Advice - Getting an eCommerce Website (Magento)

[greengecko]

Hello,

The ecommerce company I have been involved with over the past 4 years has grown pretty quickly. Up until now I've personally constructed our ecommerce website with Magento, of which has been relatively successful and has functioned almost exactly as I would like it too.

However, now that we have just finished our office move to our new premises, we have budgeted in around £5,000 to get the website overhauled.

Ideally I would like the website to be redesigned, I am quite happy to get the designs drawn up, however implementing them would be simply impossible with the time constraints I have.

There were also a few issues with the current site, such as addon products that you could purchase with items not being able to be linked to Linnworks and such.

Do you reckon our budget would cover a UK firm to do this work for us? If so does anyone have any recommendations?

Kind Regards

 

[Faevilangel]

two people I recommend for Magento stuff are @edmondscommerce and @zigojacko, both will be able to help you out

 

[finleydesign]

It's not on Magento Go is it

 

[greengecko]

Currently it's on Magento Community Edition

Many Thanks

 

[finleydesign]

With the latest news on Magento Go and Prostores I would be interested to see what they do with Community Edition?

 

[JamesSco]

With the latest news on Magento Go and Prostores I would be interested to see what they do with Community Edition?

As the community edition is opensouce it can be used by anyone and on their own server. So worst case scenario is that they stop providing updates.

However, I do not believe they will go down this route. Magento's sucess is down to the community edition and all the updates submitted by members. Without this they will loose the creative minds of customers that update their own version.

 

[finleydesign]

As the community edition is opensouce it can be used by anyone and on their own server. So worst case scenario is that they stop providing updates.

However, I do not believe they will go down this route. Magento's sucess is down to the community edition and all the updates submitted by members. Without this they will loose the creative minds of customers that update their own version.

I know it's open source, I'm just saying Its a tricky one, as I am sure the thousands of Magento Go customers didn't expect this to happen! The only thing that tends to always happen is everything has a life cycle, and I mean a many year life cycle, nothing in life is free, although Magento is free and open source now there will a commercial long term strategy, which as I was saying would be interesting to be able to look forward 5 years

 

[Raw Rob]

I know it's open source, I'm just saying Its a tricky one, as I am sure the thousands of Magento Go customers didn't expect this to happen! The only thing that tends to always happen is everything has a life cycle, and I mean a many year life cycle, nothing in life is free, although Magento is free and open source now there will a commercial long term strategy, which as I was saying would be interesting to be able to look forward 5 years

But surely if they did stop updating Magento Community Edition, as it is open source it would be forked and continued to be developed by a new group? Well, that's my hope anyway!

 

[finleydesign]

But surely if they did stop updating Magento Community Edition, as it is open source it would be forked and continued to be developed by a new group? Well, that's my hope anyway!

Yeh quite possibly, thats my point really, none of us know for sure, but I think whats happened to Magento Go was a bit of a surprise, so none of us could really rely upon what might and might not happen

 

[AsifDilshad]

I have no expertise in development I am an Internet marketing expert, but I work with web development company who can do this easily they will do both design & development. Meanwhile I can insure your new site will be Search Engine friendly.

 

[AsifDilshad]

Yeh quite possibly, thats my point really, none of us know for sure, but I think whats happened to Magento Go was a bit of a surprise, so none of us could really rely upon what might and might not happen

We can do changes as our own though, that’s what web developers do all the day.

 

[antropy]

Do you reckon our budget would cover a UK firm to do this work for us? If so does anyone have any recommendations?

Yes, it's enough for a small UK agency although not a bigger one. Are you keen to stick with Magento or would you be open to another platform such as OpenCart?

 

[adamhindle]

Hi, we're a small Magento agency with Magento Certified Developers and we would be able to build your site for this budget. Please let me know if you want to have a chat and I can show you some examples of our work or you can see some examples here on our website. Just search for Fluid Digital

 

[edmondscommerce]

Thanks for the recommendation @Faevilangel

More than happy to discuss this kind of thing. It sounds like you are wanting to handle creating the designs in house and then have them professionally implemented as a new Magento theme.

That is a fairly common scenario for us to work in and no problem at all. Your budget isn't huge though its certainly sufficient if we work together to ensure the most bang for your buck.

Get in touch with us and speak to Nolwenn - 01274 590036

 

[zigojacko]

Thanks for the recommendation too @Faevilangel

Late to the thread so assuming OP is already in discussion with an agency now for this but happy to discuss the project if they wish to get in touch.

 

[Toni Anicic]

5k should not be even close to the budget that a reputable agency would charge for redesign and implementation of theme into Magento. I ensure you that any Magento solution partner company would charge you much more than that.

5k can buy you ~50-100 hours of work, depending on who you hire, which is not enough for design, let alone implementation.

 

[zigojacko]

5k should not be even close to the budget that a reputable agency would charge for redesign and implementation of theme into Magento. I ensure you that any Magento solution partner company would charge you much more than that.

5k can buy you ~50-100 hours of work, depending on who you hire, which is not enough for design, let alone implementation.

Don't forget the hundreds of "Magento guru's" out there that really haven't got a clue how to work with Magento and the best they can come up with is a ripped off premium theme with backend configuration to tweak a few colours here and there. These are your typical bespoke Magento design jobs for less than £1k kind of trash.

Everyone seems to claim to know how to design or develop in Magento *sigh.

 

[iboxsecurity]

Happy to take a look at the spec if the OP is still deliberating. £5k is low end of a budget as others have suggested but depending on the work load involved as its mentioned that the site is already in Magento - it maybe that the budget is suitable.

 

[Page]

I did a course for Magento with Edmonds ecommerce a few years ago and I found him likeable and knowledgeable

Although the contact was limited he seemed very genuine

Sadly for internal reasons it never got built but he is active on this forum and must know a bucket more than back then

 

[northeast]

We have magento community but if we had the budget I would switch to something easier for non- techies - I find it difficult o make anything other than very minor changes. if you did this, it means if you are busy ,others in the business could hopefully take over?

 

[senses]

Hi Gecko

I used to be a senior project manager at the UK leading Magento house in Manchester.
Put it this way, the min entry was £50k, so your £5k isn't really suitable for that!

A lot of people look to Magento wrongly. ITs the most powerful eCommerce solution out there, but often its way over the top for 99% of eCommerce. Unless you integrating with warehouse automation, and such things, you probably don't want to be hitting Magento.

The community edition is no doubt going to cease, now that Ebay have brought them out. Even over the last 10 years, the community edition has suffered. Coupled with crash out, and a very decent hosting solution as a requirement - its not for everyone.

Please feel free to give me a call or email (matt at senses co uk) if you would like some advice or guidance. For your £5k you will be able to (most likely) get exactly what you want, but better - just not in Magento. For example we made a rather huge site with 50k product, customisation, options, galleries, multi customer groups, stores, (etc. etc) in another platform, and has been running for years.

Anyway, hope this helps a little!!