starting out in the ecommerce industry

I'm a newbie to webdesign but a newbie to computers, I've been working in the networking and tech support industry for a couple of years now and I want to start in the webdesign / ecommerce industry.  I was wondering what are some starting points I can start learning to help in my career move.  For example, what are some basic skills that I need to build a good foundation in webdesign and ecommerce????

I've been doing e-commerce for over 7 seven years (before Amazon launched, I still remember their first crappy web site). My advice is get a firm understanding on security and credit card processing. Learn a broad base of programming languages as you will need them when it comes to integrating. Learn the ins and outs of the various order processing systems.

There are lots of other little things that you should know like encryption and the security requirements for Visa and Mastercard, but if I listed them all I wouldn't have a job.

Not to slam your ideas, but it sounds like you're getting in over your head here. Not to say that you couldn't do it, but unless you have some sort of a nich to exploit, you're in for a really rough ride.

Not only is the market saturated with exp. web designers that will work for food, but there's a ton of programs the build them for you for like $20/mo, and everyone and their brother is trying/tried to start a web design company (even me ).

It's a pain in the ass, and not worth it anymore unless you can score some major clients. Even then, you'll have to have some bad ass skills, or fill some kind of need that no one else can to make the green.

But if you're determined, then I wish you the best of luck and hope that you kick some ass.

. necronom .

ps. Don't learn anything...find someone else that already knows it, and just pay them to do it. You'll save yourself a ton of time, money, and headache.

or you could make things easy for yourself and concentrate on basic design and let a company like WorldPay take care of the banking and ordering side of things.  A lot of people do it this way.