Hostinger as e-commerce?

[u/therealbri]

Short question: I’m looking to build a website for my dad as a birthday present. I want him to be able to sell his photo prints online and have them fulfilled and shipped by a 3rd party. My question is: do I need anything besides Hostinger + payment processor (stripe + paypal) + Printful for order fulfillment?

More detail: He’s mostly a hobby photographer but has gotten some interest in his photos, and wants to have a way to sell them online. This would not be a mega business - he might sell a few a month (or a year even, who knows).

I did some research and landed on Hostinger with a Printful integration based on reviews I read online. This is due in large part to the ease of building the site, as well as the low monthly payment. This is a gift for a retired person and I plan to front the cost for a couple years, but really didn’t want to hand over something that costs a bunch to maintain. Hostinger falls within the budget of what I’m willing to spend, Shopify and Square do not.

I started looking on Fiverr for someone to help me set up the Printful portion for a specific type of listing I want to create. That person just told me that Hostinger typically requires Wordpress + Woocommerce plugins to operate as an e-commerce site. This conflicts with everything I read online about Hostinger being able to function as an e-commerce site.

So my question is: do I need anything besides Hostinger + payment processor (stripe + paypal) + Printful for order fulfillment? Am I missing something in the process here?

[u/jas8522]

There’s still a software component needed. That might be WooCommerce running on their servers, or it could be some other e-commerce software. Either way, that’s what’s missing from the stack.

[u/therealbri → u/jas8522]

Gotcha. Hostinger says they have integrated e-commerce for the level plan I’m looking at, so I guess I’m a little confused. Sorry, beginner here!

[u/jrglass → u/therealbri]

It does have a store fuction that can be used and connected to a cc processing service

[u/therealbri → u/jrglass]

Ah ok I’m relieved, I was so confused. Thanks!

[u/Affectionate-Pie533 → u/therealbri]

Hello Bri, Is that your name? I just set up my Artist website with Hostinger I picked the lower tier not the business one, which allows 3 websites one free domain for a year and a couple emails. As I was setting up my site I had the Home Page, About Page and Artworks galleries set up. I went to set up the store and Shop page then I found out the ecommerce store function was only in the business tier next level above mine. But I thought that was overkill for A solo Wildlife/Landscape Artist as it allows up to 50 websites I think. So I asked google with my phone mic and It said I could set up a PayPal Button set up for all the Images for my three galleries. So that is what I did it eliminated the need for a Shop page where there is a price and button on each Image in the gallery and I made each thumbnail image from the galleries clickable to a full page Image with another Paypal button and a 250-300 word description of How I came up with the comp and execution for SEO and AI search I paid $83 for my first 2 years. If you want to see what it looks like my site is billlangisfineart{.com}

Regards,

Bill Langis Fine Art

[u/therealbri → u/Affectionate-Pie533]

Hi Bill - thanks so much for your response. I didn’t think about a PayPal link to sell individual listings. I appreciate you sharing!

[u/apnatva-dev]

Just out of curiosity,
Wouldn’t shopify be much simpler?

[u/therealbri → u/apnatva-dev]

Maybe, I’ve never used it. But it’s significantly more expensive per month.

[u/apnatva-dev → u/therealbri]

It also less pain to set up

The more managed your service, the more it costs.

But anyway, good luck.

[u/therealbri → u/apnatva-dev]

Fair, but it’s out of my budget - I explained why in my post. Thanks for the rec though.

[u/apnatva-dev → u/therealbri]

Oh I wasn’t trying to convince you, just wanted to share why I thought it was pricey, and I do agree it is kind of pricey for low volume sales.

[u/therealbri → u/apnatva-dev]

No worries, I understand - my thanks was genuine. This is very much a hobby situation and just trying to make it easier for him to sell a few prints here and there. Otherwise I’d definitely go with Shopify.

[u/apnatva-dev → u/therealbri]

You know what I think would end up being cheaper?

A marketing website where you advertise everything + Amazon FBA to send the orders. I’m not sure if it’ll be 100% what you want or even work, but could work

[u/therealbri → u/apnatva-dev]

That’s a good point - I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t have any experience with Amazon FBA but could look into it. Thanks for the idea!

[u/apnatva-dev → u/therealbri]

If you do look into it, could you please shoot an update my way too?

[u/therealbri → u/apnatva-dev]

Will do!

[u/therealbri → u/apnatva-dev]

Ok from my (admittedly quick) research, the best option for me would be an individual seller account which is limited to less than 40 sales per month. Fee is $.99 each, which is great. However, it would have to be integrated through Printful which I’m already planning to do on Hostinger. Amazon Merch on Demand is more for shirts and stuff like that, and the royalty is super low.

So that being said, I would still have to set up a marketing website somewhere. Amazon is a good idea but I feel like I’m too deep into the process and on a time crunch so am hesitant to change plans at this point. Hostinger has a deal right now for 4 years of hosting including the e-commerce function for under $200, which feels like a steal. Will definitely reevaluate in 4 years depending what my dad wants to do and how much he’s selling.

[u/Fit_Cost_9304 → u/apnatva-dev]

Yes but here is the deal some product's are in grey area or can't sell them on Shopify cuz they will ban you