How difficult is it to create an e-commerce site?

Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite

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18 Jul 2012
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458
I've been offered a free lance job, creating an e-commerce site for somebody, not a massive site and the only requirement is it looks similar to their current website, it must allow them to blog and also update products, change images, add products etc.

I'm just investigating at the minute, but how difficult a task would you say this is for somebody who hasn't touched a CMS or done any work on an e-commerce site?

Are CMS sites easy to customise?

I have created numerous "static" sites in HTML, CSS and have experience in Javascript. Also have created a few programs in VB.NET.

Thanks for your suggestions guys!
 
takes about 5 minutes with the right plugin. Try things like wordpress and joomla, they are very user friendly and all you have to do is install an addon and configure it for e-commerce.
 
p1RATE said:
takes about 5 minutes with the right plugin. Try things like wordpress and joomla, they are very user friendly and all you have to do is install an addon and configure it for e-commerce.
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Thanks for your reply, i'm glad it's something that is easy to do anyway!

Can you recommend any plugins or is it best to have a play and see which one works well?
 
Would you like us to develop it for you too? :P

I'm going to ask you the same thing I asked the last guy, where do you find jobs that you essentially can't do? I'm serious, I want one. Realstically though, as a contractor, you should be paid for your time and expertise. Since you had to ask, it's going to take you longer than its should and its not going to be as easy as suggested, so whilst you might learn, you'd be lucky to be making a great deal of money doing this.

Good luck though.
 
Create one? Plenty of carts out there, however, customising and skinning them is far from easy. You will need to integrate the payment modules and everything else. Look at OpenCart, ZenCart and a few others.
 
aln said:
Would you like us to develop it for you too? :P

I'm going to ask you the same thing I asked the last guy, where do you find jobs that you essentially can't do? I'm serious, I want one. Realstically though, as a contractor, you should be paid for your time and expertise. Since you had to ask, it's going to take you longer than its should and its not going to be as easy as suggested, so whilst you might learn, you'd be lucky to be making a great deal of money doing this.

Good luck though.
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Well first off, calm down Sally.

I'm no contractor, i'm a network engineer, but if you'd like a job you can't do feel free :p

This is a job for a friend of a friend who has had a few quotes which are pretty steep and know that I have knocked a few sites together. They asked if i'd be willing to give it a go.

They know I haven't done this before and it will take me a longer than a web development company, but they've seen my other work and are happy for me to give it a go because i'll save them some money!

I'd like a crack at it to see if I can do it, who knows if I can do this, then maybe further down the line I could make some money on the side, i'm sure you had to start somewhere!

BEFORE I have accepted the job, I wanted to ask other members how easy it is, if somebody would have said run for the hills, I would say i'm out of my depth.

Sorry for jumping down your throat but i'm not the type of person that would become a "contractor" if I didn't know what I was doing!
 
From my limited experience [as project manager and designer of a medium e-commerce overhaul], platform+plugins will only get you so far. Every business has a unique working setup, and they're not going to change it just because there isn't a plugin available that does what they need. Customisation is inevitable, so be prepared.

It would also be remiss of me if I didn't point out exactly why you'll be saving them money: because you'll make a loss. Sorry, but you will: things will crop up that you hadn't considered and quoted for. Especially as it's your first go. Is it worth being out of pocket for a friend of a friend?
 
simisker said:
From my limited experience [as project manager and designer of a medium e-commerce overhaul], platform+plugins will only get you so far. Every business has a unique working setup, and they're not going to change it just because there isn't a plugin available that does what they need. Customisation is inevitable, so be prepared.

It would also be remiss of me if I didn't point out exactly why you'll be saving them money: because you'll make a loss. Sorry, but you will: things will crop up that you hadn't considered and quoted for. Especially as it's your first go. Is it worth being out of pocket for a friend of a friend?
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Thanks for your reply, I have already thought about this and before I agree I'll be finding out exactly what they require and how they want it to work!

I'm more than happy to do this as a learning project more than anything but I'm going to find out before I say yes if it's more than I can handle!

Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it!
 
Black Dynamite said:
Thanks for your reply, I have already thought about this and before I agree I'll be finding out exactly what they require and how they want it to work!

I'm more than happy to do this as a learning project more than anything but I'm going to find out before I say yes if it's more than I can handle!

Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it!
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I've used Opencart a lot in the past and as long as you know the basics of MVC it's pretty easy to pickup.

However, before you do any coding get your client requirements sorted - as there are some things that need bespoke work - for which you need to know more about the platform than simply skinning it and loading a few plugins.
 
As others have said, save your self a whole world of hassle and use an existing, proven and free system like OpenCart. Spend your time learning how to create a theme for it to match their existing site.

If you do it this way it'll take you a couple of days to get it set-up, rather than two months of pain and stress of making your own system which wouldn't have anywhere near the same amount of features.

demo
 
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Black Dynamite said:
Well first off, calm down Sally.

I'm no contractor, i'm a network engineer, but if you'd like a job you can't do feel free :p

This is a job for a friend of a friend who has had a few quotes which are pretty steep and know that I have knocked a few sites together. They asked if i'd be willing to give it a go.

They know I haven't done this before and it will take me a longer than a web development company, but they've seen my other work and are happy for me to give it a go because i'll save them some money!

I'd like a crack at it to see if I can do it, who knows if I can do this, then maybe further down the line I could make some money on the side, i'm sure you had to start somewhere!

BEFORE I have accepted the job, I wanted to ask other members how easy it is, if somebody would have said run for the hills, I would say i'm out of my depth.

Sorry for jumping down your throat but i'm not the type of person that would become a "contractor" if I didn't know what I was doing!
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Heh, I'm not un-calm just because I said something you don't want to hear.

If you do do it, remember, you cannot store credit card details without compliance. This isn't really problem because you don't need to do this, but "professionals" **** it up all the time.

Read the ******* manual. :)
 
I love the felixbility of foxy-cart, but you are limited then to your payment gateways. That being said I think they integreate with sage pay, which is one of the most common around.

For this project I'd go with something like Wordpress (nice and easy for the owner to update even if they have no knowledge) and the Foxyshop plugin.
 
aln said:
Heh, I'm not un-calm just because I said something you don't want to hear.

If you do do it, remember, you cannot store credit card details without compliance. This isn't really problem because you don't need to do this, but "professionals" **** it up all the time.

Read the ******* manual. :)
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I'm sorry if I came across differently to how I intended, I just wanted to get across that I wasn't taking a punt and I was just trying to find out if somebody with no previous experience could do it.

I have read some threads before on here where people have bitten off more than they can chew so I can understand where you were coming from!

englishpremier said:
I love the felixbility of foxy-cart, but you are limited then to your payment gateways. That being said I think they integreate with sage pay, which is one of the most common around.

For this project I'd go with something like Wordpress (nice and easy for the owner to update even if they have no knowledge) and the Foxyshop plugin.
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Thanks for the advice mate!

I'm speaking with them later this week so I'll have a better idea on what they want and if I will be able to do it.
 
Magento isn't exactly beginner friendly. :P

Go with Opencart as suggested or you could try Lemon Stand http://lemonstand.com/
Both have a range of templates you can rebrand from somewhere like Theme Forest.

Outside the box choice could be something like Shopify, where they pay you for help setting it up and branding it.
 
It's even easier if you choose a host which offers Cpanel + Fantastico because it's like a 1-click install, they've got loads of E-Commerce installs available.
 
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