Want a website designed - Warwickshire based

[puffin]

Hi all,

Haven't been to active on the forum as of late, as work is becoming busy.

We are wanting to push a new idea and create a website out of it.

We currently use eBay mainly as our form of sales, and wish for that to continue for the foreseeable future at this moment in time. But, I am wanting to have created a website that has a small shop facility integrated in it to list our 'key products/items' on it.

I don't wish for the website to be solely just a ecommerce/shop, I want to have a 'normal site' with a shop facility incorporated with it.

The number of items listed in the shop will not be huge, all being well ultimately let the site do the work and slowly progress from eBay to the website depending on how it all goes.

So I'm really asking how much is this going to cost?
But I only want to deal with people who are locally based to me in and around Warwickshire.

I can do basic html, but nothing major, and do not wish to be creating a website, I do not have the time nor patience to do so.

As I understand there are certain ecommerce software like cubecart etc, but not sure how this would work with what I have mentioned above about a site and an integrated shop (hopefully the talented web people on here can tell me).

Any help or pointers are truly appreciated.

Thanks

Chris

 

[faradaykeynes]

Joomla is best solution for you, CMS and can incorporate e-commerce as well, easy to setup and manage

 

[Faevilangel]

I would recommend Opencart or Magento as both have eBay plugins / functionality which will sync the two. Magento is the better of the two as eBay actually own Magento but it's a much harder software to use and build with (IMHO).

For an ecommerce site using the above systems, with a custom theme, you're looking at £1000-£5000 depending on any modifications.

I would always say to get a local developer as it's much easier to thrash things out in a meeting face to face than on the phone or email.

 

[Faevilangel]

Joomla is best solution for you, CMS and can incorporate e-commerce as well, easy to setup and manage

Joomla is totally wrong for this, Joomla is a content management system and not an ecommerce system. Magento is much more suited IMHO.

 

[cut309]

Joomla is best solution for you, CMS and can incorporate e-commerce as well, easy to setup and manage

+1

Agree with faradaykeynes!

 

[puffin]

I would recommend Opencart or Magento as both have eBay plugins / functionality which will sync the two. Magento is the better of the two as eBay actually own Magento but it's a much harder software to use and build with (IMHO).

For an ecommerce site using the above systems, with a custom theme, you're looking at £1000-£5000 depending on any modifications.

I would always say to get a local developer as it's much easier to thrash things out in a meeting face to face than on the phone or email.

Thanks for that.
I will have a research into each of those.

Woah, price is higher than expected.

Well that, and give some business to a local person with the current financial climate.

Is Wordpress an option with an ecommerce side, OR is this not a good option?

Our website is to do with fast fashion, the clothes we sell currently on our eBay shop, for some to then be put on a website, and see what happens on our own site.

Cheers

 

[Faevilangel]

Thanks for that.
I will have a research into each of those.

Woah, price is higher than expected.

Well that, and give some business to a local person with the current financial climate.

Is Wordpress an option with an ecommerce side, OR is this not a good option?

Our website is to do with fast fashion, the clothes we sell currently on our eBay shop, for some to then be put on a website, and see what happens on our own site.

Cheers

Personally I don't recommend using WordPress for ecommece (along with Joomla) as it's not a native function within the code, and you're relying on an external developer to keep developing the code, while with Magento etc, it is a proper ecommerce software which will do all you want and more without custom code from other developers.

The price is about the lower end of the scale as you're using a pre-built script but a lot of development time is needed to build the custom theme and get the site working.

You can do it cheaper by using something such as Magento Go which is a hosted version of Magento, you can use their themes they give you and you pay a monthly fee instead of a large start up cost.

I am not sure if they let you use plugins (vital for the ebay functionality) but it's worth a go.

Just search for Magento Go

 

[puffin]

Personally I don't recommend using WordPress for ecommece (along with Joomla) as it's not a native function within the code, and you're relying on an external developer to keep developing the code, while with Magento etc, it is a proper ecommerce software which will do all you want and more without custom code from other developers.

The price is about the lower end of the scale as you're using a pre-built script but a lot of development time is needed to build the custom theme and get the site working.

You can do it cheaper by using something such as Magento Go which is a hosted version of Magento, you can use their themes they give you and you pay a monthly fee instead of a large start up cost.

I am not sure if they let you use plugins (vital for the ebay functionality) but it's worth a go.

Just search for Magento Go

Will have a good read up on each.

Well what I meant to say additional to my last reply was that, our site is about fashion, but we also want to have a blog section where we can put an outfit together (as its ladies fashion), then link to other sites, and link to say our ebay page, for example if its a Ladies top etc.

When you say the magento has the eBay plugin you mean, it replicates the stock vice versa?

I'm not necessarily wanting the website to take over the eBay shop, but work in addition to it.

For example put cards with a voucher code when somebody buys something through our eBay shop to then be redeemed for a product on our site?

Cheers

 

[Faevilangel]

Will have a good read up on each.

Well what I meant to say additional to my last reply was that, our site is about fashion, but we also want to have a blog section where we can put an outfit together (as its ladies fashion), then link to other sites, and link to say our ebay page, for example if its a Ladies top etc.

When you say the magento has the eBay plugin you mean, it replicates the stock vice versa?

I'm not necessarily wanting the website to take over the eBay shop, but work in addition to it.

For example put cards with a voucher code when somebody buys something through our eBay shop to then be redeemed for a product on our site?

Cheers

There is a very popular plugin which allows you to cross post between the 2, e.g. post on your site and eBay at the same time.

Magento has a blogging plugin which you can use which will do the job, it's more basic than WordPress but it's sufficient.

Magento handles vouchers and discount codes quite well, so should be possible but I am not a Magento expert so I will let someone with the relevant information ask this question,

 

[jamieclick]

I really feel that building a site with opencart and Wordpress combined would work really well for you.

We have built quite a few sites with this combination and they really do work well.

If you are happy to use a template on one or the other then the template can be copied for the other platform this will help keep your costs down also.

Thanks

 

[db220]

Yeh that's the best option IMO. I'm in the process of developing a site which is pure HTML, a store incorporated on a subdomain and Wordpress for the blog and Press section. It's taken a while but it's getting there.

I do have a question though- should we incorporate the store on a subdomain or just a directory like xyz.com/store rather than store.xyz.com?

Thanks

 

[db220]

I forgot to mention- the store is open cart.

 

[davidmichaelkeenan]

Joomla is totally wrong for this, Joomla is a content management system and not an ecommerce system. Magento is much more suited IMHO.

I agree. If you're not a developer then don't trying using Joomla for this kind of thing. I would try OpenCart of Magneto also.

 

[davidmichaelkeenan]

I do have a question though- should we incorporate the store on a subdomain or just a directory like xyz.com/store rather than store.xyz.com?

Thanks

It's probably not a huge issue. From an SEO perspective, it may be better to have it in the same subdomain so that it benefits from the page ranking of your main site.

 

[davidmichaelkeenan]

There's no harm in still hiring a web designer if you want to have more control over the look and layout of your site. It really depends how much you want to spend. Obviously an off-the-shelf template is the cheapest if you can find something suitable. Also, if you use a designer, make sure they are able to produce a template for whatever shopping cart your go with, be it OpenCart, Magneto or whatever.

 

[SuperiaCommerce]

Although we tend to focus on ecommerce sites, we have done a couple of more 'brochure' type sites that have online sales functionality. And we're based in Coventry, so fit your local Warwickshire criteria!

All of our sites are based on our hosted content management system, everything works the same way so you don't need to learn two disparate systems. It's also very search engine friendly and flexible.

If you'd like some more info or to chat, let me know and we can arrange a suitable date/time.

 

[webgeek]

Personally, for the situation described, I'd be recommending using Wordpress + ecwid (from the makers of x-cart I believe). That's a great way to have blog + shop in one, and is 100 times easier to use than Magento or the other carts and cms's recommended.

Alternatively, think about social commerce and go Facebook + Payvement. It's a great way of having social integrated with ecommerce, removing the need for hosting and looks/works great.

Consider all the alternatives before firing off. Either of the above are likely hundreds instead of thousands of Pounds.

 

[JakeBhatt]

Hi all,

Haven't been to active on the forum as of late, as work is becoming busy.

We are wanting to push a new idea and create a website out of it.

We currently use eBay mainly as our form of sales, and wish for that to continue for the foreseeable future at this moment in time. But, I am wanting to have created a website that has a small shop facility integrated in it to list our 'key products/items' on it.

I don't wish for the website to be solely just a ecommerce/shop, I want to have a 'normal site' with a shop facility incorporated with it.

The number of items listed in the shop will not be huge, all being well ultimately let the site do the work and slowly progress from eBay to the website depending on how it all goes.

So I'm really asking how much is this going to cost?
But I only want to deal with people who are locally based to me in and around Warwickshire.

I can do basic html, but nothing major, and do not wish to be creating a website, I do not have the time nor patience to do so.

As I understand there are certain ecommerce software like cubecart etc, but not sure how this would work with what I have mentioned above about a site and an integrated shop (hopefully the talented web people on here can tell me).

Any help or pointers are truly appreciated.

Thanks

Chris

Hi Chris,

I am located in Leicester, so about 30-40 minute drive away - Wordpress and Joomla are not going to work out with the system you require.. Magneto is an ecommerce system.. so it has its potential but I have an eCommerce system that I can integrate into your website with the following features. You will also have the ability to manage it yourself and add/edit more pages.

• Configurable product catalog includes catalog pages and a block to display product categories.
• Flexible product creation system with product classes.
• Multiple product image support out of the box.
• Flexible product attributes system.
• Basic product stock level tracking and notification.
• Product features to add file downloads, role promotions, and more to products.
• Single page checkout.
• Automatic account generation (anonymous checkout).
• Customer and administrator checkout notifications.
• Simple order processing (with workflow for automated order processing).
• Simple order creation and editing.
• Integrated payment system that acts as a bridge between acceptable payment methods (check, credit card, purchase order, etc.) and payment gateways (CyberSource, Authorize.net, PayPal, etc.).
• Shipping quotes and fulfillment, including integration with UPS, FedEx, USPS.
• Sales, product, and customer reports.
• Activity logging.

Let me know if your interested and we can discuss pricing. Its going to be under a £1000