Ecommerce Recomendations

[99MWD99]

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Hi,

I've been awarded the unenviable task of developing an ecommerce site for my partners vintage clothing business. We know exactly what we want but have been let down by 2 designers/web design companies already - why is this area such a mine field?

If anyone could recommend a good, reliable, honest and professional company I surely would appreciate it.

Thanks.

[accelerator]

Going with your own custom shopping cart can be a minefield because it is heavy on development effort and at the same time it's quite competitive so there's also not that much money in it for developers.

To begin with, why don't you just start an eBay store? No development effort, but ready access to customers.

Otherwise, I have a list of shopping cart solutions, but this is probably getting a bit old now. Technology-wise I would recommend php over other languages because development costs tend to be lower because it is open source. X-cart offers a relatively low cost custom development service for its PHP shopping solution, but I don't have first hand experience of it so ask for other opinions first.

Rgds

[confuscius]

Take a look at the self build route with support and design if needed from a software partner. In my opinion, Magento - Home - eCommerce Software for Growth is probably the best free software out there and they have partners in several countries who can empty your wallet as good as the best of them. Seriously though, this is a neat piece of free kit and well worth the learning curve.

[Powerup]

If you are looking for a good company please have a look at Channel 6 Multimedia. They have an e-commerce platform called Ch-Ching.com which was originally developed back in 2003 and has been actively maintained since. The system has handled tens of thousands of transactions worth millions so is tried, tested and robust.

I can vouch for this company 'cos I used to own it. The same designers and developers are still working there.