Creating a store/video uploads for a site
 

Hiya all. I wasn't quite sure where to put this, so I figured this would be the best spot. Anyways, I'm making a site for my friend's church, and they're interested in having a site with an online shop, as well as information, blogs, videos, and more. I've made sites, but I've never worked with this kind of thing before. I'm fine with everything, except for the store and possibly video uploads. Well, store first. A couple of Google searches seemed to point me towards the fact that I need to buy a shopping cart. Of course, as this is a small church site, I want a cost-effective solution.

So, any suggestions? I could only find vague tutorials, most of which were more about marketing solutions than anything else. I'm looking for something that will be informative enough that I can go from being completely clueless to setting up a shop. I honestly have no idea where to start. D:

Also, as for video uploads, they're looking to allow visitors to upload video testimonials on the church site--similar to what you can do on YouTube. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Also, we have not yet purchased a domain. The person I'm contacting for information on this site was thinking of squarespace.com or godaddy.com, but it looks like godaddy is a better solution. Of course other suggestions are welcome.

I know if you sign up for hosting with a company like DreamHost, they have One-Click Installs that includes shopping cart software. In addition, purchasing a hosting plan from these places typically gives you a free domain registration as well.

Since it seems like you're not particularly savvy in this area, going with the above option might be your best choice. In addition, DreamHost offers plenty of other One-Click Installs (blogging, forums, galleries) that you would probably want.

As for uploading videos, why not just upload them to YouTube and embed the stuff on your site?

Thanks for the tip. =] I was planning on advising my friend to get a host that offers a shopping cart, but she wasn't quite willing to dish out that much.

Yes, we'll be embedding YouTube videos, which was my first suggestion. She kinda wanted to have something comparable to YouTube, however, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, even though I had already mentioned it would be much too complicated.

Thanks again for the tips. I'll show her DreamHost. She seems set on Squarespace, which doesn't quite seem to be a good choice. It's convenient, but there's no shopping cart.

If your friend is new to the online store thing, might I suggest opening a store instead in Amazon or eBay? Although you do lose out in commissions, it's less of a hassle not having to be the one to do all that payment processing.