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Thread: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

  1. #1
    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    My partner and myself are setting up a business with a shop. So we need a website.

    What are the options? I haven't spent any time with ecommerce apps, and any web stuff I've done in the past 10 years has been extremely small scale. Obviously we'll also need hosting for this, but I guess a host that offers support for an already installed solution would be best. Of course, it can't be too expensive either, we are just starting out after all

    Anyone got any experience with this?

    thanks all.

  2. #2
    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    Anyone got any experience with this?
    Not with all of that lot, no!

    But I think you have three options really:

    1) Try to find a reasonably priced web developer who will do the whole lot for you. Probably not cheap, unless you can find someone who needs to developer their portfolio and will do you the lot at a discount.

    2) As you suggest, find a web host who offers a set of supported applications that you can plug into then use to build the site yourself. Should be cheaper than the above, but the level of support you'll get could be variable. Also it'll be down to you or your partner to make the updates, so make sure that you'll have time to factor in for doing that as well as running the rest of the business.

    3) Be bold and do the whole thing yourself! Obviously the cheapest option in money terms - you just need to pay for some suitable hosting (a lot of companies do shared hosting with databases, scripting etc. included) - but it'd be a *lot* of work to maintain etc.

    For taking online payments, look into PayPal merchant services. I know a lot of people have reservations about paypal, but when I looked into it their payment APIs were pretty straightforward, allowed you to take card payments directly as well as paypal payments, and the charges were pretty reasonable. I never got round to developing anything with them, mind you, but it's certainly the first place I'd look at if I ever get commissioned to write an ecommerce site...

  3. #3
    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    No. 2 is the route I want to take. I have design experience, but I don't want to be coding up a whole site myself, no way I have time for that. Adding products and stock management is something that my partner would be able to do with a bit of training, although I get the feeling I ould be doing most of it (which is fine). As for payments, she has already been looking into banking services etc. It looks like a Worldpay along with PayPal setup will be the way we'll go.

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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    As a chap with thousands of PCs(!) bung WordPress on a test server and go nuts.

    It'll do everything you want it to do and when you're ready to go into the wild with it, most (if not all) hosts will have the relevant hosting packages.
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    Option 2 ? probably dreeamhost , though I believe 1and1 do some quite good business packages too.
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

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    ALT0153™ Rob_B's Avatar
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    I tried it myself, far too much faff, in the end I gave up & used Weebly which is actually pretty good, you can redirect to it & if you ever decide to go it alone or you want something a bit better just take the redirect off

    Simple, free, not as good as a decent DIY job but a million times easier!

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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    Quote Originally Posted by scaryjim View Post
    1) Try to find a reasonably priced web developer who will do the whole lot for you. Probably not cheap, unless you can find someone who needs to developer their portfolio and will do you the lot at a discount.
    *Cough*

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    Quote Originally Posted by tiggerai View Post
    I do like a bit of hot crumpet

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    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    Quote Originally Posted by finlay666 View Post
    *Cough*

    Funkstar: YGPM
    Would've done this myself but I'm swamped with a full time job and two parents who both run their own businesses. Glad someone took the hint though

  10. #9
    ALT0153™ Rob_B's Avatar
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    what's 'at a discount' though? what sort of prices is the norm these days for those requirments?

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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    OT and you may already be aware, but worth mentioning:

    When selling online, make sure you check and double-check who's responsible for fraudulent transactions - ie whether you or the bank/provider is going to foot the bill.

    http://www.financialfraudaction.org....one-advice.asp should be helpful, typically though just deliver to card address only.

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    HEXUS.social member finlay666's Avatar
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob_B View Post
    what's 'at a discount' though? what sort of prices is the norm these days for those requirments?
    Well locally our competitors charge £1000/day for work (However they do work with Sony, national banks and other companies), we price ourselves at a significantly lower rate to start for a similar level of work, less if it's not a company project (obviously it has to have a budget to not make it a viable company project to avoid issues

    price really depends on time/complexity and scale and factors like design
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    Quote Originally Posted by tiggerai View Post
    I do like a bit of hot crumpet

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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    Ouch, I think I'll stick to using weebly then

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    HEXUS.social member finlay666's Avatar
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob_B View Post
    Ouch, I think I'll stick to using weebly then
    It really depends on the manhours needed, off the books work is a lot cheaper as it's in our spare time obviously
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    Quote Originally Posted by tiggerai View Post
    I do like a bit of hot crumpet

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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    Still probably a touch too much for a taggy/bib making business to afford

  16. #15
    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: website with ecommerce, CMS and blog

    My base price 5 years ago was £15 an hour for static HTML. I think I quoted the HEA just shy of £3000 for an interactive e-learning project (which unfortunately got stymied by greedy academics) which was considerably below market rate at the time. Successful web design companies can charge the earth because they don't need the work as much as you need a good website

    However, people who are just starting out - particularly if they know the client personally - will often offer large discounts in order to get a decent sample site into their design portfolio (hence my low quote to the HEA: my friend was their project officer and told me how much money they had; I worked out a way to fit the majority of their requirements into the budget! Unfortuntely when the project fell through I had to get a real job: otherwise I might still be self-employed... ).

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