While interviewing a retailer for the current issue of our Garden Decor supplement, I learned about a relatively easy and inexpensive do-it-yourself way to set up an online store.

Called Big Cartel, it's perfect if you want to test the e-commerce waters without investing a lot of time or money. It's also a good way to go if you only want to sell a few products (up to 100) and can't justify the expense of paying a Web designer to customize and maintain an Internet storefront for you.

Monthly fees range from $0 to $19.99, depending on the number of products you're offering. There's no set-up fee, because Big Cartel has made it easy for the average computer user to design the site, upload the images, insert product information, receive payments and maintain/update the Web pages.

The only prerequisite is a PayPal premier or business account, necessary for receiving payments for product. PayPal will take a cut of each transaction it processes, somewhere between 1.9% and 4.9% based on whether or not your monthly sales volume entitles you to PayPal's lower merchant rates (maintaining sales volume of at least $3,000 per month qualifies you for merchant rates). At first this may sound high, but remember that if the customer walked into your store and paid with a credit card, the credit card company would charge a transaction fee of around 2%.

You can start small with just a couple of products, like maybe your exclusive store-brand soy candles or the gingko-leaf serving dishes you overbought last spring. In fact, if the number of products you're offering is less than five, using Big Cartel is free.

If you want to offer up to 25 products online, it'll cost you $9.99 a month. For $19.99 a month, you can offer up to 100 products — but that's where it stops. Big Cartel is for the little guys. They're able to keep prices down because they keep things small and uncomplicated.

John Simoudis, co-owner of River in Essex, Conn., is the retailer I mentioned earlier. It was on his store's Web site that I first saw Big Cartel in action. “Big Cartel was a lucky find for me and allowed us to offer smaller merchandise that we could ship,” Simoudis said.

“We don't do a big volume on it yet, but for a store our size it's perfect because you're still able to offer something online. It's very searchable through Google. I looked on my account's administration panel and saw many of our hits were from people who googled for 'linen aprons.' With custom software you usually have to pay extra for SEO.”

Big Cartel also provides a shopping cart, checkout and inventory tracking.

In the product description, there's no restriction on the number of options you specify in the drop down choices, as in “soy candle” vs. “large green soy candle, glass jar, no lid.” And since you tell Big Cartel up front how many “large green soy candles” you have to sell to your online shoppers, Big Cartel will notify the shopper when you've sold out of something so the shopper doesn't add it to his cart. If the customer changes his or her mind and cancels the order or revises the order at checkout, the candle is added back into your inventory and becomes available for purchase again.

“Before we went to Big Cartel, we did a big online store that was custom, and very expensive — not only the initial investment, but the time editorially,” Simoudis said. “We try to present a new point of view both in the store and online as soon as new merchandise comes in, about every three to four weeks. I can edit this (Big Cartel) myself.”

Take a look. River's online store can be accessed from the “Shopping” tab on the home page of the Web site at www.river-ct.com. Product categories are listed in a sidebar. A click on a product photo enlarges the photo and gives price, description, options (size, color, etc.) and an “Add to Shopping Cart” button.

I searched around for comparable programs and could find none that appeared to be as easy and inexpensive as Big Cartel. And the only negative user comments I found, weren't really negative — just users asking Big Cartel to consider increasing the number of products above 100.

Matt Wigham and Eric Turner started Big Cartel a couple of years ago after they set up something similar for their own use. Wigham said the idea behind Big Cartel is to provide only what's necessary — what retailers need and want, in a simple, uncomplicated format — not just for them but for their customers as well. More information about Big Cartel is available on the company's Web site at bigcartel.com.

The online store for Connecticut-based River uses Big Cartel technology for its e-commerce.

To comment on this story, please write to me at susan.dickenson@reedbusiness.com or share your thoughts on my blog at HomeAccentsToday.com.