It looks like a possibility I may not bother with a shop to sell my gear from and stick to online till later on, so I need some options of where to go for a website designer please?

 

Google it.

 

Do it yourself. It's not that hard to knock something up using Wordpress or Joomla.

 

Your way over my head already. I need someone to make sure it's secure for purchases and good in google searches.

 

Web dev isn't cheap pal.

Some things to consider:

What host? (Windows? Linux?)
What technology? (LAMP? DRUPAL?) etc.
Where to host? (There's loads of hosting available)
Who will maintain/monitor?

Just some food for thought pal.

 

All that i get from that is, I hope to maintain it as much as I can.

I know it isn't cheap...potentially.

 

Maybe a Windows setup may be better for you then pal, unless you're au fait with Headless Linux. Unfortunately, that'll hold a cost in it's own right because of windows licensing...

 

I run all Mac equipment, so whatever would work on that. Firkin hate Windows.

 

To be fair this is only relevant if you are planning on a dedicated service. If you use a shared hosting site with bolt-on ecommerce solutions then it doesn't matter what equipment you have at home. Also, for any sort of hosting/site solution you only need notepad.

Notepad FTW!

 

Nice one Matt.

Will get some more info here and elsewhere, then get back to you.

 

F1 is a web designer

 

Thanks Ant.

 

What are you selling?
How many products roughly?
Do you have your domain name?

I can do an e-commerce website for you, price is dependant on how complex.

Rough figures start from £500 for design, development and 50 products added to catalogue.

I can also host for £80 a year.

Domain name £15 for .co.uk for 2 years.

 

I've had a small discussion with a chap I was suggested to design my site, but I'm unsure purely because he isn't offering 24/7 support. Here's what he's let me know so far...

- Fully bespoke web design & build using the latest technologies / coding standards.
- Fully responsive design ( Will work on any device specifically iphone / ipad but will resize to fit any screen dimension )
- Built on top of Wordpress (industry leader content management system & blogging platform)
- I can support a wide variety of payment gateways including paypal and intuit pay.
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Web Hosting
- SSL Certificates
All my websites are designed in photoshop and then coded from scratch. I dont use any premade templates or existing codeSupport would lie with me solely.
I obviously can't offer 24/7 support but i always have my phone with me and am never too far away from my laptop.. So if any problems should occur then i should be able to fix them fairly quickly. I also run scheduled backups so if your site should ever get hacked or disappears for some reason, i will be able to restore it fairly quickly.
For a website & online shop i usually charge £1000. This includes 1 years hosting which is £50 per year after that and also full support / any minor design changes.
My hosting comes with cpanel (http://cpanel.net/website-owners/) where you can setup email accounts, view site statistics and a number of other advanced features.


Sound OK so far?

 

Sounds good, but I'd ask to see some sites he's already done.

If you're not happy with the work, or want other options I can put you in touch with a few top notch professional developers if you want to arrange the hosting etc yourself. (I'm not touting for business, I'm a DBA not a web dev! Lol)

 

I've just used this company -

http://www.creareweb.co.uk/

Here is my site that I have had built, it was only launched a few days ago and needs some tweaking but in my industry this site makes others look poor.

http://www.admiralhome.co.uk

The service has been first class, the company are also hosting the site and managing the seo

 

The more I thinl about it, the more I don't like the lack of support. It's when you have an issue, is the chap more likely not be around!

I've been told to consider using Shopify till I see if a full website is the way forward. Anyone have views on that? It at least sounds secure, simple enough for myself to use and I can use my own website domain...

 

What stuff is it your selling? Would a eBay or amazon shop be good to test the water?

 

It's a particular brand of golf gear, Ant.

Already on eBay, but the fee's kill me.

 

I wouldn't worry about someone not being at a desk 24/7 if you have a problem I'm sure he can fire up a web browser. I'd be more likely to ask how much that support is going to cost, monthly charge, per request charge.

Shane's site is Wordpress and the designer has done a good job keeping the code clean and easy to follow. It should give you an idea of what can be achieved with WP.

I'd be interested in how much product you're likely to sell and how many visitors you're hoping to attract. £50 a year hosting couldn't handle the shops I create. My hosting per site is minimum $25 a month, $100 a month is you need SSL and most do, if you don't have this then you'll be sending customers off site to pay for your products. I use Drupal rather than Wordpress, like a big boys version of the same thing.

 

Thanks Jack.

I've went through the setting up with Shopify, while i consider my options in going full scale. It at least gives me some idea of how a site may work, as it really is COMPLETELY new to me.

At the moment, I'm really only selling up to half a dozen items a week, but then I've only been trialling for 3-4 months and most things are upwards of £100.

 

Where are you shopping for your domains?

123 reg 6.99 for two years, your hosting is not far off the mark though can be had a bit cheaper elsewhere depending on what servics you're after.

 

This isn't far off the mark. It's about what I'd charge for a site that you could manage yourself and add and change as many products as you wish.

Just remember there are plenty of people out there doing it but those who are really good are few and far between.

Take the company I work for for instance. Prior to me joining them they shelled out just shy of six figures for their website with a well know agency.

It's sh*te. Im just about to kick it into touch and do it all myself from scratch.

As said ask to see his work and make sure its his. You'll not go far wrong then. Hope that helps

Daz

 

Thanks Daz. My trouble is I know no difference from good or bad...unless its REALLY bad.

 

God I hate Drupal, that framework does not play ball with PostgreSQL at all.

A company where I used to work had Drupal running on my PostgreSQL databases, watching its DB usage was painful to say the least. although to be fair, the majority of that depends on the dev's ability to make it work.

Still; Pure PHP on PostgreSQL... Works wonders!!

 

I detest CMS, so restrictive.
I've just been fighting with Expression Engine for the last 12 months.
Thankfully it's getting shelved!!