Member Avatar for SalmiSoft

I am planning a new business venture involving an online store. This is an area where I have no experience (my background is in desktop software & device drivers, not web sites). I would welcome advice on 2 aspects of this project.

First, I could learn about this and set up everything myself, or I could pay someone to set things up. Doing it myself is attractive because I could then maintain & develop the site more easily. Getting someone else to do it is attractive because an experienced professional should do a better job, faster. Plus I will definitely need assistance with the site design, as my efforts are certain to look awful. So I would like some advice on the buy v build question. How steep is the learning curve for this work? Is it something I could easily pick up? Is a professional worth every penny or do they just do things I really should do myself?

The other thing is timetables. I am at the initial planning stage of this project. What would be a sensible time to get a web store online? I realise this is a "how long is a piece of string" question and I don't expect an accurate answer, but I have to co-ordinate this work with other parts of the project so I need a ball park guesstimate to work with.

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A practical way to decide the buy‑vs‑build question is to split the work into three buckets: business rules you must control (product mix, pricing, promos), repeatable admin tasks you can learn quickly (catalog updates, order handling, customer emails), and high‑risk or specialised work to outsource (design, payment handling, hosting/security, tax setup). ’s point about bringing in experienced help to speed delivery is sound; outsourcing payment/checkout or using a hosted payment page also reduces your PCI burden. (blog.pcisecuritystandards.org)

For a fast, testable launch focus the scope tightly. Minimum launch items are: product pages (good photos + SKU/variants), working cart + checkout, a hosted payment method, SSL, shipping rules (carriers or flat rates), tax settings, basic returns/policy pages, and analytics plus a couple of test orders. Treat everything else (advanced filtering, custom integrations, deep SEO tuning) as post‑launch work. The official platform checklists are useful to work from when you map tasks. (help.shopify.com)

How long? If you have product data and assets ready and use a hosted platform with a hosted checkout, a usable store can go live in days to a couple of weeks. If you need custom features, complex inventory rules, or choose a self‑hosted stack, expect several weeks to months plus an ongoing maintenance rhythm for security patches and upgrades — self‑hosted solutions require regular patching and testing. Use a short pilot to validate demand before committing to a complex build. (shipaid.com)

A pragmatic next step: spin up a small pilot store on a SaaS platform, connect a hosted checkout to get live fast, and run real test orders to exercise shipping/taxes. If the pilot finds real traction, plan a staged migration for any custom work. Hosted payment/checkout options dramatically cut integration time and operational risk, which is exactly why they’re worth considering at the start. (docs.stripe.com)

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Member Avatar for pritaeas

Personally I'd use a professional company for it. Even though I'm familiar with all aspects (being a developer), I'd choose to hand this off, and not just because I'm not a designer. Of course this depends on your budget. Not sure if they do this where you are, but here I know of companies that will offer services for a piece of your turnover. Cheap to step in for you, and for them it's interesting to see/help you succeed.

As for the time table, the place I used to work planned a store in about two weeks. The first week was to get the design right, the second for building, testing and importing data. Of course this would only be an actual two weeks if they had nothing else to do. Overall, most were delivered within a month. Getting the design right (communication back and forth) takes the longest.

Member Avatar for frankjames018

Magento is the best platform to build a ecommerce website. It is friendly to use, proide flexibility and stability to use. It is friendly to SEO. It gies best shopping cart Experiance to users, thus attracting more and more customers.
Being a New commer first hire a company to make what you want then later on modification can be done by self.

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