PrestaShop

Image by Toban Black via Flickr

So I still haven't opened my store yet. It seems to be one thing after another. The storefront I was going to go with has so many bugs. The main site is down a lot and getting the csv feed to work has been a joke. I am now considering scraping the old store and starting my store using PrestaShop. PrestaShop is free Open-Source e-Commerce Software. So you have to provide the server and a domain. While that is a drawback, you get full control over how your store works and looks. I don't have to rely on someone else to fix a problem I am having with their product. If it is broken, I fix it. It does take some know how. Probably more for the moderately advanced user. Some html knowledge is probably helpful.

You should definitely check it out. If I decide to use it, I will let you know how it goes.

Related articles by Zemanta

• best multiple storefront ecommerce platform (startups.com)
• Video: Does Open Source Means Open Cloud - Panel Discussion (cloudave.com)
• VC Funding for FLOSS Dips in 2009: Rebound in 2010? (ostatic.com)
• Pentaho Secures $7 Million in Funding, Looks Toward the Future (ostatic.com)
• Magento Nabs $22.5 Million in Equity Funding for eCommerce Software (ostatic.com)
• Reimagining The Bill (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Yahoo!'s Smart Investment: The Hadoop Community (domainmacher.com)
• Video: Does Open Source Means Open Cloud - Panel Discussion (diversity.net.nz)
• PSD to Magento (ukwebsitedevelopment.com)
• SpreeCommerce.com - Open Source Solution For Businesses (domainmacher.com)

Using CSV Feeds

Last time I did the online sales thing I loaded each and every item I sold one by one. It was very time consuming and not very efficient. This time I have learned about using CSV feeds. I actually had no clue that my wholesale distributor provided a feed that had every item listed on it with all the information I needed to list it on my store. I am lucky enough to have a boyfriend who knows how to write script but I think with a little research, even a novice could learn how to convert these feeds into a useful tool for their website. With the use of script to transform the data provided by the wholesaler to the data required by my web host, I am able to upload my csv file and add 500+ products in less than 30 minutes.

Before it was taking me about 30 minutes to load one item!  More information can be found about CSV files at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values. More information can be found about scripts at: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/scripts.html. You can even use CSV files with eBay. They have a page with details of how to upload CSV data. This page can be found here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/import-csv.html.

Well this is my knowledge sharing for today. I know some of the more experienced sellers will already know what I am saying but if you are as inexperienced as I was, I hope this comes as a helping hand to you. Good luck, tis the season for sales.