Question for creating a website for my online store

[Jess78]

Hello,

I need some help and advice on this area please, so I am thinking of creating an online store, I have never created a website before and so all of this is new to me.

I have been doing research on creating a website and saw that I can either use a website builder or hire a professional to design my website. I saw that I can use a website builder such as wix, shopify etc however with these platforms I will have to pay a monthly subscription and the company will also take a fee through sales/transactions. This is not what I am particularly looking for.

I am looking to create my own website which I will own, I do not want to create a website where it will be through another company where I will have to pay a monthly subscription , and where there will be deductions through transaction fees. As far as I can see the website builders have this, however for a professional to design my website will these types of fees still occur? If so what type of deductions do they have?

What are the pros and cons of a website builder vs a professional, I have researched about this but I would also appreciate all of your opinions please.

Thank you
Jess

 

[fisicx]

Hi @Jess78 and welcome to UKBF.

If you want full control don’t use wix or any other website builder.

If you want someone to look after the site something like shopify might be the answer.

If you want a cheap site which you host yourself then Wordpress with woo commerce could work.

If you want a dedicated standalone e-commerce platform look at opencart.

But before you do all that, what are you planning to sell and how do you plan to market the products? Do you even need a website? You may have more luck selling on eBay or Etsy.

 

[antropy]

for a professional to design my website will these types of fees still occur? If so what type of deductions do they have?

We charge a fee to build the site and then you can either host it with us or with another web host, but there are no other on-going fees

Paul.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

I do not want to create a website where it will be through another company where I will have to pay a monthly subscription , and where there will be deductions through transaction fees.

If you do not use a platform like Shopify, you will need hosting/server, which has a monthly cost.

he only way not to have transaction fees is by taking cash or bank transfers - taking cards will mean a fee.

 

[dx3webs]

If you are starting from scratch and are just looking to test a market then shopify is as good a place to start as any. If this takes off you can then start to scope out your requirements for your own ecommerce shop around a mature ecommerce platform ie magento (adobe commerce) / open cart etc
You will need to pay for hosting but you wont have to dance to shopify's dictates and you can customise the platform to do anything you want it to do.

 

[wayzgoose]

Have a look at freewebstore.com.

 

[perec4stor]

Use either wordpress or shopify

 

[Russ Michaels]

Hello,

I need some help and advice on this area please, so I am thinking of creating an online store, I have never created a website before and so all of this is new to me.

I have been doing research on creating a website and saw that I can either use a website builder or hire a professional to design my website. I saw that I can use a website builder such as wix, shopify etc however with these platforms I will have to pay a monthly subscription and the company will also take a fee through sales/transactions. This is not what I am particularly looking for.

I am looking to create my own website which I will own, I do not want to create a website where it will be through another company where I will have to pay a monthly subscription , and where there will be deductions through transaction fees. As far as I can see the website builders have this, however for a professional to design my website will these types of fees still occur? If so what type of deductions do they have?

What are the pros and cons of a website builder vs a professional, I have researched about this but I would also appreciate all of your opinions please.

Thank you
Jess

Do you just need an online store or do you also need a complete website with a shop, as this does determine what you use.

There will be a monthly subscription no matter what you use, because at bare minimum you need hosting for your website which is not free, you also have to pay transaction fees to the payment provider, also unavoidable.
Different payment providers have different fees, this is nothing to do with who builds your website.

If you use a self hosted solution then you also have to be responsible for all updates and maintenance and management of the software you use.

This is the advantage of using saas solutions like shopify, ecwid and many others.

The ecommerce solutions have quite limited web design capabilities, this the original question.

So if your website requirements are more than the saas ecommerce solutions offer, then you can build the site separately and just add the shop using any solution you like.

I really like ecwid for this reason, as it can be a standalone shop or easily plugin to any existing website.

I tend to use ecwid with WordPress as clients love it and its really easy to use, maintenance free, and if the website breaks, the shop carries on working, unlike woocommerce. for more basic websites i use kopage.uk together with ecwid.

There are many other solutions too choose from of course, but these are the ones i prefer and which are suitable for most of my clients.

If you want more of a bespoke solution, opencart is a good option, in which case give antopy.co.uk a call.

 

[ProjectOcto]

Hey @Jess78 - you want to avoid monthly fees? But even with WordPress or opencast etc there are still monthly/annual hosting server fees - so you should factor these costs in anyway.

You will have to pay a small % in gateway fees with anyone - for example 1.4% with Stripe or 3.4% with paypal. There is no getting away from that.

If you self build then you wouldn't have ongoing design costs. But you will likely need to market your site somehow which will be time or money

 

[tomyderigo]

Hi @Jess78,

You seem to have zero experience with e-commerce, SEO, etc. You will need all the support and resources... You find that only on established platform. They cost money in monthly fees, but they provide you with security and plenty of support (e.g., extensive training materials on Youtube, not to mention all the YouTubers who cover them!). BTW, your real problem is not going to be the monthly Shopify fee, but the lack of understanding of how to drive traffic to your site.

If you will sell only a few products then Wordpress combined with Woocommerce will be OK for you. If you plan to sell many product lines you are better to go for Shopify straight, in my opinion. We started on Woocemmerce with 250 products. As soon as we wanted to increase the number of products we ran into problems and within half a year we had to migrate to Shopify.

 

[afspakistan]

Well above all discussion is enough to decide, here is my experience, I checked all sources when i started my online store, First Shopify, and than wix, squarespace, and than wordpress, My presonal Experience is WordPress is more reliable and more easy to understand for a person who don't know about coding customization.
just you need to buy hosting and domain, annually it cost me USD 45 only. and one time i paid to a developer and designer usd 350. the developer not only design and develop but also teach me how can i maintain onward my website. so now i can manage everything by my own.

 

[Russ Michaels]

Hi there

As the owner of a small web design company I hope my 2 cents can help you make an informed decision.

Website builders are great if you

• Have a very limited budget
• Want to test an idea quickly
• Will use paid ads to drive traffic to the site
• Have the time available to create the site yourself
• Are content that if your idea takes off you will need to have it designed and developed professionally in order to grow and rank well organically on Google.

Whereas working with a professional web design agency will mean you end up with a site that

• Has been maticulously thought out and planned by professionals who know how to create sites that convert visitors into customers
• Allows your business to grow and expand in the future.
• Has all the technical features in place to allow Google to index and rank it highly.
• Has features in place to allow digital marketing activities to take place to help market your services or products
• Has a bespoke design so your website is brand 100% unique to your brand allowing you to build trust and brand awareness.
• And loads of other things too ?

In actual fact we recently published a blog post on our website that might help you out too.

And here's another relating to the cost of e-commerce websites that might help if you decide to obtain quotes for custom websites.

I hope this helps you make an informed decision.

although to be fair, I have had many clients who have paid a lot of money to an agency and didn't get any of those things.

 

[bijutoha]

Ultimately, your best choice will depend on your needs and budget. A website builder may be a good option if you want a quick and affordable way to create a website. However, if you want a website that is truly unique and has the features you need, you may want to consider hiring a professional web designer.

 

[ChristianS]

Hello,

I need some help and advice on this area please, so I am thinking of creating an online store, I have never created a website before and so all of this is new to me.

I have been doing research on creating a website and saw that I can either use a website builder or hire a professional to design my website. I saw that I can use a website builder such as wix, shopify etc however with these platforms I will have to pay a monthly subscription and the company will also take a fee through sales/transactions. This is not what I am particularly looking for.

I am looking to create my own website which I will own, I do not want to create a website where it will be through another company where I will have to pay a monthly subscription , and where there will be deductions through transaction fees. As far as I can see the website builders have this, however for a professional to design my website will these types of fees still occur? If so what type of deductions do they have?

What are the pros and cons of a website builder vs a professional, I have researched about this but I would also appreciate all of your opinions please.

Thank you
Jess

Let me be brutally honest with you Jess. There is no such thing as free service.

There are monthly paid website builders such as wix, shopify and square space that provide you with the hosting infrastructure and their website builders in one monthly fee and then there is wordpress where it is free of charge but you need take care of hosting, integrations etc.

Neither option is free of charge and regardless you still need to pay a monthly subscription for whatever one you choose.

Additionally, there is no free payment gateway provider. Stripe charges fees, paypal charges fees, worldpay and square charge fees, they all do. It's just part of doing business.

All of these companies need to make a profit like you do, so they provide you with these services for a fee.

Now with all this information you have two routes you can go down.

Hire a freelancer or company to build your website on shopify/wix/wordpress.

For most people I would recommend wordpress with woocommerce for ecommerce. You can find decent people to design and build your website at affordable rates. Yes it's a higher initial investment but you have the piece of mind that you have everything set up professionally in a way that you can scale your business and essentially it's done right.


The second option is to build the website yourself, for most people shopify is easier, or wordpress with woocomerce and a page builder extension like elementor. This option is less expensive in terms of not having to pay out of your pocket, but it is more expensive in terms of your time and in terms of setting up things right for SEO, speed, scalability etc.

If you want to build your own website, go with shopify with a free theme that has everything you need so that you don't need a developer to customise it.

You could also look at a wordpress instalation and the hosting from someone like SiteGround that have decent performance and make the instalation of wordpress and everything easy, they are also fairly priced. and then use elementor pro ($59/year) to select a theme and start building your website as you find fit.

No matter which option you choose out of the DIY route, I can guarantee it will take you ages, you will not get the result you want and you will still end up needing someone to help you to finish it which will end up costing you more than hiring someone to build it from you.

I speak from experience working with now hundreds of people that where in your shoes.

 

[wayzgoose]

Let me be brutally honest with you Jess. There is no such thing as free service.

Yes, there is - https://freewebstore.com/

 

[fisicx]

You could also look at a wordpress instalation and the hosting from someone like SiteGround that have decent performance and make the instalation of wordpress and everything easy, they are also fairly priced. and then use elementor pro ($59/year) to select a theme and start building your website as you find fit.

Why pay for elementor? You don't need a page builder.

No matter which option you choose out of the DIY route, I can guarantee it will take you ages.

Why? There are millions of DIY Wordpress stores all set up and making money. Follow the many online tutorials and you could be up and running in a couple of hours. Stores don't need all the bells and whistles, the right marketing is more important.

 

[ChristianS]

Why pay for elementor? You don't need a page builder.

Why? There are millions of DIY Wordpress stores all set up and making money. Follow the many online tutorials and you could be up and running in a couple of hours. Stores don't need all the bells and whistles, the right marketing is more important.

sure, everything is easy for someone technical that has the time to learn. As for millions of themes, neither of these free ones are easy to use for someone that doesn't have any experience. You can argue as much as you want. And the right marketing is not everything, conversion is what counts. I have worked with hundreds of websites that had good marketing and spending a pretty penny but ROI was horrible, why? because the website wasn't converting the traffic? why? because they didn't want to spend $£100 of decent hosting they godaddy's $10/month plan was fine for them. because they didn't want to add stripe cause paypal was cheaper, because they didn't want to update the checkout layout because it meant getting a developer and designer. Small things can end up making a huge difference. You save loads of time, headaches and a fortune on revamps when you could just do it right from the start.

There is no debating this no matter how much you try. Anyways, everyone is free to do whatever they want, I was just fortunate to work with many people in the situation she will have in 5 months to a year. All of them agree, they should've done it right from the beginning but not knowing the pitfalls of DIY and the ever chase of a few pennies is what costed them more than someone with experience building them their website. I just wanted to educate h/she of the pitfalls so he/she makes an educated decision.

 

[stevesims]

The free version of the Elementor page builder is perfectly adequate in most cases.

 

[fantheflames]

Hey Jess,

I think Wordpress and Woocommerce would be perfect for your online store. These are next to nothing and you could start from a free or low cost template.

What are you creating a website for? I'm curious!

 

[fisicx]

What are you creating a website for? I'm curious!

An online version of Poundland.