Magneto develope recommend?

[Clngai]

I wonder if anyone can recommend me a company who build Magneto site around Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire or London?

Been looking for a while now, some are too far, some are way too expensive (over £10k) in our budget. We are new starts up so budget is limit, would be lookigng at around 4-5k mark

Many Thanks

 

[ServWise]

Do you mean Magento?

Is Magento your last option, have you looked at the likes of OpenCart (Much easier to develop for)?

 

[Clngai]

Yes, we have decided to use Magento for our website.

 

[SavageUK]

What are you retailing?

You don't necessarily need a fully custom store. There are Magento developers out there who can just set up the store with an already built theme and customise it with your logos and stock for probably in the hundreds. Save your money for PPC and SEO to actually generate revenue

 

[zigojacko]

Is Magento your last option, have you looked at the likes of OpenCart (Much easier to develop for)?

It isn't much easier to develop for - that doesn't even make sense. OpenCart doesn't follow a development architecture and pattern as complex as Magento but just because you might find it easier to work with OpenCart doesn't mean it is for anyone else. The best solution is down to the individual business/website requirements.

What are you retailing?

You don't necessarily need a fully custom store. There are Magento developers out there who can just set up the store with an already built theme and customise it with your logos and stock for probably in the hundreds. Save your money for PPC and SEO to actually generate revenue

Then that doesn't make them a Magento developer then does it... Avoid off-the-shelf themes if you can as they're usually bloated with tons of useless features and run at poor performance.

We work with Magento a lot, we can design, develop, extend and host Magento stores - feel free to give me a shout if you want a chat about your requirements @Clngai

 

[SavageUK]

Then that doesn't make them a Magento developer then does it... Avoid off-the-shelf themes if you can as they're usually bloated with tons of useless features and run at poor performance.

We work with Magento a lot, we can design, develop, extend and host Magento stores - feel free to give me a shout if you want a chat about your requirements @Clngai

Yea it probably does as they are developing a store for you, albeit with less coding.
Regardless of someones job title, it doesn't make sense for a start-up to spend money on a bespoke store when the majority of themes do the job perfectly fine

 

[zigojacko]

Yea it probably does as they are developing a store for you, albeit with less coding.
Regardless of someones job title, it doesn't make sense for a start-up to spend money on a bespoke store when the majority of themes do the job perfectly fine

Of course it does! Getting the website perfect is critical for any business including start-ups. If a start-up has a £3k - £4k grant/funding for website development they should be using that to absolutely nail one of the most important investments a business has to make.

No-one wants an off-the-shelf theme that hundreds of other stores are using. The reality is 90% + of them are incredibly poor, especially Magento ones built by "Magento developers" that haven't got a clue how to work with Magento. They simply don't "do the job perfectly fine" - I'm sorry, this is just outstandingly poor advice for an online retailer.

How many successful ecommerce stores do you know who are using a premium Magento theme that can be purchased by anyone for $65??? Yes this can be an option to cost-effectively get started but one day, it'll need overhauling with something bespoke - why not just get it right from the outset!?

 

[SavageUK]

Of course it does! Getting the website perfect is critical for any business including start-ups. If a start-up has a £3k - £4k grant/funding for website development they should be using that to absolutely nail one of the most important investments a business has to make.

Getting the website perfect does not mean hiring a developer to create a bespoke theme. It comes through testing. See below.

No-one wants an off-the-shelf theme that hundreds of other stores are using. The reality is 90% + of them are incredibly poor, especially Magento ones built by "Magento developers" that haven't got a clue how to work with Magento. They simply don't "do the job perfectly fine" - I'm sorry, this is just outstandingly poor advice for an online retailer.

99% of the people do. Having an off-the-shelf theme does not mean you can't customise it for the business. And customers don't know what themes are out there, 99% don't even know what Magento is. And quite simply they do not care what theme you are using or what the website looks like, as long it meets their purchasing needs.

How many successful ecommerce stores do you know who are using a premium Magento theme that can be purchased by anyone for $65??? Yes this can be an option to cost-effectively get started but one day, it'll need overhauling with something bespoke - why not just get it right from the outset!?

There is quite a significant amount of stores that use a cheaper theme.

Why not get it right from the outset?

Getting a website 'right' is a continual process. Just because you spend £5k and it looks flash does not mean it is right. 'Right' comes from testing, and testing, and testing again and again.
Why spend huge amounts of money on something that is going to be updated again and again, and overhauled continually.

It is smarter to start with a low cost theme and add features through testing and change layouts, segments etc of the theme through testing, essentially your creating a bespoke theme over time that you know makes the business sales.

 

[Barry Seston]

Magento make it very easy to find a qualified Developer, They have a Certification process and Listings.

Sorry - Tried to link, I'm too new so Google Magento Partners then select 'United Kingdom' from the drop down.

 

[zigojacko]

Getting the website perfect does not mean hiring a developer to create a bespoke theme. It comes through testing. See below.

Yes it does, or at least, hiring an expert that understands ecommerce and that can custom design/develop or extend existing scripts to provide the necessary requirements does.

99% of the people do. Having an off-the-shelf theme does not mean you can't customise it for the business. And customers don't know what themes are out there, 99% don't even know what Magento is. And quite simply they do not care what theme you are using or what the website looks like, as long it meets their purchasing needs.

Have you ever seen the code in most premium Magento themes? You can't work with it, most of it shocking and queries the database horrendously, we've picked up jobs such as this many times before and come the end of it, we basically had to rewrite most of the theme. It's much more efficient to go bespoke from the beginning.

There is quite a significant amount of store that use a cheaper theme.

That doesn't answer the question... Very few successful and reputable brands are using a pre-made Magento theme.

Getting a website 'right' is a continual process. Just because you spend £5k and it looks flash does not mean it is right. 'Right' comes from testing, and testing, and testing again and again.
Why spend huge amounts of money on something that is going to be updated again and again, and overhauled continually.

I completely agree that continual testing is what makes a website perform to it's best. But equally, research, branding, vision, customer journey, colours, layouts, funnels, etc etc all need to be considered, and that is what your money buys with a bespoke build. No-one is saying flashy, snazzy and all the rest but a well thought out, researched and planned ecommerce build is important if budget allows. It's no good to buy a theme and change this colour to that, that colour to this, the font here, move that box to here etc - no designer/developer worth their salt works like that... Not to produce the final product anyway.

It is smarter to start with a low cost theme and add features through testing and change layouts, segments etc of the theme through testing, essentially your creating a bespoke theme over time that you know makes the business sales.

No. No. And No. It isn't "smarter" at all. This should only ever be an option if there the business has minimal budget. It's actually much more cost, time and frustration working like this - granted, if a business can find a theme they love the look and feel of, already uses the right colours, they have practically no existing branding in place and they require bear minimum out-of-the-box features - then yeah, probably worth going for but in reality, this won't be the case for most serious etailers!

 

[SavageUK]

Your forgetting this thread is about a start-up.
Their budget will be minimal.
Bigger successful ecommerce businesses have teams of people to measure and implement new ideas, so of course their sites are built in-house.

The typical themes already have all the customer processes included. There is not much variation in customer journey for an ecommerce store.
Hiring a developer to find a relevant existing theme and incorporate your branding and build out the bank-end full of stock is all a start-up needs - which is what you agree with. There is no need to create a bespoke site for a business that may not even make any sales.

Invest in getting customers not making your site look good or have super-fast loading times for non-existent customers.

 

[makeusvisible]

Hi - We specialize in building responsive Magento sites and currently have half a dozen examples in production at your budget. Which is in the right ballpark for a fully featured Magento site built from scratch without the use of themes. We are based up in the Lake District but have customers around the country, and a few international ones so I'm sure that we could accommodate the issue of location. I would be pleased to talk over the options with you if you want to get in touch.

 

[zigojacko]

Your forgetting this thread is about a start-up.
Their budget will be minimal.
Bigger successful ecommerce businesses have teams of people to measure and implement new ideas, so of course their sites are built in-house.

The typical themes already have all the customer processes included. There is not much variation in customer journey for an ecommerce store.
Hiring a developer to find a relevant existing theme and incorporate your branding and build out the bank-end full of stock is all a start-up needs - which is what you agree with. There is no need to create a bespoke site for a business that may not even make any sales.

Invest in getting customers not making your site look good or have super-fast loading times for non-existent customers.

I'm not forgetting they are a start-up at all. They in fact specified their budget in their first post. I've known start-ups secure funding and invest £100k in a website.

I don't agree with much of what you've said to be honest but for the sake of not sending this thread 50 pages deep and off-topic, I'll withdraw from this debate as it's not going anywhere.

Further reading on where I'm coming from:-

Clients beware, template resellers thinly disguised as web designers, the true cost of a bespoke website
Custom Web Design vs Website Templates
How much should a website cost?

And on one final note: How you can possibly know what "a start-up" needs on their website is beyond me...

 

[SavageUK]

Lets just say mine is a business view and yours is an agency view

 

[jamie1183]

Here you go, the link that could not be posted
http://partners.magento.com/partner...s&f0v0=Solutions+Partner&l=United+Kingdom&p=1

 

[Toni Anicic]

Lets just say mine is a business view and yours is an agency view

That's not a business view. Buying a theme and putting up a website in a few minutes is not called business. It's called a failed hobby several months later.

 

[SavageUK]

That's not a business view. Buying a theme and putting up a website in a few minutes is not called business. It's called a failed hobby several months later.

Let me guess, your an agency or some sort selling 'magento development solutions'?

 

[Toni Anicic]

Let me guess, your an agency or some sort selling 'magento development solutions'?

I'll assume you meant to say "you're". I'm not an agency, I'm a person. I've been working with over 50 different successful online stores in the past few years and trust me when I tell you I've never seen a successful online store that bought a theme and used it.

 

[SavageUK]

I'll assume you meant to say "you're". I'm not an agency, I'm a person. I've been working with over 50 different successful online stores in the past few years and trust me when I tell you I've never seen a successful online store that bought a theme and used it.

love it when people have to resort to correcting grammar in discussions (arguments).

So you ARE in business selling magento custom themes. What a surprise...

I'm not saying a custom theme means your not going to be successful. I'm saying you don't need one to be successful, you are wasting money when you should be spending it on marketing. And 50 sites is nothing, I see hundreds of sites in a year operating slightly adjusted bought themes that are turning good profit.

 

[zigojacko]

love it when people have to resort to correcting grammar in discussions (arguments).

So you ARE in business selling magento custom themes. What a surprise...

I'm not saying a custom theme means your not going to be successful. I'm saying you don't need one to be successful, you are wasting money when you should be spending it on marketing. And 50 sites is nothing, I see hundreds of sites in a year operating slightly adjusted bought themes that are turning good profit.

The guys at Inchoo do far more than sell custom themes. Bespoke development wins hands down every time regardless of the business but is not something a businesses budget allows all the time.

Why chuck money at marketing when the website isn't great?

Why turn over good profit when you can turn over excellent profit with a bespoke website built to specific requirements.

There is so much wrong with your poor advice and opinions that I don't even know where to start. The very reason I bowed out of this debate last time.

 

[SavageUK]

The guys at Inchoo do far more than sell custom themes. Bespoke development wins hands down every time regardless of the business but is not something a businesses budget allows all the time.

You obviously don't network in the ecommerce very well, and your manner definitely suggests that. I can give you dozens of articles that show custom themes are not all that.
heres on example:

http://www.ecommercefuel.com/inside-relaunch-online-store/

And he already said he's one person, so you obviously don't know anything about Inchoo whatsoever - your just supporting a fellow salesman.

Why chuck money at marketing when the website isn't great?

Because obviously traffic is so much more important that having a good looking website?? How can you even suggest otherwise.

off-the-shelf themes function exactly the same way as custom sites. You are still running Magento at the end of the day. What defines a great website is not down to using an agency to create it.

Why turn over good profit when you can turn over excellent profit with a bespoke website built to specific requirements.

How you link excellent profits to having a bespoke website is beyond me. Your business sense and logic is ridiculous.

There is so much wrong with your poor advice and opinions that I don't even know where to start. The very reason I bowed out of this debate last time.

And yet you haven't even suggested one benefit of having a bespoke theme. I have suggested tons of benefits for entrepreneurs and start-ups, and given my view on using Magento.

It's so clear that all your using this forum to do is sell your agency services. And now someone has spoken out against agencies for start-ups and your getting all pissy about it.

Maybe you should go and get clients the proper way instead of preying on less knowledgeable entrepreneurs in forums

 

[Toni Anicic]

OK first of all, I'm not here to sell our services. We decline ~100 jobs per month because we have more than enough work on our hands already.

Even if I were here to sell our services the budget we're talking about here is not something we can work with so there would be no reason whatsoever for me to try and push our services on this topic.

The only reason why I replied here is to give people some realistic expectations about what can be achieved with that budget in a professional way, and it's not much.

I don't know if you ever saw a really well performing Magento site, but when you feed Magento with a lot of traffic, you better have coded your site perfectly because otherwise you'll have yourself a big mess. Magento is very complex system that requires a lot of fine tuning to be able to work under huge traffic.

Most of the templates I see are not done with performance in mind, and in most cases they can't be since you have to tailor the theme for the particular store's requirements and you can't do that without making it custom for that store in question.

I don't know where to even start explaining what kinds of issues you'll face on daily bases with high traffic Magento stores that communicate with different services through APIs, generate lots of different feeds for different things, have several tracking and other scripts on them, utilize different cashing systems, use a lot of custom extensions and integrate with ERP, CRM and other software.

Having a successful online store is not child's play. You can't just install Magento and buy a theme. It wouldn't survive the high traffic load so there's no way to have a very profitable Magento store with default configuration and a purchased theme.

 

[zigojacko]

You obviously don't network in the ecommerce very well, and your manner definitely suggests that. I can give you dozens of articles that show custom themes are not all that.
heres on example:

http://www.ecommercefuel.com/inside-relaunch-online-store/

And he already said he's one person, so you obviously don't know anything about Inchoo whatsoever - your just supporting a fellow salesman.

Because obviously traffic is so much more important that having a good looking website?? How can you even suggest otherwise.

off-the-shelf themes function exactly the same way as custom sites. You are still running Magento at the end of the day. What defines a great website is not down to using an agency to create it.

How you link excellent profits to having a bespoke website is beyond me. Your business sense and logic is ridiculous.

And yet you haven't even suggested one benefit of having a bespoke theme. I have suggested tons of benefits for entrepreneurs and start-ups, and given my view on using Magento.

It's so clear that all your using this forum to do is sell your agency services. And now someone has spoken out against agencies for start-ups and your getting all pissy about it.

Maybe you should go and get clients the proper way instead of preying on less knowledgeable entrepreneurs in forums

My contribution to this forum alone is testament that I am not here to sell my agency services. You are in fact the one with hardly any activity trolling threads.

I'm not going to repeat myself as anything being said to you is not even being listened to but in the history of this very thread, I have not only explained the benefits of investing in a bespoke, custom website design and development but also explained the benefits of using a premium off-the-shelf theme. This proves that you aren't even listening.

For very different reasons of course, if you ask 100 website owners whether they'd like a bespoke custom website design or an off-the-shelf theme that has been downloaded by another 10,000 people - what do you think they are going to say (and no, I don't actually want you to answer that)...

And I'm not the one getting "pissy" here. You are claiming that there is no benefit of having a bespoke website built (and no-one even mentioned agency here, a freelancer can built a bespoke website if they have a multi-skillset) over a premium off-the-shelf template that is in use by thousands of other stores. I'm sorry, you are actually wrong - there are lots of benefits. It works both ways and I've said there is a cost benefit of using a premium theme to get things started. You haven't even compromised into agreeing there is any benefit whatsoever in spending more than $60 on a website. 99% of people that use the web will disagree with that - the remaining 1% is those "web developers" that rip-off premium themes, change a few colours and pass them them off as their own. Maybe that's you.

You honestly need to take a step back and read the words instead of jumping up and down bleating on like a broken record. It's one thing believing the nonsense you are spouting and if it weren't for the amount of members reading this thread, I'd have left you to it a long time ago but you're also misinterpreting (choosing to twist the words) of what I say:-

I said "Why chuck money at marketing when the website isn't great?" and not "Why chuck money at marketing when the website doesn't look great?" - notice the difference? You'd be an idiot to market a website that isn't great (looks are just one aspect but functionality, catering for target audience, meeting the businesses/visitors specific requirements - you know, all the things that you actually get when you have a website built for you).

 

[Faevilangel]

You obviously don't network in the ecommerce very well, and your manner definitely suggests that. I can give you dozens of articles that show custom themes are not all that.
heres on example:

and you obviously have no idea on how websites work if you're giving every website a one-size fits all packages (pre-built theme).

Yes they are cheaper but there comes a lot of risks e.g.

- the website isn't branded to you (on more than one occassion I have noticed 2 websites that use the same theme but are competitors).
- the pre-built theme is built to fit one solution, they tend not to be customisable to fit alternative solutions.
- the person installing the theme has no idea what they are doing and they then blame the theme / author for being poor when it's not been setup right.

Magento is a pain in the ass system, if you don't set it up right for your needs, it will literally break down and need major work to get it going again.

I use pre-built themes for clients on tight budgets but they still get my experience and support setting it up, most people who buy themes won't have that support and will ultimately mess it up. If the OP was to use a pre-built theme and then use Zigo to build the site then it would be a great site, but if the OP wanted to do it themselves then more than likely it will go wrong.

I am generalising here and there is a reason for it, 99% of people have no clue how a website works, how their visitors expect their website to work. They see 2 costs £10k from a developer and £200 from a theme marketplace, which looks more appealing?

I take my car to the mechanic for my MOT and to fix any issues, why are businesses so tight when doing the same for their website? It's not a toy, it's their business and they are trying to cut corners which will ultimately end up in the business going bust because they didn't have a clue what they were doing.

I build & sell pre-built themes as well as build custom themes and the worst clients are those buying the themes, they pay upto £200 for a theme but they expect me to build their website for them and work for them on any issues. My freelance clients give me no hassles what so ever as they are paying me a decent wage to do the job properly.

Pre-built themes are great for getting started on a budget but you still need to factor in using a developer who knows what they are doing otherwise it will all go wrong. In 99% of cases, the business owner is better spending the time for a custom site so they get the support they need.

 

[SavageUK]

Exactly, I'm not going to quote because the posts are large. If you look at my first post which I say you can get a developer to do what you have just said you do Faevilangel for a decent price instead of investing thousands in a website for a business that has yet no online sales.

If we're going the car route example, you don't start out with a Ferrari, you buy an old Ford Fiesta and upgrade when you earn more. This can be said for a website. Start cheap to test the water and upgrade and improve when you start generating sales and high traffic, at which point you may look to hire an agency

 

[Faevilangel]

If we're going the car route example, you don't start out with a Ferrari, you buy an old Ford Fiesta and upgrade when you earn more. This can be said for a website. Start cheap to test the water and upgrade and improve when you start generating sales and high traffic, at which point you may look to hire an agency

The fiesta is prone to breaking down and having more repairs done than the car is worth (I had this with my first car).

Using Magento is not a custom site though, it's basically skinning it, in car terms you have 3 types of sites:

1) Fiesta / Saxo - cheap, you fix issues yourself but only cost a few hundred
2) BMW / Mercedes - Magento / WP / Opencart etc skinned to be a better design with help from a dev to make it work better, costs upto £15k
3) Ferrari - Top of the range, has every option needed but comes with the price tag. if you have to ask for a price then you can't afford it

 

[SavageUK]

I have said multiple times, that if you go with an agency you are still using Magento and not a complete custom site.

To add to your example.

Fiesta / Saxo - uses Magento / WP / Opencart etc aswell. - You just might customise an existing theme, or hire a developer to do. Which is what I am recommending for a start-up. It won't 'break down' unless you make the wrong changes and it can be good for the team to learn about their technology anyway.

I'm not going to continue posting as this is a massive waste of time. My point comes down to if you are a start-up, it is better to spend more of your budget on marketing (SEO,PPC etc), than using more of it to create a bespoke website and then not have any customers for it.