New website, what platform to use?

[Lockind]

I only have (limited) experience building e-commerce websites. I now want to set up a kind of half-forum/half-classified ads type site, selling services. The community would feature both buyers and sellers.

The nearest thing I can compare it to is shiply.com where transport providers compete with each other to offer their services to the customer who lists their job. Although I wouldn't want any 'bidding' on my site, possibly invisible bids would be okay.

With my sales websites I've only used Prestashop and I don't think that platform would be suitable. So, any suggestions?

Probably over-complicating this but ideally it would also be a platform that could feature webcams? (Not what it sounds like). And also take the payment from the customer before passing it onto the seller. I guess a bit like Amazon do.

Hope that makes sense.

[SunSeek01]

For the platform itself, you can consider Apache Web Server running on Linux. Maybe you already knew that. As for the an actual e commerce application I'm not sure.

[Lockind]

Thanks, would Joomla work, anybody?

[suppaman]

Thanks, would Joomla work, anybody?

Here you can find quite all Joomla extensions.

As a viable alternative you could give a look at Drupal and its modules.

Cheers.

[Lockind]

Thank you.

[brimacthai]

Wordpress using Woo eCommerce plug in might be a good place to start.

[ryanwiley]

WordPress is the only choice. Easy to use ...and you can do anything and everything you want to do with WordPress plugins....even if you don't know anything about coding/design.

[Tatsujin]

I'd go with Wordpress and WooCommerce personally, but the idea you have is not going to be simple to implement unless you are a skilled developer and know what you are doing.

[dddave]

A friend doing a similar project with Wordpress made extensive use of the many available online tutorials. Many are poorly organized and presented but he found some really helpful ones as well.

Even with that assistance, he said it was a hair pulling project.

[bluebellpepper]

Setup an account with www.a2hosting.com and many of the (free) tools are available there.

For a nice Website use Wordpress or Joomla (my preferred choice) which both have many free design templates available.

Eventually you have to customize it to your likings and this needs some development expertise.

Have fun!

[alant]

Have a look at Weebly who are moving more and more towards e-commerce possibilities in their services.

[joshuatdixon]

I was a web developer for a few years. My best advice is to hire someone or look for an out of box method. If you try to build/implement/customize a web platform yourself you will be frustrated. A developer will know how and what to do.

Search for outsourcing to India or the Philippines. It is affordable and they know what they are doing. Make sure to see examples of work they have done before, avoid scammers or over eager amateurs this way.

[thairastawoman]

What else apart from Drupal and Joomla ? Everything else is useless in my opinion...

[thairastawoman]

I was a web developer for a few years. My best advice is to hire someone or look for an out of box method. If you try to build/implement/customize a web platform yourself you will be frustrated. A developer will know how and what to do.

Search for outsourcing to India or the Philippines. It is affordable and they know what they are doing. Make sure to see examples of work they have done before, avoid scammers or over eager amateurs this way.

Worst advice: be dependent on others.

Maybe you were not a very good web developper or you just want to protect your business :-)

[lucifer666]

There's only one obvous choice, Wordpress. I use this for several sites of the type you need.

[TheRascal]

WordPress is the only choice. Easy to use ...and you can do anything and everything you want to do with WordPress plugins....even if you don't know anything about coding/design.

You can do anything you want... assuming there's a reliable and maintained plugin that does what you need it to do, otherwise you could find yourself in a situation where you've got a plugin that you need to maintain or enhance and no-one available to do it.

My suggestion is coming up with a full specification of features that are essential and features that are nice to have then Google terms like

"ecommerce software"

"ecommerce platforms"

"ecommerce solutions"

"auction software"

etc and then go through all the options comparing costs and features. Finally you need to consider the availability of good developers for the platform you choose and how much they charge. For example Magento is an amazing ecommerce solution and very fully featured but from a development perspective it's very complex and Magento devs command £500 a day for contract work. Of course it's possible to source people cheaper in different countries but the costs vary widely.

The final consideration is that if there's nothing similar to what you want to do then you should pay for a custom development. There's no point in hammering a square peg into a round hole and I've seen projects that have spiralled out of control cost wise once a person has decided on a very non custom feature for an ecommerce platform that then needs building in.

If your idea is solid but you don't have the budget for it then it's worth looking for developers who'll do it for a reduced rate in exchange for equity, I know a few devs in the UK who work like this, if you think about going down that route drop me a PM and I'll give you their details.

[Aceicol]

I'm a Web Developer and with your level of experience (not being rude but going on what you said in the OP) I would choose Wordpress. Wordpress is excellent and as mentioned allows for a lot of things that have already been developed.

You can get good free designs out there already so no need to worry about that either.

Not sure it will do exactly as you need though and might be worth doing 95% yourself and then going on oDesk and getting some help for the final 5%. Ignore the post above that says about relying on others, everyone relies on others for all sorts of things, just try to minimise it to save costs.

oDesk would be your best bet for the last 5% as you'll have sub continent workers who would work for a fraction of the likes of myself in the UK.

Good luck.

[olaska]

Hi I've (been a webdeveloper like everybody else a couple of years) and I loved Joomle earlier. But must say that WP with all development last years, plugins, themes etc is the best choice And you (as everybod else) forgot the fact that your site has to be maybe not Retina ready but Responsive (adapt to pads and smartphones). I myself am using a theme from Appthemes , Classipress that sounds a good choice for you. It's a classified theme costs 99 USD and the only negative about it, it is not multilingual (but you still can change language with .po) Since it is forbidden in this forum to help with links etc I send you a private message. And like everybody else you have no grip about importance of good SEO, Google ranking, expected high or low traffic etc.....Good luck

[kaydee412]

I only have (limited) experience building e-commerce websites. I now want to set up a kind of half-forum/half-classified ads type site, selling services. The community would feature both buyers and sellers.

The first thing you need to do is write up a properly detailed description of what you're trying to do. No professional will give you specific advice without understanding what you're trying to do and what your constraints are. Yes, I know this is a bit of work on your part, but it will save you plenty once you start building something. The earlier you make mistakes or change your mind, the less the impact (time and cost) will be.

It's not clear to me what exactly you're trying to do so I can only guess based on what you wrote. The forum problem has been solved, e.g. by phpBB (https://www.phpbb.com/). The classifieds problem has been solved already too, e.g. see http://www.wpvirtuoso.com/9-best-free-wordpress-classifieds-plugins/. However, if you're doing something new with "half-forum/half-classified ads type site" then whether you can use off-the-shelf components like the ones I linked to depends on your level of integration between the two and how much is there versus how much is missing. So basically you need to paint a picture of what problem this thing will solve, how it behaves and what it will look/feel like.

The nearest thing I can compare it to is shiply.com where transport providers compete with each other to offer their services to the customer who lists their job. Although I wouldn't want any 'bidding' on my site, possibly invisible bids would be okay.

Looking at shiply.com it looks to be a relatively simple front-end with a likely much more complicated back-end. Kinda like google.com -- simple text field to enter your search and a massive backend to figure out the results.

Again, are you building for classifieds or for an auction type bidding? It's a rhetorical question -- don't answer. You need to be clear on what you're trying to do and what you want. You have endless opportunities, but probably not endless resources to spend on trying everything. Also, I would recommend you classify your features into "must do", "should do" and "nice to have". I can tell you right now that anything labeled as "nice to have" will be cut, and likely most in the "should do" category as well. There are other ways to prioritize things, but I think you get the idea.

With my sales websites I've only used Prestashop and I don't think that platform would be suitable. So, any suggestions?

Why do you not think it would be suitable? What things do you need that you don't think it provides well or at all? It sounds like you're selling a service (brokering information connecting buyers and sellers and handling payment) and not physical goods. How you add value and how the process flows may or may not be compatible with how the off-the-shelf products do it.

Probably over-complicating this but ideally it would also be a platform that could feature webcams? (Not what it sounds like). And also take the payment from the customer before passing it onto the seller. I guess a bit like Amazon do.

Platforms don't support webcams -- browsers and plugins do. In a web browser you can use WebRTC, JavaScript or Flash plugins, etc. It all depends on your specific needs. Payment processing is a different problem, but one for which there are many offerings. Stripe and PayPal are popular, but may or may not be available or suitable to you depending on locations (yours, your customers) and business activity.

Anyway, you get the idea. I work with startups and figuring out these things is part of what I do.

Edited July 25, 2014 by kaydee412

[seancbk]

My advice would be self hosted wordpress.

For the classifieds part of the site I recommend http://awpcp.com/ A friend runs a classifieds site in Moscow using this and it works great.

For the forum type part have a look at Buddypress

PM me if you need any additional help/advice

[IMHO]

Simple answer: A CMS based the technology platform you or your developer have the most experience with.

No coding experience and No developer? Hire a professional, or it will never do what you want it to do.

[dddave]

I was a web developer for a few years. My best advice is to hire someone or look for an out of box method. If you try to build/implement/customize a web platform yourself you will be frustrated. A developer will know how and what to do.

Search for outsourcing to India or the Philippines. It is affordable and they know what they are doing. Make sure to see examples of work they have done before, avoid scammers or over eager amateurs this way.

Worst advice: be dependent on others.

Maybe you were not a very good web developper or you just want to protect your business :-)

Hmm..Nothing constructive to offer yourself; just an unnecessarily snarky put down directed at someone who made an effort.

Having a tough time of it; are you?

[khunPer]

Wordpress seems to be the answer if you don't want to write a server-side programme yourself...

[brimacthai]

There's some good answers here... everyone has their favorite and of course no one is wrong either.

I would like to make one more suggestion... you can get a lot of free themes ready to go. Woo eCommerce has a couple of free ones but some really good themes for sale that work well with their plugins and all the support you need.

The people that did my websites use themes from Elegant Themes... they also work well with Woo.

If you buy a theme and the pro version of Woo you'll have pretty good support from the companies and their forums... lots a people willing to help out with any issues you may have.

Wishing you the best of success!

Edited July 25, 2014 by brimacthai

[ryanwiley]

WordPress is the only choice. Easy to use ...and you can do anything and everything you want to do with WordPress plugins....even if you don't know anything about coding/design.

You can do anything you want... assuming there's a reliable and maintained plugin that does what you need it to do, otherwise you could find yourself in a situation where you've got a plugin that you need to maintain or enhance and no-one available to do it.

My suggestion is coming up with a full specification of features that are essential and features that are nice to have then Google terms like

"ecommerce software"

"ecommerce platforms"

"ecommerce solutions"

"auction software"

etc and then go through all the options comparing costs and features. Finally you need to consider the availability of good developers for the platform you choose and how much they charge. For example Magento is an amazing ecommerce solution and very fully featured but from a development perspective it's very complex and Magento devs command £500 a day for contract work. Of course it's possible to source people cheaper in different countries but the costs vary widely.

The final consideration is that if there's nothing similar to what you want to do then you should pay for a custom development. There's no point in hammering a square peg into a round hole and I've seen projects that have spiralled out of control cost wise once a person has decided on a very non custom feature for an ecommerce platform that then needs building in.

If your idea is solid but you don't have the budget for it then it's worth looking for developers who'll do it for a reduced rate in exchange for equity, I know a few devs in the UK who work like this, if you think about going down that route drop me a PM and I'll give you their details.

I've been running a host of sites using Word Press for about 5 years. ....I had no experience when I started....and I've had no real problems with plugins....just dont use free ones....the paid ones are cheap enough and supported well. Here are some of my sites if the OP is interested in what can be done relatively easily.

http://www.speakoutlanguages.com

From that site, click on the sliding headers at the top to see my other ones.

...and my very first site...not the most beautiful, but it makes money...

http://www.makeenergynow.com

and just for fun....

http://www.liveinasiablog.com

Best of luck, OP, and if you have any questions about WP feel free to send me a message!

Ryan

[seancbk]

I would add that whatever platform you choose, avoid free themes. Many (not all) free themes have backdoors to allow hackers access to your server.

A commercial theme will only cost from US$25 to US$75 and will be much more secure, as well as being far more feature rich.

Best of luck with your project.

[KittenKong]

I've been running a host of sites using Word Press for about 5 years. ....I had no experience when I started....and I've had no real problems with plugins....just dont use free ones....the paid ones are cheap enough and supported well.

Many free Wordpress plugins are of excellent quality, as are many free themes. At the same time many pay plug-ins and themes are absolute crap.

[ryanwiley]

I've been running a host of sites using Word Press for about 5 years. ....I had no experience when I started....and I've had no real problems with plugins....just dont use free ones....the paid ones are cheap enough and supported well.

Many free Wordpress plugins are of excellent quality, as are many free themes. At the same time many pay plug-ins and themes are absolute crap.

That's actually a good point, especially if you use Jetpack, which has great free plugins. Wether you use free or paid plugins, you just have to do a bit of research about the creator's and the plugin's reputation.