Website Design Help
May 25, 2011 11:54 AM Subscribe
I am looking to design a web site with shopping cart functionality and I have no real experience, but I know what looks good. Is there anyway to find out who designed a website like "Etsy.com" so that I may implement something similar? and is there a product I would purchase to do this Thanks for any help with this.
Best answer: You can often find the design/development company listed in the footer of a website. But when you're talking about an Etsy-level implementation, you're talking about a company that spends millions on [probably] in-house development, so you're going to need a lot of money to play at that level.
Shopify is really hot right now as flexible turnkey solutions go. There are other e-commerce/shopping cart solutions that you could compare by searching for "e-commerce" or "ecommerce" and "shopping cart." Dreamhost offers at least one solution in their one-click installs, and there are probably other hosts that offer similar setups.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:23 PM on May 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
Shopify is really hot right now as flexible turnkey solutions go. There are other e-commerce/shopping cart solutions that you could compare by searching for "e-commerce" or "ecommerce" and "shopping cart." Dreamhost offers at least one solution in their one-click installs, and there are probably other hosts that offer similar setups.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:23 PM on May 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Disclaimer - I work at Shopify and also run a store on Shopify, but I'll stay away from discussing specifics, if it's too pepsi blue, feel free to delete.
There are lots of options for ready made e-commerce platforms out there. The first decision is whether you want to host the site yourself or go with a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. They both have their good points, hosted may be cheaper and more flexible but requires dev skills while SaaS offerings can be up and running in minutes and you don't have to sweat details like hackers and too much traffic.
Most of the SaaS platforms also offer a bunch of free and paid themes or skins. This is a great way to get a nice looking site by only having to change a few graphics and colors. If you want to fully customize and design everything, make sure that your SaaS choice allows that. You can hire either designers or dev's to work on customization if you need.
Searching "ecommerce platform" will bring up all the major players. I would also check Twitter mentions to see how people feel about the platform.
Lyn Never is right about Etsy.com, they certainly have a team of 20 odd folks developing and designing their site. From my understanding, most developers working on regular sized sites wouldn't code their own from scratch anymore, but use an existing platform and customize from there.
posted by dripdripdrop at 1:31 PM on May 25, 2011
There are lots of options for ready made e-commerce platforms out there. The first decision is whether you want to host the site yourself or go with a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. They both have their good points, hosted may be cheaper and more flexible but requires dev skills while SaaS offerings can be up and running in minutes and you don't have to sweat details like hackers and too much traffic.
Most of the SaaS platforms also offer a bunch of free and paid themes or skins. This is a great way to get a nice looking site by only having to change a few graphics and colors. If you want to fully customize and design everything, make sure that your SaaS choice allows that. You can hire either designers or dev's to work on customization if you need.
Searching "ecommerce platform" will bring up all the major players. I would also check Twitter mentions to see how people feel about the platform.
Lyn Never is right about Etsy.com, they certainly have a team of 20 odd folks developing and designing their site. From my understanding, most developers working on regular sized sites wouldn't code their own from scratch anymore, but use an existing platform and customize from there.
posted by dripdripdrop at 1:31 PM on May 25, 2011
Shopify is really good if you're looking for a turnkey solution, and it's really inexpensive compared to development costs. I've had clients that used bigcommerce.com instead, looking for a lower price- but their site turned out quite ugly, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
If you feel compelled to develop / host your own solution, Magento is a popular option that offers a pretty rich library of themes that you can use as a base- but it's significantly more complex. If you don't have a pretty strong web background, I'd definitely recommend going with a turnkey system.
posted by jenkinsEar at 2:25 PM on May 25, 2011
If you feel compelled to develop / host your own solution, Magento is a popular option that offers a pretty rich library of themes that you can use as a base- but it's significantly more complex. If you don't have a pretty strong web background, I'd definitely recommend going with a turnkey system.
posted by jenkinsEar at 2:25 PM on May 25, 2011
I'm recommending the Software-as-a-Service solution for online stores because there's way too much risk in writing it yourself or using a pre-built platform installed on your server. There's a buttload of hackers out there who look for badly written commerce sites and add wedge code to steal credit card info or redirect paypal payments and so on. The only defense, other than being/having a full time coder & DBA to keep on top of it, is to hire the service out to someone who does that. Anything else is really pretty foolish; this isn't the place for anecdata but in one particular case I was just laughing at how fast the hacks were coming in to ZenCart installs.
I personally use bigcartel although shopify was a possibility. (I like bigcartel's simplicity; at this point in my career I'll take a few limitations as long as the job gets done adequately with the least pressure on my time.) Magento is pretty complex inside although quite versatile.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:27 PM on May 25, 2011
I personally use bigcartel although shopify was a possibility. (I like bigcartel's simplicity; at this point in my career I'll take a few limitations as long as the job gets done adequately with the least pressure on my time.) Magento is pretty complex inside although quite versatile.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:27 PM on May 25, 2011
Also keep in mind there's web design (how it looks, which dovetails into UI/UX) and then there's web development (also referred to as the back end work). There's a big difference between mocking something up on photoshop/pen+paper and then worrying about HTML/CSS/jQuery compared to how it actually functions, which would include things like:
If you're just looking to design something, there's tons of shopping cart software out there (both open source and commercial) that you can design away. Are you looking for reccomendations for these types of things or are you looking to create a site from scratch and worry about all the above and then some?
posted by Brian Puccio at 7:05 AM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
- Can customers create accounts when they check out to save their personal info
- Now that we're doing accounts, how do they reset a password if forgotten
- Do they need to create a username or will their email address be their username?
- Must they create an account
- If they don't create an account, can they check their order status, if so, how?
- Etc
- How will your inventory system work?
- How will this integrate with the rest of the financial picture?
- How will you make sure your database queries are efficient?
- How will you make sure your site is secure (hahahaha!)
- How will you be PCI DSS, PA-DSS and whatever else you need compliant in handling credit cards or risk losing your merchant account or business?
If you're just looking to design something, there's tons of shopping cart software out there (both open source and commercial) that you can design away. Are you looking for reccomendations for these types of things or are you looking to create a site from scratch and worry about all the above and then some?
posted by Brian Puccio at 7:05 AM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Hi Brian Puccio, I would be glad to get more recommendations from you as well. If I start out right I'm sure it will be easier to grow with the right pick.
Thanks!
posted by kmurray24 at 5:28 AM on June 1, 2011
Thanks!
posted by kmurray24 at 5:28 AM on June 1, 2011
Response by poster: Thank you everyone! I wish there was a way to award points of some kind because everyone is so helpful! Thanks again!
posted by kmurray24 at 8:23 PM on June 25, 2011
posted by kmurray24 at 8:23 PM on June 25, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by GuyZero at 11:57 AM on May 25, 2011 [1 favorite]