knowledge both valuable and worthless. I want to expand into different areas to create more revenue streams and pursue different interests.

One thing I'm about to expand to is running a cigar business and hopefully opening an online retail cigar store. I'm already in the process of working with my local government to get the proper licensing and I have a reputable distributor lined up who can drop ship for me.

My main question is where does one start with software? I've played around on some of the premade shopping cart sites and they're nice but not very flexible. One of the main things I want is to be able to integrate Bitcoin and Altcoins into the payment system but that seems very complex. This is the main thing I'm having problem with is figuring out the software end. I don't want to half ass the store front, I want this to be a long term business.

What advice or experiences can you folks give me? Where does one start? What would you recommend?

[Kongfish]

Personally I would recommend you find a local graphic designer that knows how to make websites & they'll be able to get you the different types of website add-ons with customized settings needed for your paticalur retail items sales platform options. If you find a graphic designer that really knows his shit like a lot of them do, they can show you some behind the scenes software that blow your mind.
If there any good, they should be able to offer you enough content, etc... That you'll want them to takeover the running and updating of your website 24/7 as needed.
Try that route, see if you can find someone that knows what time it is.

[GuerrillaUnReal]

Hey thanks for your advice. I like the idea of having it professionally designed but I would like to do the writing and day to day business on it. I'll start googling around.

[b_dubb]

So this place has always been a cornucopia of knowledge both valuable and worthless. I want to expand into different areas to create more revenue streams and pursue different interests.

One thing I'm about to expand to is running a cigar business and hopefully opening an online retail cigar store. I'm already in the process of working with my local government to get the proper licensing and I have a reputable distributor lined up who can drop ship for me.

My main question is where does one start with software? I've played around on some of the premade shopping cart sites and they're nice but not very flexible. One of the main things I want is to be able to integrate Bitcoin and Altcoins into the payment system but that seems very complex. This is the main thing I'm having problem with is figuring out the software end. I don't want to half ass the store front, I want this to be a long term business.

What advice or experiences can you folks give me? Where does one start? What would you recommend?

Wordpress. There are lots of plugins that self install. You will need someone to help dial in the design, the setup the shopping cart, etc.  Wordpress is free to download and install on the server of your choice.

Recommend a Linux hosting environment and MySQL database. You can get that from GoDaddy for about $5/month at the economy level or $8/month for deluxe hosting. People dis GoDaddy for a variety of reasons. I've always been satisfied with their service and support at that price.

[GravitySucks]

So this place has always been a cornucopia of knowledge both valuable and worthless. I want to expand into different areas to create more revenue streams and pursue different interests.

One thing I'm about to expand to is running a cigar business and hopefully opening an online retail cigar store. I'm already in the process of working with my local government to get the proper licensing and I have a reputable distributor lined up who can drop ship for me.

My main question is where does one start with software? I've played around on some of the premade shopping cart sites and they're nice but not very flexible. One of the main things I want is to be able to integrate Bitcoin and Altcoins into the payment system but that seems very complex. This is the main thing I'm having problem with is figuring out the software end. I don't want to half ass the store front, I want this to be a long term business.

What advice or experiences can you folks give me? Where does one start? What would you recommend?

I've heard good things about Shopify