First Time E-Commerce Development

[NY'nMay]

Our company is building e-commerce sites for the first time. We don't have an in-house database person at this point, and we have to figure out how to incorporate e-commerce functionality into our designs. We understand vendors like Network Solution provide a cookie-cutter type solution, but we don't know how much control we have with that option, design-wise. Another vendor was asking for 6 weeks to build one site with catches like pushing their own hosting service and charging extra for their possible server glitches down the road. We are considering hiring a consultant as well, but for commercial services out there, what options would we have? Feedbacks would be appreciated.

[itHighway2007]

Hello,

I would strongly suggest not to use any third party shopping cart or work with any company who pushes you to host your web site with them.

Third party shopping carts are difficult to customize, contain hundreds of features most of them buyers don't require. In addition to that these extra features and scripts increase the front end loading time.

About the vendor who wants you to host your web site with them, you will be bond with them and after some time they may start charging you extra money for hosting.

For hosting, I would recommend GoDaddy.com. Godaddy is the world's largest domain registrar and offers products at prices up to 70% less than the competition and supports them all with world-class 24/7 live customer service.

I suggest you do some research and find some web development companies in your area, browse their online portfolio, meet with them and discuss your requirements.

[123ecart]

Have you considered using a hosted shopping cart? This would alleviate you of the task of setting up databases, etc.

[LeeU]

What types of products are they? Are they digital downloads?