Ecommerce & Web Development

Jambo · 21 Mar 2008 at 15:16

Hi,

I run an ecommerce site which we recently had designed on a new off-the-shelf solution. It is really great but because it is new it is not greatly feature rich. It is therefore restricting me from developing a few custom marketing ideas etc, things that could make a significant impact on our business.

I am thinking about maybe taking on a part time web developer which may result in redeveloping the site on a bespoke basis.

I was just wondering if you think this is a good idea rather than outsourcing the work as I would like to have someone in house to develop the site on an ongoing basis.?

As it is part time, I am guessing that I am more likely to find a student for the job. I was just wondering, do you think a student will generally have enough experience to take this on on their own? If you are a student web developer who has done anything similar could you tell me about your experience please?

Any help greatly appreciated.

tsinc80697 · 21 Mar 2008 at 15:34

A student could definitely produce the work for you, all depends on their level of web development and in what language etc.

I'm in my final year of a multimedia degree with 1 web programming module. Last year it was PHP and this year it is ASP.Net.

At the end of last year, only having 1 year of doing PHP(wasn't much either), I managed to get a 2 month contract for developing a bespoke eCommerce website for a large fireplace company. I could have done it a lot quicker but the people I was working alongside would not stop making changes.

I encountered loads of things I couldn't figure out how to do but I just searched around and learnt about them. Now I'm sat making my 3rd large PHP / MySQL website with a lot more knowledge.

So its not so much can a student do it, but more of what level of coding do you need. If its something small and simple I am sure you can get it cheap, but if its something large and requires a lot of coding experience then you're going to have to pay for it !

furnace · 21 Mar 2008 at 16:05

In all honesty, I disagree...

In-house developer
- As a part-timer, is likely to be a student, thus;
- Cheap
- POTENTIALLY unreliable
- POTENTIALLY poorly done code
- Means you have to employ someone
- Would be working alone (he'd have no second opinion on things, there'd be nobody to say "you're doing it wrong!" to him re. his code)

Getting a company to do it
- A team of people
- More experience
- Less likely to be poorly coded
- You don't have to employ someone
- But will cost you more, probably

Really I don't think you should hire your own web developer... not unless you have enough work to feed a small team (e.g. three people) on a full-time basis. I think you'd get much better results paying a company to do things as-and-when, although it will probably cost you more. Also you can complain to them if they write something that breaks/stops working, but a part timer you'd have to pay them to fix it

Of course there are lots of students who are amazing coders. But I wouldn't bet on finding one easily... and if you don't know a lot about scripting, I'm not sure how you'd tell if they're good at it or not!

Basically it just rings alarms bells for you to hire your own developer, especially on a part-time basis. If I were you, I'd feel much safer paying a development company to get things done for you.

tsinc80697 · 21 Mar 2008 at 16:28

If you know what you want, how much you want to pay and how you want it doing. I'm pretty sure you can find a web developer to do it for you but there is the risk of it being done badly. Thats why you look at peoples portfolio/CV and experience, even have a chat face to face or over the phone with them.

Jambo · 21 Mar 2008 at 17:07

Thanks for the feedback. I can definitely see it from both sides.

The thing about outsourcing is that it is often difficult to explain exactly what you want in an email or over the phone.

In an ideal situation I'd like to get someone in to develop the existing code but I don't think our provider will allow us access to the back end code.

tsinc80697, how did you find out about the fireplace job?

tsinc80697 · 21 Mar 2008 at 17:33

A friend was working there in the business sector and he was speaking to the owner of the company. He told me over the phone and arranged a meeting with the owner of the company. Went in, had a chat and sorted out a contract for 2 months,

Was quite lucky really as I was looking for work at the time but never thought to ask friends, hoping for the same thing this year!