# What would it take to get a website of this caliber?



## nayfinxoxo (Mar 31, 2010)

Am I looking at over $1k?
I've already decided that I'm gonna use Storenvy but I just wanna for future reference.

babycakes clothing


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## poker (May 27, 2009)

PHP/CSS Programmer
Flash Designer
Photographer
Photoshop Guru
Models
Make-up Artist

Money


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

I don't know what's up with that site, but it took forever to load!


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## nayfinxoxo (Mar 31, 2010)

poker said:


> PHP/CSS Programmer
> Flash Designer
> Photographer
> Photoshop Guru
> ...


Everything I don't have. Thank you. 



DivineBling said:


> I don't know what's up with that site, but it took forever to load!


Sorry, I didn't for me!


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## poker (May 27, 2009)

DivineBling said:


> I don't know what's up with that site, but it took forever to load!


X2 took forever


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## freebird1963 (Jan 21, 2007)

look into zencart or oscommerce or even joomla. You can do most of that w/o all the programming language knowledge.
Just need to spend some time and research them.
PIck one and if you want you can purchase themes that will give you the look and feel that you want (to a point)


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## poker (May 27, 2009)

I just installed Zen Cart. I'm looking for a good sample site to inspire me. So far....nothing.


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

Not bad, but I found the large picture in the middle to be a bit dizzying because it bounces when it loads. In any event, you can add stuff like this to your site without all the programming knowledge. Here's something I am incorporating into my new site: Show your web content in 3D, as animations, flip books, panning cards and in other interactive ways


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

poker said:


> I just installed Zen Cart. I'm looking for a good sample site to inspire me. So far....nothing.


ZenCart, OSCommerce, CubeCart, Magento, etc can all be styled to look like *any* ecommerce site you see.

Others sites may not be doing it because they don't have the time, know-how, money...but they are all powered by HTML templates that can be edited to your liking.

As a matter of fact, the babycakes site linked to above is actually powered by OSCommerce 

But to answer the original question:



> Am I looking at over $1k?


Most likely yes. The actual software that powers it is free. But to get to that level of customization, you'd either have to spend a lot of time learning, reading tutorials, etc to figure out how to do it yourself or pay someone that has already spent that time learning and pay for their time and expertise in customizing it for you.

Most likely it would be over $1000 (maybe over $2000) to get it all done. 

I just googled oscommerce designers and found this site (not a recommendation), to give you an idea of pricing: storecoders.com/ecommerce-website-design


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## hmmTasty (Jan 31, 2011)

hey i thought id jump in, being a graphic designer lol 
the site loaded ok for me, the reason it might be slow for you guys is because they made the template in photoshop or fireworks and sliced it there and didnt set the images up correctly. anyyyyy wayyyy lol i really like the site it wouldnt be hard to create, try find a young freelancer they will do it for about $800, but the images you would need to provide for a cheap site. hope this helps...


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

hmmTasty said:


> hey i thought id jump in, being a graphic designer lol
> the site loaded ok for me, the reason it might be slow for you guys is because they made the template in photoshop or fireworks and sliced it there and didnt set the images up correctly. anyyyyy wayyyy lol i really like the site it wouldnt be hard to create, try find a young freelancer they will do it for about $800, but the images you would need to provide for a cheap site. hope this helps...


I have to jump in and say that I actually paid a lot more than this to have my site designed so that I own it completely. Meaning that if I used a site like yahoo or godaddy and later decided that I wanted to go to a different webhosting company, I can't take my stuff with me. With my site, I own everything so if I decide I don't like Netricks (which I do... they offer a year of free webhosting with their design package), then I can pick up my site and take it with me wherever I want to go.
They installed my zencart and customized it to my website. Even with all of that, I still do a lot of the work because I have to provide photos, pricing, layout preference, category names, subcategory names, etc. I'm glad I didn't do it all myself because running a website can be SOOOO time consuming to get it up and running!!!
Now when I have a question or concern, I just give them a call and they fix whatever I need fixed from the coding side. It's nice!

I did look into finding a designer to do it for the above recommended $800, but I ultimately decided that I wanted the entire package.


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## hmmTasty (Jan 31, 2011)

DivineBling said:


> I have to jump in and say that I actually paid a lot more than this to have my site designed so that I own it completely. Meaning that if I used a site like yahoo or godaddy and later decided that I wanted to go to a different webhosting company, I can't take my stuff with me. With my site, I own everything so if I decide I don't like Netricks (which I do... they offer a year of free webhosting with their design package), then I can pick up my site and take it with me wherever I want to go.
> They installed my zencart and customized it to my website. Even with all of that, I still do a lot of the work because I have to provide photos, pricing, layout preference, category names, subcategory names, etc. I'm glad I didn't do it all myself because running a website can be SOOOO time consuming to get it up and running!!!
> Now when I have a question or concern, I just give them a call and they fix whatever I need fixed from the coding side. It's nice!
> 
> I did look into finding a designer to do it for the above recommended $800, but I ultimately decided that I wanted the entire package.



Yeah this is a standard way to do it, basically exactly how i would go about it. for $800 i could easily make the site in a day, i would ask for the images of models and maybe a few examples you like of sites, also specific content thats needed and all the words that will be on the site. this is the cheapest option... you would need to source your own domain name/ hosting etc, but the whole site would be yours as it wouldnt be a template... Basically if you want a super site you need to pay big bucks as i would need to code a new custom shopping cart, this is over a weeks work for me lol etc. what i meant is for a start up site like this, if you find a young graphic designer they will do it for very cheap as they want things for their portfolio. 

But you raise a good point i kno some people that make websites for customers but wont give the files as they see that the client needs to return n pay extra to update n stuff. 

So be carefull and ask up front dont get suckered in.

hope this makes sense its been a long day


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

hmmTasty said:


> Yeah this is a standard way to do it, basically exactly how i would go about it. for $800 i could easily make the site in a day, i would ask for the images of models and maybe a few examples you like of sites, also specific content thats needed and all the words that will be on the site. this is the cheapest option... you would need to source your own domain name/ hosting etc, but the whole site would be yours as it wouldnt be a template... Basically if you want a super site you need to pay big bucks as i would need to code a new custom shopping cart, this is over a weeks work for me lol etc. what i meant is for a start up site like this, if you find a young graphic designer they will do it for very cheap as they want things for their portfolio.
> 
> But you raise a good point i kno some people that make websites for customers but wont give the files as they see that the client needs to return n pay extra to update n stuff.
> 
> ...


It took over a week for mine to get done! That was in part because I was so swamped that I didn't have time to really go look at websites for examples! They started installing a custom cart but when I started talking about how many options I wanted, they said it would be faster to just install a zencart and customize it to my website and they obtained the SSL and got me in touch with a bank to get my authorize.net account set up, etc. All in all, it took awhile, but I'm happy with the results!


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## hmmTasty (Jan 31, 2011)

DivineBling said:


> It took over a week for mine to get done! That was in part because I was so swamped that I didn't have time to really go look at websites for examples! They started installing a custom cart but when I started talking about how many options I wanted, they said it would be faster to just install a zencart and customize it to my website and they obtained the SSL and got me in touch with a bank to get my authorize.net account set up, etc. All in all, it took awhile, but I'm happy with the results!


hey is it possible to take a look? 
it also depends on the designer, nowadays i also charge more as im getting a good reputation  but when i started out i used to sweat for days, for pennys... its all part of the process


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

hmmTasty said:


> hey is it possible to take a look?
> it also depends on the designer, nowadays i also charge more as im getting a good reputation  but when i started out i used to sweat for days, for pennys... its all part of the process


Sure... my website is in my signature!


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## nayfinxoxo (Mar 31, 2010)

Rodney said:


> ZenCart, OSCommerce, CubeCart, Magento, etc can all be styled to look like *any* ecommerce site you see.
> 
> Others sites may not be doing it because they don't have the time, know-how, money...but they are all powered by HTML templates that can be edited to your liking.


What's the difference between sites like ZenCart & OSCommerce, and sites like Big Cartel and Storenvy?

Oscommerce etc. is just the shopping cart itself and Storenvy & Bigcartel is a shopping cart AND the template(?) ?

also, if I have your own domain, period, you have to pay for hosting? Even if I just get my own for my Storenvy shop?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> What's the difference between sites like ZenCart & OSCommerce, and sites like Big Cartel and Storenvy?


ZenCart/OScommerce aren't really "ecommerce sites" like Big Cartel and Storenvy, they are actually names of free ecommerce shopping cart software that you can install when you have a domain name and a webhost.

BigCartel and Storenvy host the software on their sites, so you don't have to install anything or even have a webhost. They bundle the hosted shopping cart software and hosting as a service.

If you have your own domain name and your own web hosting account (through a place like LunarPages.com, LiquidWeb.com, HostGator.com, etc), then you can download the oscommerce or cubecart or zencart softwar and install it on the web host. This allows you to keep everything on your own site and not have to send customers somewhere else to add things to their shopping cart.



> also, if I have your own domain, period, you have to pay for hosting? Even if I just get my own for my Storenvy shop?


If you just want to use Storenvy, no, you don't have to pay for hosting, since their hosted ecommerce service is free.

If you want to have a site like the one you linked to in your original post, then yes, you would have to pay for hosting, then install the shopping cart software on your host, then customize the templates of the shopping cart to look how you want.



> Oscommerce etc. is just the shopping cart itself and Storenvy & Bigcartel is a shopping cart AND the template(?) ?


They are all ecommerce shopping carts. oscommerce/cubecart/zencart are hosted on your own site, storenvy/bigcartel are hosted on someone else's site.

They *all* have templates that you can customize.

Hope that helps some


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

That was some great info, Rodney! I don't quite understand how all of that stuff works so it's nice to have it all laid out there in layman's terms!


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## nayfinxoxo (Mar 31, 2010)

She's right Rod, that helped out a great lot. Thank you.


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

nayfinxoxo said:


> He's right Rod, that helped out a great lot. Thank you.


She....


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## freebird1963 (Jan 21, 2007)

One thing with OsCommerce and Zencart or any opensource cart you have to make sure that the place you are going to host it meets the requirements for that software.
Normally they have to run mysql,php, some graphic libraries like gd or imagemagik etc. Also since you have to setup a database you need access to it so you can setup the mysql root and password. This is normally done thru a website running Cpanel or helm or phpmyadmin.
The draw back to running your own is if your not fimilar with all this stuff it can be frustrating and time consuming. And if your hoster is a hoser they can give you a run around saying its the software not them. But OSC/zencart etc have been around for some time and are run even by big companies so normally its the hoster that is BSing you about issues. THis is normally gonna be cheaper in the montly charges.
The other way were you buy a ecommerce site and they host it you get less ability to customize to your liking. There is some but not really alot. Normally cost more. And you have to watch some charge a percentage for the amount sold or you have to upg to make more sells. Read all the FINE PRINT. Not just what they show on their sites. And make sure backups are included in case the servers go down.


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## cle0950 (Oct 22, 2010)

nayfinxoxo said:


> What's the difference between sites like ZenCart & OSCommerce, and sites like Big Cartel and Storenvy?
> 
> Oscommerce etc. is just the shopping cart itself and Storenvy & Bigcartel is a shopping cart AND the template(?) ?
> 
> also, if I have your own domain, period, you have to pay for hosting? Even if I just get my own for my Storenvy shop?


Rodney had a good explanation but here is something to keep in mind. You said you were most interested in using Storenvy; you could have a custom website (homepage, blog, about us, shop) links and still use Storenvy. You would need a domain and have to host the site. Storenvy will only host the e-commerce portion. I am currently working with a designer to accomplish this. It can be done for $600-$1000.


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## laz0924 (Jun 25, 2009)

Someone said if you have Yahoo or Go daddy that you can't take the site with you. Why is that? If I have the files with html code why can't I upload to another site? I currently have a domain name with Godaddy and trying to figure out the best way to go with a site. 
I was thinking of Zoomla with zen cart and filezilla for the ftp am I not able to copy the source code and transfer to another site if I use Godaddy as a host. any info would be appreciated.


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