I’ve done some serious digging for a good hosting site for some time. godaddy.com has been my top choice simply because it is most recommended, and it best fit the needs of what I want to do? Would bluehost be any good for my needs or should I stick with godaddy. I’ve calculated that I would have to pay 0 up front, plus monthly with godaddy, compared to .95 plus a merchant account w/ bluehost. I’m simply trying to figure out what’s the catch with bluehost.

Details
E-commerce site
Ability to display a few hundred products
Easy to build and maintain
Merchant account
SSL
Reliable… to name a few

Hi, I’m thinking of selling my store’s merchandise online, but I’m not going to do it on e-bay or anywhere like that. I’m building my own website, or rather will have someone build it. But I’m clueless as to where to start, I know I need an e-commerce platform, but where do I get a really good one; with full features and a small price tag?

And should I entrust everything to a single company to handle (web design/ graphics/ hosting etc.) in addition to the e-com system, or should I just hire different companies for each task? Please give any kind of tips that you think will be helpful, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!
Thanks for your answers, I will look into them.

However, I still feel I haven’t found an answer. I tried making a list and comparing prices and features, but I spent days doing that, and still didn’t come any closer to making a decision. That is why I need someone to tell me; which are the to most successful, most widely used systems? I’m looking for the safe bet, well-known companies, the Gmail-Yahoo-Hotmail of the e-commerce world.

Please do not advertise your own business, I need an honest, neutral answer

The website I need to create will have a ’shopping mall’ of websites, but I need the ability for a user to be able to purchase and checkout from all stores in this mall easily at one time, and then have confirmations sent to the stores and back to the consumer.

I know Amazon.com has such a system, but I need to be able to customize it according to my needs.

What do I search for, when looking for a ‘dual user open-source e-commerce’, is that the right terminology?

I have heard about magentocommerce.com but I am not sure if it has such capabilities. Does that mean that I will need to build in my custom capabilities from scratch, or the back-end will help with that?

Is there anything else I should know about when attempting to use such software? Any ideas?

What is the recommended e-commerce software I should use to add to my custom website template, so that my customers can create an account, and make a shopping cart, and pay with their credit cards on my site? example: frozencpu.com see how their shopping cart is all integrated on the site, with custom colors buttons and etc. was this completely custom, or is it software that I can edit? Is this also possible with papal with a business account, if yes where do I go to do this?

I wanna buy a gift via internet, but i want this gift to be shipped to someone else’s adress. I also would like that my name (or at least my home adress) wasnt revealed to this person for personal reasons. Before any of you start asking, of course the e-commerce company would know, I’m not trying to do anything illegal..

Yea, i know i’m asking too much.. but all i want is to make a surprise to someone i really like.. thank you all in advance!
Ok Peter C, but what about hiding my name/adress info? Any ideas?

I’m a novice and don’t need something really sophisticated.