Web Designer

Day 13 at work, day 5 blog.

One thing in which I've learnt about working in the industry, is that, YOU MUST give your manager potential options, even when you know that only one solution works.

In the past 10 or so days, other than deciding upon which items I want in my e-boutique, chasing merchandisers and figuring out how the logistics system will work... I've also been debating on whether or not to create an ecommerce website myself, or get a professional web designer to do it for me.

As you all know, time is exteremely tight. I now have in total two months to literally launch a business, have it up and running, and allow the cash flow in... (fingers crossed si tu plait... merci). For me to physically make a website myself, although with given template, is pretty... um, you know, stressful...

Regardless of how stressful it may have appeared in my head, I had to do some research, in terms of how to create websites with these so called templates. I googled "top 10 ecommerce site builder" and found the following link:

http://ecommerce-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

It's actually quite useful... and the top review for ecommerce website building is...............

http://www.bigcommerce.com/

Their lowest monthly rate is $24.95 per month, which is not bad. They also have very instructive videos that tells you how to do things step by step- it actually is as easy as 123.

They offer a 15 day trial, which was actually quite fun to play around with........but I found that I'm really not that techy and when faced with a massive scroll of html and style sheets, I was a bit... blanked.

For those who are trying to set up an ecommerce webshop, this isn't a bad option to go with, as long as your requirements are not too high. The templates provide you with pretty much everything you need, and their inventory control system is A++++ Absolutely spot on.

BUT and a big BUT, my e-boutique is aiming to last quite a while and do not really fancy paying monthly for something in which I (well, my manger) will not own in the future... therefore, I hunted for webdesigners at the same time when I began this project.

I'm not going to go into details as to which designers I found, but-> here's the vendor I'm going with: http://www.pulsegarden.com/ They created the website for my previous workplace, and they have quite a pretty website themselves =)
The cost of the webbuilding was a little....um.... pricey (this was actually the only reason why I had to propose to my manager a plan B, template option). My quote was $25K HKD, which I don't think it's too bad actually. Some people may think it's pricey for making a webpage, but, don't forget, an ecommerce webshop has to come with a database system that stores your client's details, how much stock you have, shipping prices, etc etc.

So... the decision of my manager was- to go with the webdesigner YAY! Because it offers a tailored made webpage and system, things are far more flexible, and can be changed afterwards (e.g. add new languages), and lets face it, a tailored made anything (pretty much), is so much better than a template!

Contract, signed. Well done me.