I would really be interested to see whether people in these forums choose to create there own eccomerse site or did you use someone elses software to create it for you?

When I say build it yourself I mean you:

  • Hand Coded all scripts and designed interface.
  • Buily a Fully incoporated control panel feature
  • Have a payment process that you made yourself
  • Have several 1000 items in your site (not just 3)

Basically they are the rules!!!!

If you built it yourself I and lots of other people would like to know why?

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It's easy to explain why someone would want to build it themselves: total control. When you build it yourself you can customize every aspect of the site in terms of appearance and functionality. This means you can deliver the perfect experience to your customers.

I do totally understand why you would build one but I am sure that for many people it would be totally alien to even think of building your own.

No, I was planning to create a ecommerce website but did not get proper guidance, that is why i stopped. Now, I am planning to hire a ecommerce developer and will suggest this post to take care while developing an ecommerce site.

first post ! anyway.. back to the point..(i should say though i'm involved in SEM and specialise in ecommerce sites in particular).

i dont suggest you, or anyone else get a developer to write an ecommerce site.. and i'll tell you why.

Developers are good at what they do.. they write code and get it working well with the database it uses. The functions all work, the site does what you asked them to do, all appears well.
What goes wrong is when developers try to deploy that site into a useable, user friendly, well optimized, website that converts visitors into sales. This is where every single one of them goes wrong.
The structures aren't SEO frendly, they're not user friendly, they certainly dont funnel conversions well. Why? Because developers aren't web designers, they're not marketers, they're not SEO experts, and they dont have the capability to look at the site from anything except a developers viewpoint. Most front end templates are appallingly written and styled too.

There are so many off the shelf or open source e-commerce packages out there, and they surpass a custom written site in every way. They have a huge number of additional modules just waiting to be slotted in. They have support communities. There is no reason whtsoever to get a development company to write you anything UNLESS it is a bespoke or custom script which is out of the ordinary.

Developers code websites very well, but they create and deploy those websites very badly. If all you want is an ecommerce site, you will get a much better result using something like magento, prestashop, cubecart etc etc, and if needed get a a developer to tinker with it to get the desired result, but definitely dont let them build the whole thing.

We'll actually it depends on your capability. If you have the skill then why not build your own it would save you lots of money. But if you can't, why would you force yourself to build one, then end up wasted with the project. Hire someone to do it would save you time and hassle.

We always prefer to build websites custom. It is the best way to get all functionality that you need as easy as possible.

use the open source system but creat the templates by myself

I am planning to establish my own website,either.

One of our customers hired us to build an e-commerce platform for their new business, entirely from scratch. Why? They are in the business of licensing photographic work to the photojournalism market, and require features to enable sale of digital content with appropriate licensing schemes, as well as tracking/editing image meta data etc.

You'd find it tough to get an off-the-shelf shopping cart to do that, without a boatload of bloat to go with it!.

i am buiding an ecommerce site just for my project with just 3 to 4 product display all i wanted is when user clicks on my product page how will it be directed to a add to cart page. and my product display got color -dropdown and quantity text box an image and description and a submit button ..i need help using php and mysql how to do it ...i dont find any solutins..please help !!!

if you are looking for custom ecommerce shops,then its better but with full options..i mean the neccesary things for seo pick up.
and also you will get a easier and userfrindly control panel..

this issues which are known with the ecommerce solutions like oscommerce,magento etc are the user is not feeling a user friendly atmosphere as less technical knowledge poeple find its hard to use its adminpanel..
so for them the custom made adminpanel which posses all the necessary features are good

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