Web Design and Ecommerce

This is an excerpt from an email conversation I had with my brother-in-law about web design and ecommerce:

I made these very original drawings and study guides for my various med school classes. I’ve posted them throughout the semester at the medical school web site and have got rave reviews! Especially now that it’s finals time, many of my peers are relying on said study guides as a first source. Anyway, I got to thinking, what if I could consolidate all of my “products” into a website geared towards medical professionals or anyone studying the material. As I go through medical school I can continue producing and refining the drawings and info for each class. I could have a blog section where I give med school survival tips and document the process as I progress through med school. Some of my peers say they feel like they should give me money or buy me a drink for giving out these study guides. So, in the future, this website could have a donations section for some charity. Anyway, can you help me develop something along these lines? Of course, I will pay you for your time and efforts if you decide to help. Can you give me a rough estimate on how much something like this will cost to create and maintain?

Thanks for thinking of me. I didn’t know that besides being so smart, you were also a great artist and entrepreneur too! Essentially I see you as needing a blog format with an eventual shopping cart. These don’t have to be the same sites. For example, the shopping cart could be a sub-domain of the main website, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

Beginning with the end in mind, I see you creating and sharing content in a blog-like format that you eventually ‘roll up’ into a book that you sell. If you are only selling one book at a time or just want a donation button, you don’t need a full shopping cart, you just need a Paypal button to ‘click and buy/donate’.

An example of someone doing something similar is The Oatmeal. That’s the shopping cart side, but you get the idea. Pioneer Woman’s blog does something similar in that she rolls her blog posts up into a new cook book every once in a while.

For the blog, I’d recommend WordPress. If you want to self-host, the easiest way is to buy a Bluehost, HostGator, or 1and1 site for~$75 for a year of hosting and one domain. From there you would install “Simplescripts” for WordPress, then find an appropriate theme, and start blogging. You might also check out WordPress.com for a fully managed solution.

I think all of this is within your grasp, it just may be a matter of either not having the time to set it up or not wanting to learn about how to set it up to get going. You might first consider whether or not you have the time to write to it, backlink to it, and other modes of promotion. If you don’t think you will actually post to it, I wouldn’t start. One way to test yourself to see if you will post is to start a Facebook page or even just email yourself on a regular basis to see if you have the conviction to do this before you get started.

If you’re ready to get started and need help on the next step, let me know and I’ll help guide you. If you want me to do it all, we can talk about price, but I do have limited availability right now. Typically I charge clients [SEE Prices] for something like this, but I would help you for much less. Again, try to see how far you can get on your own based on what I’ve told you so far and let me know.

NOTE: If you’re interested in more about self-publishing, check out Books are the New Business Cards or read more about WordPress, web design, and e-commerce.

Comments

2 responses to “Web Design and Ecommerce”

  1. Jack Brock Avatar

    Which shopping cart add-on would you recommend for WordPress. I am changing the existing site from just an online catalog to a site that either starts as a blog with a shopping cart included, or a site with a blog and shopping cart included. Thanks for your recommendation in advance.

    1. Erich Stauffer Avatar
      Erich Stauffer

      Jack, I can’t say I recommend WP-Ecommerce, although I have some experience with it from using it myself and from helping clients with it. It does work, it’s just that when it doesn’t, support is hard to come by. It’s also hard to look ‘pretty’. I know that CSS and theme elements have a lot to do with that, but the plugin has it’s own CSS too. If you are deadset on using WordPress as your platform, consider Woocommerce first, but if you truly want to self-host, use Magento instead. If you don’t want to support it (or to put it another way, if you want to support it cheaply), what I am recommending right now to clients is BigCommerce.com. It has integration with Google Shopping, is SEO friendly, loads super fast, has blogging functionality, and has gorgeous themes. For a low monthly rate you get support. Compare that with hiring a web designer like me and/or hosting it yourself. The bottom line is that WordPress is not an ecommerce platform, it’s designed for blogging. Although it is powerful enough to run an ecommerce site, it’s not it’s specialty and it will always be harder than a platform designed for ecommerce. For a second hosted solution, consider Shopify.com. It’s slightly more expensive than BigCommerce and uses less “open standards” of coding, but if you like it better, it’s still a great shopping cart system.