Ecommerce Design

Tony255

Hi,
I dont want to bore all you guys with another who should i get to design my website discussion but i have found these two companies in the UK and was looking for some advice as i am a complete rookie when it comes to design. The first is http://www.stevesims.com/portfolio/online-shop-designs.htm he has said that it could take up to 5 weeks to design the site I have looked over the other sites he has designed and i like them they seem to load up fast and look fairly tidy. The other is http://www.futurestore.co.uk/ I have also checked their other sites and they look nice and professional, they load quickly also but they have said that a website normally takes 5-10 days which worries me as i dont just want another template but am not 100% sure of the design either so maybe a template would be faster.

They both cost roughly the same, which one would you go for based on your professional opinion or would you know of somewhere else that you would recommend?

Kind Regards
Tony

LowOdour

I would guess tha the futurestore site uses templates....cause alot of them look familar. I cant be sure of that so dont take my word for it. The steve sims portfoilio look basic enough but I would say they are fine.

Not sure what kind of site you are doing (ecommerce Id guess) so what I would recommend is that you make 4 or 5 points of what you site must have, and decide from there.

Can I ask, could you not find a local Irish company to do it. People that you can meet face to face and work ideas out with?

Tony255

LowOdour wrote: »

Can I ask, could you not find a local Irish company to do it. People that you can meet face to face and work ideas out with?

Sourcing an Irish company would suit me perfectly and even better if i could meet face to face, do you have any off the top of your head that are good at designing ecommerce sites in cork? I'm not sure why but I associated the UK as being a cheaper location maybe it was because they advertised their prices online

Pixelcraft

A lot of web design companies, my own included (and it's not an irish thing) don't put their prices online as each job is unique, and can only be estimated after an initial consultation of some form. It's not that anyone has anything to hide. Sure, if all your doing is knocking out templates then it is easier to have a fixed fee, but for a custom site it's not possible. 5-10 days is also far too short for an e-commerce site that isn't a template!

LowOdour

What pixel said is correct. im sure alot of companies will put an indication of the cost on their site but I would find it hard to price any job without speaking indepth to a client.

As for a web design company in Cork....doesnt the saying go "Google is your friend". Not from that neck of the woods so couldnt really tell. Oh, we are in bargaining times as well so make sure you do!

p

LowOdour wrote: »

As for a web design company in Cork....doesnt the saying go "Google is your friend". Not from that neck of the woods so couldnt really tell. Oh, we are in bargaining times as well so make sure you do!

Googling for web design companies is actually a pretty bad way of finding a good company.

LowOdour

p wrote: »

Googling for web design companies is actually a pretty bad way of finding a good company.

Id say its alot easier than finding all the on the Cork people on Boards, filtering out those who know about IT/Web stuff and sending a PM to them looking for recommendations.

My point being that Google IS the easiest place to start looking, because it gives an idea of what and where these companies might be....as I dont think he really knows where to look.

Sully

You don't really need a company in your area. I travel a bit to meet a client if they require but a lot of people send me their requirements, I quote them and we go from there. A lot of businesses do it like that. A google will easily find Irish based designers where you can look at their portfolio and testimonials. Then you can contact them for a quote and see what they are like price wise and communication. It might take a while to get a quote back depending on the scale of your requirements (though a reply informing you of this and keeping you updated is appropriate).

As regards to eCommerce designs.. there was an interesting discussion on TodayFM this afternoon about the amount of businesses turning to trading online but it was noted that many Irish consumers will shop from US based websites because some of the Irish eCommerce websites are not designed very well. There are lots of web design businesses but you should be looking at those who can produce very good quality designs and projects, rather then average looking.

Tony255

Thanks all for the advice, after receiving a few quotes I think it may be best if i stick with a template provided by the original links as i simply cannot afford to spend that amount initially. My complete budget for the site is just under 2k is this completely unrealistic to get a fully functioning site?

p

Tony255 wrote: »

Thanks all for the advice, after receiving a few quotes I think it may be best if i stick with a template provided by the original links as i simply cannot afford to spend that amount initially. My complete budget for the site is just under 2k. is this completely unrealistic to get a fully functioning site?

It's unrealistic to expect to spend that money and get a good site. I'd say between 5-10k would be the starting point for a decent custom-built site. 2k will get you a cheap & quick template based site that may or may not work for you.

Some people might get away with it. Some people find that such a cheap approach doesn't work at all, and others find that it's a good starting point, and then they later find that investing more money in the site will result in a greater return.

Zascar

p wrote: »

Googling for web design companies is actually a pretty bad way of finding a good company.

Totally disagree. Depending on the site, SEO is one of the most important things - and googling for obvious related terms will give you a good indication of who is good at SEO and who is not. At least use it as a basis on who to start with.

p wrote: »

It's unrealistic to expect to spend that money and get a good site. I'd say between 5-10k would be the starting point for a decent custom-built site.

Really? I'm no expert but I never would have though that. There are so many good programs, open source or commercial, that cater for all sorts of different needs. Unless you need something completely unique you can still do a lot using open standards based technologies etc without having to spend 10k. You'd have to be sure you were going to sell a whole lot of products to make 10k profit just to cover the cost of the site, an then beyond that to making actual money - depends on your business.

OP, can you tell us more about your site?

p

Zascar wrote: »

Totally disagree. Depending on the site, SEO is one of the most important things - and googling for obvious related terms will give you a good indication of who is good at SEO and who is not. At least use it as a basis on who to start with.

Yes, SEO is important, but if you google 'Web Design Cork' - you get a load of SEO whore with domains like corkwebdesign.com. Just because someone can choose that domain name, doesn't mean they're a good web design company. There are a few good ones in that result, but I'm sure there's many more who aren't because they prefer to get referrals based on work of mouth.

Most web companies I've worked for found that enquiries that came directly form Google searches rarely led to paid jobs, and those that did, tended to be a pain in the ass.

Zascar

p wrote: »

Yes, SEO is important, but if you google 'Web Design Cork' - you get a load of SEO whore with domains like corkwebdesign.com. Just because someone can choose that domain name, doesn't mean they're a good web design company. There are a few good ones in that result, but I'm sure there's many more who aren't because they prefer to get referrals based on work of mouth.

Most web companies I've worked for found that enquiries that came directly form Google searches rarely led to paid jobs, and those that did, tended to be a pain in the ass.

Interesting!

Tony255

the site is basically going to sell household gifts nothing unique required just a basic shop that is easy to manage and looks nice and clean. I have seen a few templates out there and for me they look ok, I was hoping to get something for about 2k and then based on the success of the site be able to develop it further when the cashflow situation improves. If i was to take a template of a shop and then want to develop the site further would i have to start it from scratch?

Sully

Tony255 wrote: »

the site is basically going to sell household gifts nothing unique required just a basic shop that is easy to manage and looks nice and clean. I have seen a few templates out there and for me they look ok, I was hoping to get something for about 2k and then based on the success of the site be able to develop it further when the cashflow situation improves. If i was to take a template of a shop and then want to develop the site further would i have to start it from scratch?

You probably could start of with a Joomla based system, grab a skin for it and use one of their eCommerce plugins. Should tie you over. Its the custom design jobs where you get something decent and a system (can still use Joomla, but can be custom also but its big money for custom, as it covers most peoples needs) tweaked to your requirements is where the price starts to rise.

2k seems a little short even for what you are looking for, if you increased your budget slightly you probably could sort yourself out. The shop seems fairly basic. You also have to look at online/offline advertising - business wont come to you magically!

Tony255

Thanks for the link is Joomla something that i could do myself i am fairly confident with HTML and work in IT myslef but only on the hardware side but am willing to give it a try. Will I need a developer to help me setup the security for online payments, is there a charge for using a secure online payment system?

Sully

You would have to use a payment gateway like Paypal for payments. They take a fee for each transaction. It should be very easy to setup but your ignoring the fact you need a designer to create the design and a coder to then implement that design.