# Looking to have a site built. See woot Input needed from the forum!



## Rhizzlebop (Mar 25, 2008)

Ok, So, Me and my partner are looking at having a site built to start a shirt business. 

Think woot, but with a couple twists and new ideas.

We are trying to find a good web developer. I've used a local "side job" guy in the past for a diff site, that wasn't even ecommerce and it was a nightmare. 

We've talked to one company but the guy just gave vague answers when I asked "will I own my site entirely"? and "do you handle any SEO".

He was also using some proprietary cart that we would be "renting" with his hosting in house.

From what you guys are saying, SEO is an integral part of design. He said his would be on .net?
I dunno what that means.

We also talked verbally on the phone w/ another developer and she estimated 7K or more to do this.

Then we sent her my list of questions that I wanted answers to, and she came back saying "wow, that could be 20K". Again, think woot. 

Granted my list of questions included things like, do you do any flex, or Ruby rails, will it be mobile device capable. 

These are items we know we can't afford now, but wanna throw them on the table so we don't come back in 2 years and be told our site has to be totally built again to implement anything new.

We are going in a little while to meet w a new developer and see what he says.

Again, think woot shirt.

Any idea what this should run? We are talking full build, some basic artwork, a logo, cart, checkout, everything, we'll just upload designs and write our copy for each item.

Any idea where this should run from a local web design company?

I'm kind of afraid of elance since my last site build was awful, but that a "this guy I know builds sites on the side" situation.

Thanks any input.


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## SeasonEnds (Sep 9, 2007)

Well a good logo alone can be relatively expensive. I've seen them quoted in the area of $500-$1000 for a good logo depending on who you go through. For a start up, you can find a logo closer to 500 probably even under that. You can make your own for cheap at logoyes.com

Artwork depends on who you go through and what exactly you want. I'd say anywhere from $100-$1000. If you want the whole entire layout to be designed by an artist then it will be closer to 1000. 

You can get a shopping cart for free.

The problems start happening when you want people to have their own accounts and comment ability. Just tell them you want them to use a pre made shopping cart and watch the prices drop.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> I'm kind of afraid of elancehttp://www.t-shirtforums.com/autolink.php?id=19&script=showthread&forumid=9 since my last site build was awful, but that a "this guy I know builds sites on the side" situation.


Elance is where you can hire "professionals", not side jobbers. There are other similar sites like that as well (like rentacoder.com)




> Any idea what this should run? We are talking full build, some basic artwork, a logo, cart, checkout, everything, we'll just upload designs and write our copy for each item.
> 
> Any idea where this should run from a local web design company?


It could be done on any programming platform. Don't get too caught up on that part. That may be what is causing you to get weird looks and high quotes from programmers.

If you don't really know about ruby on rails, flex, etc, but just know they are current buzzwords, I wouldn't worry about them too much in your efforts.

From what you're describing, it sounds like anything that someone develops for you will be from scratch. That means it will be sort of "proprietary" by nature, since it's not a common shopping cart like cubecart/oscommerce/shopsite that is readily for sale. It would be something that is custom built for your specific site needs.

For something custom like shirt.woot, you could expect to pay $5000+ (even over $10,000+)

Without know *exactly* what you need, it's hard to say how much it would cost by a local or freelance designer.

At this point (again, I'm only going by what you wrote), it actually doesn't sound like you are 100% sure on what you _need_. Hashing out those ideas with a programmer/developer is going to take them time and their time costs money.


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## Rhizzlebop (Mar 25, 2008)

When talking about a site, I guess I see it as two parts, the site, and the cart/database.

With new web methods, I guess I'm not sure where the site ends and the cart begins.

Sounds like from what you guys are saying, an inherent part of a cart in a box is multiple items, listed in a matrix format. 

Since we don't want that, I guess that makes it harder.

I think one expensive part, is having a means of printing shipping labels automatically printed and billed through a USPS account.

That is probably costly.

We may have to trim this way down, and add nice features later when volume demands it.


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## markthenewguy (Mar 17, 2008)

Find a college nerd at one of the local schools with a good comp sci program. 

A lot of times one guy will be good at coding and you will have to find a designer who is good at design. 

Get it done in PHP, get the designer to make the pages exactly how you want them to look then hire a programmer to code the back end and make everything work. 

It depends how intensive and complex your ideas are but shopping carts are easy and even I can code a php comment system and thats about all I can do with php haha 

If you look around I'd think you could get it done for less than $5000 easy maybe 3-4k depending on what you really need. decide what bells and whistles are really important to your business and cut out all the frilly junk that isn't. it'll help keep your site focused and uncluttered and save you money.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> When talking about a site, I guess I see it as two parts, the site, and the cart/database


It can be, but it doesn't have to be.



> Sounds like from what you guys are saying, an inherent part of a cart in a box is multiple items, listed in a matrix format.


Not necessarily. That's how they are setup by *default* because that's what the majority of businesses need.

That doesn't mean that you can't use the cart a _different_ way than was intended with some creative thinking.

It may even take some programming to make it do what you need to, but I bet it would be less expensive to work with an existing cart and modifying it to your needs rather than recreating the wheel and building a shopping cart from scratch.

Recreating a shopping cart from scratch might be nice and idea if you are doing something custom, but if your budget doesn't allow that (not making any judgments, I don't know if it does or doesn't), then you might want to think of other ways to meet your goal.



> I think one expensive part, is having a means of printing shipping labels automatically printed and billed through a USPS account.


That's not expensive at all 

First off, you don't need a USPS account to ship through them. I'm not even sure if they have accounts in the same way UPS an FedEx does.

All you would need is for your cart to tie into a label printing service like endicia (that's what I use) and the endicia software would automatically pull orders from your shopping cart and process them for you.

It may take some kind of software to bridge the two (your shopping cart and endicia), but there are already programs out there that do this (like StoneEdge Order Manager)


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## peteVA (Nov 11, 2007)

Try your best to use some existing products. Not only from a cost today standpoint, but with the idea that the one man shop you get to do a custom site for you may be out of business next week. Even larger shops come and go. 

And you are right to ask if you will own it all. Make sure you do. Host it on your own hosting account, not their server. 

From a personal been there, done that view and seeing countless horror stories on the forums, try your best to fit together some existing commercial products with support, rather than a from the ground up type site where you are beholden to the designer for the rest of your life.
.


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## Rhizzlebop (Mar 25, 2008)

Ok, let me comment on this cart issue. Its not that we're asking for a custom cart, its that everyone is suggesting it or saying, thats how they'll do it.

The first guy who was mumbly when asked questions like "will we own our site", we'll he said they had developed their own cart, he hosts the sites he builds and you don't own his cart. I said price it as if we do and don't own the cart. He's now come back with a number of 8K, never broke out cart ownership or not.

Second person was just a verbal phone chat and was told it would be 7K and up. I think she was doing a custom cart.

The third guy, the one we met with today. Well, he's a nice guy, seems solid, reliable, well prepared and organized. He had all our questions answered on paper when we got there and we discussed it all.

Well, he plans to use his own custotm cart as well. But, he said we do own it within the context of the site he would build for us. As in, we can and will host elsewhere, (he doesn't do hosting) and we can have someone else modify the cart, he said its basic codeing, but we do own the site in its whole. We just couldn't go sell someone a copy of the cart, or a copy of our pages and such.

However, I DID mention the cart thing to him. I said, I envisioned someone would use a boxed cart, free or otherwise, and he'd integrate it into the site.

He said he can do that, but he can't guarantee it'll look a certain way because they are each inhernetly limited in how they can appear and/or function. 

I didn't get a feel of whether a boxed cart would be cheaper in his mind or not.

I guess, he isn't necessarily building a cart from scratch up, he wants to use his design of cart, and modify it to fit our needs.

Make sense?

So, again, we're not requesting a custom cart, but everyone is just basically putting that in their price.


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## peteVA (Nov 11, 2007)

I just want to cry when I see posts like yours.

Get off the net a minute and think about a shop in a mall, shopping center or on a street. A floor, a ceiling/roof and some walls and doors. You pay the rent and you put your goods, display fixtures and checkout stuff inside. 

However, you can vary the "build-out" on the inside. Pegboard, slat-wall, grid-wall, exposed lighting, recessed lighting, etc. And in an enclosed mall you can usually do a build-out on the exterior, as well. 

Same with a shopping cart. Your checkout is fairly static, but the rest is up to you. One large image / item per page, a dozen thumbnail images with expanding larger views, two across, etc. This can all be done within virtually all carts. 

Sizes and colors options, higher prices for XXL, XXXL, no problem. Just like price tags. 

All kinds of description space. Tell a story or just show a picture. Again, it's your choice.

The only thing that is basically outside the cart "mechanism" is the exterior build-out. How do you want the top and sides to look? Maybe the background color within the pages. You may even want different backgronds for different categories. 

Now you need a designer. For the build-out. And you can get someone to do that for a very reasonable price.

I'm most familiar with CubeCart, so I'm going to use that for an example. I'm going to give you a link to a forum type site that is dedicated to two things. Cart designs and modifications. If there is something about the cart yuou don't like in it's operation, there are people there who modify it. I've never seen a price for that over $ 50 and most are $ 25 or under.

And there all sorts of "skins" or templates that change the look or the build-out of the carts. From free to $ 25 or $ 50 to custom for several hundred bucks. 

Just go there and look around. I'll virtually guarantee you that you can come up with what you are looking for in the $ 1,000 range - or less. Custom design by someone who knows the cart inside and out. Maybe a change in how you offer options, or you have a particular shipping situation, etc. You'll find someone to fix that, too.

If CubeCart doesn't work for you, I can send you to some others, but this bunch I'm sending you to seems like a team who will tell you they can't do soemthing, but someone else can, etc. Just good folks to work with, reasonable prices. Many are students trying to earn some dope money. Sorry, spending money. 

Then, when you find that $ 1.000 or less solution, take the highest bid you've gotten, deduct your final cost and then send me half of what you saved. 

Here's the link - 

CubeCartForums.org (Powered by Invision Power Board)
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## Rhizzlebop (Mar 25, 2008)

Wow, I wish I knew more about these carts and how they really look and feel. 

I can say, if I go checkout from a Yahoo store, I can tell the process feels very different than from a site like Amazon. I'm guessing thats at least partially to do with the cart they use.

Now, if I can summarize what you are saying here, 

1st: Get a designer to design the web side visually. What do they need to design it in? 

2nd: get a coder, maybe from that cube forum, to implement the cart system and checkout.

It just sounds like a recipe to have something not work, and the coder blames it on the designer, and vice versa.

3rd: Who sets up order conf emails? The automated shipping label printing? I assumethe coder ties in our gateway?(authorize prob)

Anyone recommend a good merch acct? 

I just can't get my head around what this guy yesterday said, that using a cart in a box would leave it less flexible, and he couldn't promise he could make it look like we wanted.

I guess I just have a poor understanding of what parts of a site are cart driven, and what parts are design driven on the web side.


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## SeasonEnds (Sep 9, 2007)

Michael, I know this is very important to you, but you are thinking way to deep. 

The designer that you pay will usually get into photoshop or something like that and draw up a layout. He or she will come up with something that looks cool. At that point, they will usually give you the photoshop files.

You take the photoshop files to a programmer and say, I want the website to look exactly like this. They program it up and add the content and shopping cart.

Go to the cubecart forums and look at the skins that people have created. You can change the look of most shopping carts.


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## Rhizzlebop (Mar 25, 2008)

Ok, So is that photoshop file actually used, and cut up and made into the page pieces or is it just a visual reference for the coder?

Also, I understand msot pages now are dynamic, as in, you have a static background for example, and then items and buttons sort of float and change on top of that background.

What type of coding is that? How can I be sure they are coding it in a dynamic way?

Also, what about the other pages? there are visual elements and layouts that aren't JUST code on the other pages.


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## peteVA (Nov 11, 2007)

You are making this much too complicated!

You will probably not have to do anything to CubeCart. You do not need a coder. It is an out of the box solution that only needs a bit of custom design. Design, not coding in the sense of changing or creating from scratch anything to do with the operation of the cart itself.

Look at my post here - 

There are links to several virtually identical on the insde but drastically differnet to outward apperances CubeCart shops.

There is also a link into the admin or back room area of CubeCart. Take a look there at how easy it is to actually run the store. Check out Gateways to see what payment methods they offer.

Here is a link to that post. All sorts of links when you get there. You should also read that thread.

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t43639.html

Forget coders, forget all that blather those people are trying to sell you. The wheel has been invented many times over, there is no need to have someone start from scratch.

Hosting - $5 a month. Domain name $ 10 a year, CubeCart - Free or latest version under $ 200. Get a free, low cost or custom template maybe $ 300 to $ 500. Even if you need a few changes to the CubeCart itself, those are under $ 50. No way you can spend $ 1000.
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## emc4242 (Mar 1, 2008)

I think what some are implying here is the cart goes behind the horse.

it may be prudent to simplify your vision of your site, go with ready-made carts, templates, etc......then, after its up and running smoothly, and you can see that its not gonna flop, you can revamp it then. 

Also, spend a few days looking at every cart out there, and as many different kinds of sites utilizing them as possible. There is no shame in pointing at a killer store selling bath soaps and "copy" their setup and make it a shirt site.

Finally, stop saying woot.....great idea, terrible quality.....see if they'll tell you the return rate.


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