Merch

DekuStick

I'm going to be starting up a Merch section for my website. Just t-shirts, belts, buttons, stickers, posters, the usual stuff. I don't need help with all the physical merch I need help setting up an online store. I've never done it so I don't know how it usually goes down. My main concerns are shipping costs and payment methods. What do I need to do to get the ball rolling?

Everywhereasign

What kind of traffic are you expecting? If you want to do it on the cheap, use Paypal for payment, then you don't have to worry about people not trusting you with their credit cards, or building a secure method of payment.

As for shipping, if you're only expecting a few orders a month, you can handle them yourself. Start by having someone place an order and then they get a reply from you with the shipping cost and total, then they pay via Paypal, then you ship. If you're going to move more stuff then that, you'll need another option obviously.

From my internet shopping, sites either have a flat rate shipping (usually when they move a metric shit tonne of stuff, they can balance the average cost so they break even on shipping) or they have software that does the work for them when an order is placed, other then asking your shipping supplier, I have no idea where you would get such software.

Start small, and cheap, that's where everyone else started.

reddog

Get a PayPal account for all the money that will be coming in first and foremost.

What I did when I ran the website for my old band was set up an account with Big Cartel. Super easy and very customizable. Check it out: http://bigcartel.com/
. I had no problems with it whatsoever.

DekuStick

I'm getting a pay pal set up for the site now. I expect to moving a decent amount of stuff but it will be slow at first. I get plenty of traffic on my site. I would really love for the website to calculate the shipping all on its own. If anyone knows how it's done or how you do it yourself the help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the posts gentlemen.