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  • website building

    Anyone out there in the Surf community a website building expert?

    So far I've had two answers when i've been asking around.

    "I've done my own homepage, I'll have a go"

    and

    "Give me £7000 and I'll do it"

    Neither answer is the right one! We need a decent eCommerce site building (footwear sales) with stock control and shopping cart etc. We'd like a professional job (ie not a 'homepage') but balk at the idea of paying thousands. Anyone any thoughts?
    Cutting steps in the roof of the world

  • #2
    Originally posted by Apache
    Anyone out there in the Surf community a website building expert?

    So far I've had two answers when i've been asking around.

    "I've done my own homepage, I'll have a go"

    and

    "Give me £7000 and I'll do it"

    Neither answer is the right one! We need a decent eCommerce site building (footwear sales) with stock control and shopping cart etc. We'd like a professional job (ie not a 'homepage') but balk at the idea of paying thousands. Anyone any thoughts?

    Unfortunately the "Give me £7000 and I'll do it" answer is probably about right for a pro website with ecommerce on it etc. There are a few hosting sites around that have "wizards" that help you build your own site and offer ecommerce etc but not too sure how useful they would be - try www.freewebs.com. I have used this for personal sites but never an ecommerce one - although they do advertise easy to use tools etc.

    I'll ask around at work tommorrow to see if anybody has any tips..

    Rob

    Comment


    • #3
      I'd have to agree with Rob above and say that you're not gonna get something like that cheap. Any kind of website takes a lot of effort to get "professional" looking and an e-commerce website has more considerations than most - with lots of credit card details knocking about there's plenty of security issues to be aware of and the bulk of work that goes into the back-end i.e. customising a database to store and process your stock (unless they can tie it in with something that you're already using).

      That said, there are tools available to help you build e-commerce sites - http://www.freevirtualservers.co.uk and other web hosting services offer free stuff like shopping cart functions in with the price of the webhosting. I've got a basic catalogue with admin functions that I developed for a job interview that you're more that welcome to if you have the expertise to fiddle (was designed for holding information about CDs).

      I've noticed a lot of places where e-commerce is not the main function use a 'PAYPAL' shopping cart system. The advantage of that being they handle all the transactions, so if anything fraudulant happens they carry the can (from a merchant or cardholder perspective). The downside being that you'd get charged a fee for every transaction and you probably wouldn't be able to tie it in to your stock control database. Have a look at http://www.paypal.com for some more details.

      Probably not what you want to hear but it's probably best that you go for the big company to do your site. If you get a contract and watertight service level agreement then you've got some comeback if anything went wrong or they didn't deliver what you asked for. If you get "the bloke down the pub" to do it becuase it's cheaper, you might end up with a right pile of rubbish and end up having to fork out twice.

      My advice would be:
      • Do your research so you're not getting ripped off - maybe try and do a basic page of your own so you know if it REALLY takes two hours deveopment time to put a picture on a new page (it doesn't).
      • Don't let anyone try an bamboozle you with technical language - if you don't understand...ASK and don't let anyone make you feel daft for asking. I always hate that down the garage when they say "yeah mate your lower-end wishbone sproggit floo-floo's totally gone - £200" and expect you to know what the hell they're on about. IT people will do exactly the same thing except replace "lower-end" with "SQL server" and "sproggit floo-floo" with "SSL encryption certificate".
      • Ask for the URLs of sites they have already produced so you can see if you like the work they've already done.
      • Shop around for the best prices (it's a fairly competetive business these days so you "hold the whip hand" as they say).


      If there's owt I've gone too "techie" about let me know and I'll try to explain it better!

      John
      [CENTER][IMG]http://www.thesteinerline.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/OhNiceGets2.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

      Comment


      • #4
        A website with ecommerce needs quite a lot of "stuff" to make it work.

        You need at least:

        - Ecommerce software
        - A webserver with:
        - Webserver software installed (i.e. Apache)
        - Some sort of database software to handle the data (i.e. MySQL)
        - Some sort of platform to run the ecommerce software on (i.e. PHP)
        - SSL software to handle the encyption/security
        - Server with enough performance and bandwidth to support however many customers you expect.

        You can get hosting services which includes some (or maybe even all) of the above, but you still need someone to create your web pages and put it all together and make it work.

        As others have pointed out there are web services that allow you to create a "shop" online with templates and things but it may not look as professional or as individual as you might like - depends what sort of venture this is if thats going to be o.k. for you or not.

        Don't mean to bamboozle you with random terms and stuff, just trying to point out the complexity of what you are trying to achieve. Feel free to ask further questions and I will help if I can. It's not my primary area of business but I do do my company website (which has all the items listed above apart from ecommerce) and a few of my own sites.
        No longer a Surf owner.

        Comment


        • #5
          Agree with the above. Decent, or even half decent e-commerce type websites are not cheap. For a customised site, a hell of a lot of work can go into it. Whilst not a web developer myself, the company I work for does these sorts of projects and I'd say that they tend to start at around £4-5k, going up to tens of thousands! It really depends on what you want. There's plenty of tools, guides and freebie software / code out there to do what you want but you'll probably end up with a tacky solution if you don't know what you're doing.

          Comment


          • #6
            Thanks for all the above. I kind of expected I was going to have to pay serious money!

            We've been turning over around £5k pcm on eBay but I'm not sure we could do the same with an independant website unless we get a real good placing on google! I suppose spending decent money would get us rated high up on search engines too? What do you think?

            I am an electronics engineer with responsiblities including defensive aids on Apache Attack Helicopter, but this is old (but very expensive!) hat compared to this stuff! Help!!! I dont have a clue at all regarding web site building (so like less reputable garages, web site companies will be rubbing their hands) so any advice - no matter how far you have to dumb it down will help me immensely and if there is anyone out there who feels like they can give us what we require, send us a resume of what you think you can do and for the right product we will pay good earth pounds if you make something work we are happy with.

            Email me at agmcnally@dstl.gov.uk ('real' work) or sales@vixenfootwear.co.uk if you want further info on what we are after.

            Many thanks folks
            Cutting steps in the roof of the world

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Apache
              I suppose spending decent money would get us rated high up on search engines too? What do you think?
              Not necessarily. Getting placings on search engines can be a very complex job and some people make a living doing nothing but this for companies. Do not assume that you can pay money and instantly be at the top of search engine listings (except if you pay for sponsored links).
              No longer a Surf owner.

              Comment


              • #8
                <starting to regret getting involved>

                It's the missus business, she can sort it out. I'll just let *my* Surf wear the advertising stickers ;-)
                Cutting steps in the roof of the world

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Apache
                  <starting to regret getting involved>

                  It's the missus business, she can sort it out. I'll just let *my* Surf wear the advertising stickers ;-)
                  and probably chaff and flares for the speed cameras...
                  it's in me shed, mate.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Just spoke to my boss who also runs a hosting business on the side and he recommended

                    www.1and1.co.uk


                    Says they have pre built ecommerce templates and is easy to use, he has heard some good comments about them.

                    Hope this helps.....

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      As far as I'm aware, the cheapest way to make an e-commerce site is to use a merchant account through PayPal - then use their pre-made shopping cart.

                      I've done quite a few e-commerce sites from £800 to £80,000 - but reckon you can do it yourself by following PayPals instructions.

                      Hope this helps...
                      [IMG]http://www.slate8.com/hiluxstuff/hilux-sig.gif[/IMG]

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Get a web server that supports PHP and MySQL and get OSCommerce - pretty simple to set up and not expensive for a commercial licence.

                        It's what the shop on this site works on and is pretty easy to customise especially if it is stand alone and not wrapped up in a bigger website with the added complexity of maintaing look and feel.

                        Anybody reasonably competant on a computer (can move, edit and FTP transfer files) should be able to set it up and it also support SSL encryption for security and PayPal if you don't want to set up merchant accounts with a bank.

                        Cheers

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          DIY eCommerce

                          Well you can try yourself if you can spare the time.

                          Free eCommerce software is at: http://www.oscommerce.com/osCommerce22ms2/

                          Super cheap hosting with all of the server bells and whistles to support it is at:

                          http://www.jiffynet.net/fantastico/

                          The time it takes to build a site is one thing, the time it takes to maintain it is another thing altogether. A huge stocklist with pics is going to take a long time to keep updated on a weekly basis. I run a couple of sites for excavator businesses in the UK and France and deliberately made them cheap and simple. I undertake the weekly maintenance as the business owners have neither the time or the knowledge to do it themselves. It sure as hell never cost any of them £5k either!!

                          www.hitenter.co.uk

                          Have fun

                          Cheers

                          Rob G

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Apache
                            get a real good placing on google! I suppose spending decent money would get us rated high up on search engines too?
                            you can pay for good listings, but the cheapest is to link yourself with as many sites as possible, as the "googlebots" go out and do their searches, the more times they find your site (through links)... the higher up the list you go!
                            simple stuff like having your website as your signature on here... bots visit this site, see link, visit your site, one notch up the google ladder!... (obviously a link from yours to here would be good as also)
                            nee nar nee nar, i'm a fire engine!

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              As all have said on here , you get what you pay for , but.

                              You can do it on the cheap , it just will take time and commitment.

                              have a look at ACTINIC , loads of websites use it , and I was using up until recently selling prams !

                              The software itself does all the stock control , and sets up the e-commerece pages for you , all you have to do is set up the prices and the delivery costs .

                              For it you need a hosting package + SSL for the payments . the software allows you to collect Credit card details for you to put into your PDQ machne manually , or you can link it with online providers , you will need a merchant account with someone for this.

                              Even cheaper than that is to use an online merchant such as Worldpay . you can add products to a basket and pay for them online. disadvantages are the percentage they take. prob still less than e-bay charges !!!

                              For the worldpay idea , take a look at www.bodycast-studio.co.uk which I set up for my sister in law. my Actinic site is no longer live , but loads of shops out there use it for you to see, http://www.twoleftfeet.co.uk is an example of a shop that uses actinic. I id not create this one, just used it in the past ! .

                              As for the search engine placing , all it takes is commitment and clever use of words, and time , its not instant , whatever any Search engine optimization company tries to sell you.

                              If you want to chat about anything , feel free to give me a shout. its not my full time job , but as you can see , I have had some success.

                              Cheers

                              MARK
                              http://www.darksidesolutions.co.uk - Web Solutions

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