Html, CSS, Dreamweaver, Shopping Cart Software, Merchant Service, Payment Gateway, Processor, SSL certificate, Secure vs. Not secure, and on and on! These are all words that I had never thought of, nor thought I would know the definition to! Building a fully involved Ecommerce site is a labor of love. I was fortunate to have an awesome friend (shout out Kory Hodge) build the shell of my site and from there I attacked the shopping cart portion which is the meat, in the meat and bones scenario!
I did quite a bit of research and spent some time learning what all of the pieces to this puzzle may be. Let me tell you…I am shocked how much I understand after going through this process. To put it blatantly…I feel smart! I feel good about what I have learned and developed. It was a long journey but seems to be right on time! I am also shocked that there is not an easier way. I would guess that Google or some other giant would be more on top of building a seemless (all in one program) shopping cart, merchant provider, and payment gateway. But I assure you this does not exist.
So standing on my soap box…I met with Kory last week so that we could tweak some of the categories and links. After this meeting I went home to adjust my part of the changes and guess what…I erased everything! Panic does not even begin to describe what went through my mind. All that work…all that time…
After a few minutes trying to recover what I had erased…I conceded that I needed to spend this valuable time actually re-entering the information I erased. So I spent the next few hours going through the process again. Not ideal but looking back on it, it does not feel like a complete waste of time! The more comfortable I get with this program the more successful my website will be. I am now learning how to really link my meat and my bones so they coordinate into a nice rack of ribs! Ha…reminder that I am still a vegetarian!
So my warrior mission right now is to understand all I can about website design and development! On top of drawing, selling, marketing and production! Ahh the life of a small business owner!