newbie need help site building

[Anubis]

SO i have tried reading up on this but I don't really get any answers

The basic theme layout is nice - but if I need to change things and build a website to my liking with i.e. wordpress or softpad - does thirtybees have anything like this?

Is it possible to make use of wordpress to design the website and then integrate it to thirty bees?

If not? What options do I have other than becoming a full fledged web developer?

[wakabayashi]

9 hours ago, Anubis said:

Is it possible to make use of wordpress to design the website and then integrate it to thirty bees?

No thats not possible. You can install both and then link from one to the other. IMO I wouldn't mix them.

I would either use thirty bees and a blog module. Or I would use wordpress with woocommerce.

[Anubis]

OK - what blog modules can I use? Unfortunately FREE ones are my limitations 

 

[wakabayashi]

There is a module called "beesblog". It should be available in your backoffice under "modules". It's free.

But in general it's ofc not easy, to launch an ecommerce business without any budget. Just sayin. Nothing is impossible 🙂

[Anubis]

True true.

But the whole reason I am in this mess is due to loophole. So you get software but it locks you down with limitations that at the end of the day you spend 20$ a month plus 40$ on plugins and anothe r100$ or so that you could just have a site developed and it would have worked you out cheaper. I have tried all ecommerce software and website building software on the global and local market in the past 2 weeks. This will be the 9th time this past 3 days that I am manually setting up products and payment plugins. I've been at this for 4 months now....

 

[zen]

On 5/3/2022 at 11:40 AM, Anubis said:

True true.

But the whole reason I am in this mess is due to loophole. So you get software but it locks you down with limitations that at the end of the day you spend 20$ a month plus 40$ on plugins and anothe r100$ or so that you could just have a site developed and it would have worked you out cheaper. I have tried all ecommerce software and website building software on the global and local market in the past 2 weeks. This will be the 9th time this past 3 days that I am manually setting up products and payment plugins. I've been at this for 4 months now....

 

OK.. so go for TB and why not try it with my latest them boostrap 5 compliant => LINK HERE

The Free Blog that comes with initial install is more than enough for start.

[cienislaw]

On 5/3/2022 at 11:40 AM, Anubis said:

True true.

But the whole reason I am in this mess is due to loophole. So you get software but it locks you down with limitations that at the end of the day you spend 20$ a month plus 40$ on plugins and anothe r100$ or so that you could just have a site developed and it would have worked you out cheaper. I have tried all ecommerce software and website building software on the global and local market in the past 2 weeks. This will be the 9th time this past 3 days that I am manually setting up products and payment plugins. I've been at this for 4 months now....

 

but you jumped into this loophole yourself, as many others who believed that they can get something for free. doesn't matter if you go open source or SaaS - to bend it to your needs you will have to pay or do many things yourself.

[Anubis]

I don't mind some things. But the type of person who resorts to this sort of application, clearly doesn't have the skills to edit css files ground up. Understand my point? 

But i guess to each their own. Thanks for the assistance. 

[cienislaw]

No, I don't. There is wrong impression around the web that this sort of application have to be free and accessible by anyone. An illusion, that you can install it by yourself, do some clicking and you are set to be another ebay or amazon.

Prestashop/30b is not so popular/advanced in terms of customization as WooCommerce. I won't make a mistake that Wordpress/WooCommerce is now most popular platform, so there is more modules, more customization ways, advanced WYSIWYG editors and so on. But even with all those goodies available for free, sooner or later you will hit the paywall with more advanced functions of modules or need for a custom code.

Sooner you accept how this works, less disappointed you will be when issues/problems occur.

[Anubis]

Hye man

Clearly you took this personal and in the wrong way. But let me lay it down for you. 

I understand better than most the importance of making money for your work. However not being able to provide the basic checklist in the market is clearly a problem. Let me explain from a business perspective. 

Let's say I make a estore that people can use who don't want to or cant code themselves. What are the first basic principles I need to apply in order to ensure that my business model works. 

Understand market needs

eStore:
Why is someone opening a estore? They want to make money but don't have enough capital to do it the old fashioned way - buy stock - and sell it. Not even accounting for marketing or rental space. 

Why do they want an downloadable eStore? Clearly lacking in the coding department and they don't have the cash to get an developer to do it. Let me remind you here places like Fiver exist. Those Devs are cheap. Takes about 20 man hours to design a estore from top to bottom with no external plugin use as well as media ( banners, broders and logos).

What is their budget? Referring to question above - minimal. They can barely afford the hosting.

How do I make money if I am to make an estore plugin? Design an easy to use with no prior experience and great layout with a tutorial on all fronts. Build import modules to streamline the import and setup process to get them up and running as soon as possible. Now - they are cheap - so we make all models free and setup an nice community driven blog where we select most traction post to help work out bugs and get free help from the community. Now for the making money part. Streamline services and sign up with hosting companies to sell software prebundles with hosting. Working with the masses - thus small margins with great volume - very stable and reliable income. Additionally make all modules free but - everything is costum integrated - thus we charce a small transaction fee - normal payment services charge around 3% thus charge less than a percent. Here we have the option - because of our free software and we can track how many people are using it - go to payment services with deal. no extra percentage on transactions instead split profit with them - further streamlining service. Now we make money, hire more devs, get a building. Now we put in advertisement services. On every website - we setup mailing services and free add plugins. But we then ask 1 simple thing. For every 30 adds displayed on website - we get to display 1 add. another deal with add services like google - boom more money. More devs and more people - support staff - unlock direct support services. Here we start selling premium support. Need something done on the website? Call us! Problem on database? Call us! Now we enter the final phase. Giant community, happy people all around - we now move to localization. Here we shall proceed to open a new department. Call them Marketing. We start where the majority of websites are hosted, contact local new and upcoming website developers and marketing companies (specifically two - as new people are self taught and small operation basis). We sign up deals with them to use our product and give them free access to more than normal stuff without premium subscription. Then we proceed to get our own hosting. We now sell the hosting. Increasing profit significantly. We then sell these through reseller bundles to these up coming devs where they sell to clients but - they automatically have premium support. But - the trick is to get them to kinda be involved - thus free staff as these devs get incentives form selling your product. Now we become a premium brand. Now we move to provide large companies already established but not yet in the online game and sell them a commercial license store. No ads, no lockaway - back bone access. but they pay every year for a license. Now we can afford legal department and commercial banking system - thus we enter the era of influencers!
Now we are big, well know and very well established. We can also do regional marketing - thus charge more money in 1st world countries and less in 3rd world countries. Now we start to focus on the community. Now we get big esote influencers to use our community to blog. We start hosting and streaming- now we running in the big leagues. Thus - Profit, GROFIT! (trademark warframe)

Where instead we chose to aim to cater for a market that has basically no cash on hand but lock away major features behind paid modules after we know for a fact that the whole reason they are here is because they can't afford a store front.... yes... this is wise. Especially when there are already so many options to choose from. Let's be another face in the crowd and stop supporting it after 5- 10 years cause everyone moved on to some highshool kid who took the time to code 1 himself and just do a decent business model. 

So in short - be smart - invest in cleints to use your shit - get them hooked, help them make money then start charging them. THAT WILL BE A LOYAL CUSTOMER FOR LIFE. Just don't screw the customer over. Hell you can even go for graphic designing, trademarking, ecomerce training - so much more. Just don't screw them over by running for quick money - keep the support, love the community and have an transparent presence. Tell them - we are a business, we need money - but you want to make a business, you too need money - let''s work together. 

PS: Anyone using this - cause currently there is no one - please be nice and give credit where due. I pissed this out in like the 15minutes it took me to type this. 

Anyways - hope you understand my point now, and yes - woocommerce and wordpress is the most popular for that reason. You can build the site with all the extras without paying a dime. even have an automated news letter that generates on popular stock and analytics for stocks and web searches - for free. WHy? Cause the premium features makes it so much easier. Now they give the essentials and more to make the people comfortable to stay. But their plugins are mostly cheap. But they make their money this way- through the hidden things. How long has wordpress been around? Have you ever paid for wordpress? cause there is nothing locked away there in that I found need for in my 12 years using them. Just stop and think about it for a moment. I am not insulting! I am at worst criticizing cause I am now forced away from TB due to a lack of understanding of their basic market. 

Hope this clears things up for you. I am not angry - but sad as I was forced to accept "I like this, but it can't work cause they chose". 

So with this cleared up - hope you have a great day and maybe - with some grace luck and charm - someone calls or mails my ass and says "Aigh't lets make TB the most popular eStore on the planet- can we use your shit" and this becomes a reality. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Anubis

[Anubis]

On 5/4/2022 at 2:47 PM, zen said:

OK.. so go for TB and why not try it with my latest them boostrap 5 compliant => LINK HERE

The Free Blog that comes with initial install is more than enough for start.

I am so sad I only saw your message now. But I will still give this a try. 

How can I like upvote your stuff? I feel you have the best answer at the moment and actually took time and effort to resolve my problem. So I would like to thank you!

[cienislaw]

mate, I'm not angry or getting this personal, as I'm a regular 30b user who a few years ago made a choice. I've invested money and time to get my instance of 30b up and running. Probably I will move on when crucial modules will lose support of Prestashop 1.6. Probably I will go for WooCommerce, but not for it wide plugins selection and WYSIWYG customization, but stability of support from payment gateways, carriers and any other crucial external service providers. IMO those things should determine platform of your choosing, not eye candy stuff.

all this stuff you are talking about should be addressed to current 30b maintainers. you don't look as a newbie but still asking questions about things those are not there. believe me, if 30b had a wide selection of themes and WYSIWYG editor, you would read/hear about it.

my 5 cents are just a general view how ppl are now seeing world. eCommerce software is a product as any other for example car. If you are interested in buying one, you study your options and decide to buy it or not. you don't go to manufacturer and yell at him to add something because you, one client per million want it. but when it comes to free software such demanding behavior is a standard.

is 30b the best eCommerce software around the web? for god sake - no. is 30b the best documented eCommerce software? it could be better. but available info is more than enough to make a decision to go for it or not. at least if you have a basic knowledge of web technologies and did your homework on what things will be crucial for you.

[nickz]

6 hours ago, Anubis said:

Understand market needs

There is not one single examples of someone starting form scratch evolving into something like bestbuy.

There is a big difference in setting up a functional website or a fuctoning ecommerce site. You can set up your perfect Ecommerce be it TB or PS or Magento on a server with limited capacities and your shop stops workinmg because there are not enough resources for 5 customers at the same time.

[veganline]

Just looking for some things to answer for a beginner.

A good start is to try uninstalling every module and re-installing to get an idea of what they do. Using the search box for likely controls is useful too, as they're sometimes hard to find.

> if I need to change things and build a website to my liking with i.e. wordpress or softpad - does thirtybees have anything like this?

Thirtybees has a range of colour combinations by default at (I think) 
backoffice > modules > themeconfigurator > display live configurator | yes > view

> Is it possible to make use of [ ... ] to design the website and then integrate it to thirty bees?

There's already TINY MCE html editor built-in to the product description forms, or you could paste-in html from another editor like https://onlinehtmleditor.dev/ . The <> button reveals a source code page where you can paste whatever you want, but you'll need to change 
backoffice > preferences > general settings if you want to insert iframes or remove "html purifier" which might otherwise take-out anything other than pure html.

> Is it possible to make use of wordpress...

BountyHunter Toys on the forum use wordpress with a Thirtybees plugin but it's hard to get replies on a Wordpress or Thirtybees forum when people aren't sure which is the problem, so safest to keep to one or the other.

> If not? What options do I have other than becoming a full fledged web developer?

When you've exhausted what the back office can do, you can still tweak code with a relatively shallower learning curve than a full-fledged developer course.

css
If you right click on part of your site in a browser, it will probably have an "inspect" option to show an overwhelming number of ways to find the relevant css and html for that part of the site. If you think you can copy the css for the bit you want not to display, or change, you can copy it to
backoffice > preferences > custom code > css
and add {display:none} after it, or css to change it. If you have space for a test installation, all the better.

>write a css file from the ground up?

This is easier to learn than writing a css file from the ground up. It can be picked-up over time without having to go on a course . W3 schools is a free site with bite-size explanations of different bits of css. https://forum.thirtybees.com/forum/23-tips-and-tricks/ shows some examples, such as how to not show the date of birth request or how to shorten the order form.

template files
A similar skill is identifying the smarty template file - which is a bit like an html file - for some crucial bit of the site you want to tweak, and learning just the bit to delete or move. They are like html with extra smarty code attached. If you know a bit of html and stare at them long enough, you can probably guess which bit you want to delete or tweak. It's possible to choose differently-edited templates for different products, and to store edited templates in a place where they're still used after you update the site. I don't think I can explain neatly, but there are scraps of instructions and forum threads that explain most of it. Instructions for Thirtybees' predecessor, Prestashop 1.6.1, broadly apply to Thirtybees.

>you spend 20$ a month plus 40$ on plugins and then another 100$

There are odd forum threads about really essential modules. Modules for connecting to ebay and the like come-up, and for customization, but otherwise you can get a long way with free ones and some tweaking. Also, if a new site isn't going to get many customers at once for years, there are forum threads about the cheapest hosting. I use Hosting.co.uk and Cloudflare, but it was hassle to get the free cloudflare SSL working so there are probably better cheap options.

>I've been at this for 4 months now....

Only four months? It took me ages to give-up on Ubercart, Drupal Commerce, Wordpress, Prestashop. I think this kind of software is getting better now, though, and Thirtybees does have a lot more free modules. Stripe payments module, for example, and Prestools.com

Good luck
Hope you get going

------------- 12.5..22
I didn't see the other post about wordpress modules to show Prestashop / Thirtybees products:

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by veganline
link to another post about Wordpress

[Anubis]

On 5/6/2022 at 8:16 PM, nickz said:

There is not one single examples of someone starting form scratch evolving into something like bestbuy.

There is a big difference in setting up a functional website or a fuctoning ecommerce site. You can set up your perfect Ecommerce be it TB or PS or Magento on a server with limited capacities and your shop stops workinmg because there are not enough resources for 5 customers at the same time.

OK - well not exactly true - but since you've clearly missed the point I was explaining and decided to go into a certain direction, I bid thee a fair well. 

[haylau]

On 5/11/2022 at 4:22 PM, veganline said:

 

------------- 12.5..22
I didn't see the other post about wordpress modules to show Prestashop / Thirtybees products:

 

Nearly finished this review. Hopefully release the post about it today / tomorrow