August 7th, 2008
Choosing an E-Commerce Solution - Hiring a Website Developer-Webmaster
Are you considering selling your product, or any product on line? There are many ways you can get an e-commerce store off the ground. This can be more of a dilemma than you think. This series of articles will help you decide which method is best for you.
The are three basic methods to getting started in e-commerce.
1. Using an All-In-One method (This will be discussed in part one of this series of articles)2. Hiring a website developer and webmaster to install, modify and run your e-commerce store (Which is what we will discuss in this article) 3. Doing it yourself (This will be discussed in part three of this series of articles)
While there are many more methods for starting an e-commerce store these are the three basic solutions. You can also combine some of these to suit your needs as you feel best. For instance some people may feel that they have enough technical expertise to install, set up and run their e-commerce store but will leave the design portion to a good website developer.
In this article we will look at and discuss hiring a website developer and webmaster. A website developer is a person that will design a competent and good looking website for you for a fee. Some will obtain hosting and install the software for you as well. Usually it is at this point that they hand off the website to you and thank you for giving them your business. Some people feel perfectly comfortable with this arrangement and will go on to add their products and begin to run their online business. Many, on the other hand still are not sure enough of themselves and want someone to upload their products and run their site for them. This service is usually known as a Webmaster. A Webmaster can be the same person that developed the site or can be a different person or company. The Webmaster will handle the day to day operation of your website and can do as much or as little as your contract calls out for.
You can pay a web developer/webmaster to do everything for you. This is the probably the most expensive way to go and may or may not take a long time to get up and running. For those of you who know nothing and don’t want to learn anything about selling online then this is probably going to make your online presence look professional but will be the most expensive solution you can use. A good solution for you? It could be a good solution but be aware that all of these services are VERY expensive and your online store has to make a large enough profit eventually to cover the costs of running the store. Be sure that you take all of your costs into consideration when choosing this method. It is best that you request bids from numerous freelance developers/companies because you will get a wide range of prices. It is usually best to not pick the lowest price unless all of the bids are close. This is in part due to the fact that most good developers are probably already busy. So they don’t need to low ball a bid just to get work. It is the developer that has little to no work that usually low balls the bid in hopes they get the contract. Just remember whoever you choose is going to be building the website that you want customers to visit, shop and purchase your items from. Anything less than perfect can mean the difference between poor sales and great sales.