Price Comparison Site - Advice Required

[sparatacus]

Hi,

I'm a complete newbie at web design, but have come up with a business idea for a simple price comparison website in my local area. I've registered the domain name and have a web hosting provider, so I just need a little advice about getting this project off the ground.

The site should provide details of product prices from 20 suppliers, who all supply this product in 4 different quantities and some suppliers only deliver to certain areas.

Front page should have 3 drop down lists for a. area, b. zip/post code and c. quantity required. Would prefer if lists a and b were linked, ie. select area 1 gives 5 zip codes in list b, whilst area 3 gives 9 zips in list b.

And obviously tables in a database where supplier info, supplier prices, zip/postcodes suppliers deliver to etc are stored so the cheapest suppliers based on the users choices at the first page are generated.

I know this is probably very simple for you guys, but I havent a clue where to start. I'd really appreciate any advice or guidance you could give me. I know this will take a long time to implement, but I've got time on my hands and I want to do a good job at this.

Regards... Sparatacus

[kooia]

Wait ... are you wondering about where to start on the design or the technical stuff, or on both? On the design, I always start on the layout, like with blank images and substituting text with "blah blah blah blah ... etc.". However, I always start with the technical stuff, like the PHP and JavaScript dealing with the databases.

[sparatacus]

Hi kooia,

I'd prefer advice on the technical stuff. If you were setting up this site, how would you tackle it? What would your step-by-step approach be?

Regards... Sparatacus