Rookie making a website

[Chad Juranek]

Hello everyone, first time poster, long time listener

I mainly work with financial information and data management at work. I know very little about building websites. Is there anyone that would be interested in helping whiteboard a new website for a lunch or some beer? 

Here is the high level details: 

Looking to create a multi-user website that would allow users to login, see the list of products that they offer for sale, and edit the names and details of the products they have for our sales team. We want them to see an archived list of the products they have had in the past, be able to edit them as needed, and have a field that communicates to our sales team whether they have that particular product available for sale or not. 

I'm trying to learn how to do something fairly simple, so any help is appreciated. I'm a rookie at this so I apologize in advance. 

[Loyall, David]

Hi, Chad.

 

Based on the presence of some stop words (product, sales, “have a field”, “they”, simple) I think maybe you would be best served by hiring some contractor to build what you want.

 

If you are less interested in the specific product and more interested in learning some new computer skills, I recommend a less ambitious first project.

 

Stage one: get a web server to say “Hello, World!” when you visit it with a browser.

 

Stage two: get a web server to respond with “Hello, <your name>!” when you visit a page, type in your name, and click submit.

 

As you can see, those tasks are truly simple compared to the web application you described...  Yet, it may take a novice weeks to complete those first two stages.  Or minutes...  It depends on what the novice can already do, and what resources are available.

 

Cheers,

--Dave

 

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[Gmail]

Thanks david! I agree, I'm not developing the site myself. Was looking to pick someones brain and ask a few questions before i try and find a contractor. Im just trying to do some homework before i start asking for something. 

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[James Harr]

IMO - pick something that has a low up front cost.

You're just starting so there's a lot of little things you may not know you want in a website/purchasing system. If/when you find those, that low up front cost makes it easier to throw the thing away and pick something else. Second time around you'll have a refined sense of what you actually want.

I've never used them, but sites like squarespace are popular. Dream host might be worth checking out too -- they probably integrate some third party site builder and ordering system.

At any rate -- DO NOT get in the business of collecting, storing, or transmitting credit card numbers through your website. PCI-DSS is a time suck and a huge distraction. Lots of web cart systems have the ability to integrate with a 3rd party to handle the credit/debit transactions. They usually bounce the user over to the card processor's website, then back to yours when the transaction is complete. You've probably done that many times as a customer and not even noticed.

[Gmail]

I like the idea of almost having a throw away for a dry run. We already use "big commerce" for the primary site. However in my experience the user ready website companies are primarily for one seller to many customers. Our business model is many sellers to many customers. So we are exploring a custom site to accommodate the side of the equation that big commerce does not have the functionality for. 

Also, im pretty convinced we will not be using big commerce into the long run, id prefer trying to be nimble and work with someone to build a customized version rather than a second big commerce site.   

Sent from my iPhone

[David Knaack]

Be aware that there is a tendency for the dry run to turn into the product, especially if anyone with authority and an awareness of development costs sees it in action.

[Chad Juranek]

All to well. I'm technically CFO and CIO out of the 4 of us so no worries there. 

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