How to take orders for custom products?

[particle]

I've gotten pretty good response from my first couple of holsters that I've posted for sale, and want to make more. I probably have a couple dozen buyers just from posting photos on the 1911 message board, and I'm having a hard time keeping track of all of the interested parties. Some responded directly in the thread, while others private messaged me, and yet a couple more clever folks found my email address in my profile and contacted me directly via email.

I'd like to create a web page to take orders. My thinking is that I'll build a submission form where the user can enter their name, email, then select what item they want from a drop-down list. Once they hit submit, I'll receive an email (probably setup a special "orders@myholstercompany.com" email address to keep my inbox organized. Then, I simply build each order from oldest to newest emails. Once the order is complete, I send the buyer a PayPal invoice for credit card payment, and ship it once payment is received.

OR, I could incorporate a PayPal shopping cart, which wouldn't be too complicated since I won't initially be offering very many products - keeping it slim to start with.

What do you pro's do? How do you handle orders for stuff you don't have an inventory of?

My biggest concern would be receiving more orders than I can reasonably fill. But, perhaps it's too soon in the game to realistically worry about that just yet...

[Oldgringo]

particle wrote:

My biggest concern would be receiving more orders than I can reasonably fill. But, perhaps it's too soon in the game to realistically worry about that just yet...

If I may add "more orders than I can reasonably fill" in a reasonable time.

Good luck and God Bless.

[92f-fan]

Its going to be tough to have a system that manages your ability to keep up with demand
A Paypal cart and form is pretty easy way to get started - keep the costs low while you work out the kinks

Let me know if you want some help - I do some web hosting and many of he sites have ecommerce

Doug

[Mhoward]

I use Volusion at our office. Its a great ecommerce site, easy to use. Most of our prodcuts are custom products and Volusion makes it easy to enter.
A friend of mine started a company that sells holsters and ammo for single action shooters. Go to http://www.cowboyshootingstore.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and take a look at what Volusion does. All the screens are built into the program.