New Store using Storestacker

[seekertat]

With a new store (no template or website already built), would I just buy the domain name, get it setup to my hosting plan and then upload StoreStacker to it, change the look of it to obtain my new store and add categories and/or products?

[labm]

Yes.

Build in place. So, make sure your domain is working and then install (and connect to MySQL) StoreStacker.

Here is my order:

1. research niche
2. buy domain name (or use subdomain)
3. create folder on server (domain.com or subdomain.domain.com)
4. Activate MySQL database
5. Upload StoreStacker into folder
6. (assuming Zend and MySQL are ready) Install StoreStacker - connect to MySQL
7. Upload all plugins
8. Start creating categories/rules in StoreStacker
9. Grab Products
10. I modify the template last. Reason? All of the above is quick - you can literally have StoreStacker and products ready in 1 to 4 hours depending on how many products you add. But the templates..well, they are Smarty Templates. Not so intuitive to newbies nor to developers of html/css/joomla/drupal etc..
Smarty Template System stores info in a different way - so you need to learn a whole new way of site development. You cannot just put the .tpl files in dreamweaver or an editor and SEE what you are doing. LOL The files are easy to edit once you learn where everything is kept. You will spend more time looking for and changing lots of color statements (think old fashioned static sites) and images. Just factor the time in, ok? Once you have cleaned one template (or two) completely - you can reuse and change colors/images in less time. To increase the font, I had to find and make over 30 edits! Smarty reminds me of when I built sites in the 80's.

My first site - 1.5 hours to buy/dload/install/create categories/rules/grab products
I was amazed! LOL I had hundreds of pages. Then, it took 8 hours to modify the template colors and images. Sheesh. You should spend another 1-3 hours after that to remove any products that you don't want - pick featured items - add some ads - a few static pages - redoing keywords. After products are in - you will notice some excellent keywords you had not thought about.

So, my first site took about 15 hours till I was happy with it.
I have that down to 8 hours or so now.

Keep in mind that StoreStacker is a tool that automates the grabbing of products from multiple sources and it is brilliant for that.

The template system and templates are just not up to my quality, I guess. I wish someone would charge for an add-on template pack of well-commented sites - even 2 or 3 would help.

I think the script is wonderful - it has helped me a lot. I just want to make sure you allow for template modification.

Best of luck!