Best E-Commerce site development solution?

[sbarry50]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on what the best route to go with building a new e-commerce site? It will be an online parts store for a current brick and mortar lawn equipment dealership. There could potentially be over a million parts that would be offered on the site, along with pictures, parts diagrams etc. Added functionality would most likely include a parts look up tool based on model number and part description of some sort.

I know there are built templated turnkey e-commerce solutions out there on the net, but I don't know if any of them would really work with what I need. If anyone knows of a company that does offer that type of solution with a lot of flexibility in them could you please reply with their name?

Or do I need to go the route of having someone custom build it? I know XHTML and CSS fairly well but I don't have any experience in database programming or programming languages such as PHP or ASP. Also, I really have no idea how much something like this would cost if I had the whole thing custom built. Could it be done decently for 10k? Ballpark range for a high quality built e-commerce site?

Thank you very much for any help, advice, recommendations, etc. I really do appreciate it.

[Compguy Pete]

I hit a little bit of all the bases here and I tend to ramble on a bit so if I do and you need me to clarify please say something...

I’m not one for supporting homegrown carts that will be used on a single site... Because if you have an issue and your relationship has gone sour with the developer your total cost of development has just doubled from your quoted amount. As most developers will give the excuse that they dislike dealing with someone else coding... or they’ll tell you what you have is crap or something of that nature.
Now if you can be ensured that the relationship will be sold for the term of the sites life cycle fine have it custom built.

Here is what I suggest... take one of 2 options, if you have a database of the entire item including photo.
1. Contact your favorite open sourced shopping cart and call or email them and mention what your needs list is.
2. Contract a developer to see that it gets done with an existing software package of their choice. It should be something Enterprise level...

Factors that will have an impact - what is the clients current solution for parts and ordering in the brick and mortar store. Contacting that POS - inventory developer may shed some light on what carts are compatible with the current database.

Either way if you plan on having upwards of 1million items that’s a TON... That’s far to large a project for one person. The math comes out to $0.01 per item on your ballpark budget. how many items would have to be inserted to the cart database to turn a profit. To have that many items added you would need a crew of 5 people who could put in 96 per hour for a year.

The issues of PHP, ASP and and all the other buzz words don’t mean much if you have to add each item on it’s own... that database is key.

[sbarry50]

Thanks for your response Compguy Pete. I do have a question or two, but I am way too tired now to think about it. I will be back on tomorrow when I'm thinking clearly again with my questions. Thanks again for responding.

[Compguy Pete]

Excellent... well I check the board a couple times a day so post when you have a moment.