LebGeeks

scorz

Member

Building an online shop

Hello folks.
My father and I have a small business, a toy store and a various holiday gadgets store (xmas decoration, easter, valentine, summer stuff..)
So I was thinking of making something like pcandparts (email order and delivery to home)
My father first started the business in 1994 so basically we’re not starting from “zero”
Anyway, I have a few question for the community (I know that some of the question can be answered by google though)

First of all, do you think is it worth the time creating the website?
Financially it won’t cost anything since I’ll write it and host in on my vps so.. I just mean the time to make it ready, coding and photographing the products…
I have no idea about Lebanese online shopping in general and how many people are into so I am not sure yet..

Secondly (some technical stuff If I've decided to start)
1-    Can I –is it a good thing- to make a mysql db and use php to print product information to html? I’ll need product Item#(this should be the db PK I guess, description, price, brands name(lego, Barbie, bburago, mattel bla bla bla).. I had this idea because I’ve already
written a data entry/statistical software in C# so I could add  a way to update products in a friendly way.

2-    Do you have any suggestion about which colors I should use/ which theme (I suck at designing)
I was thinking to make something like this: http://charbelharb.org/~c/web/ <= = That’s a very small and basic website I’ve made for a university project a few years ago but I don’t think a kinda b/w theme is good for a toy store website?

3-    Any web-dev has used google web designer? If yes is it good for a newbie in webdev? (If you know any alternative let me know –please not dreamweaver-, I’ve installed it one time and gave me headache, end up writing manually in vi and nano)

4-    Do you know any good company that offers delivery service at an affordable price? Pcandparts price are reasonable, so something like it. (I am not sure if they have their own shipping department but I don’t think so)

Well that's it, if you have any suggestion I’ll be thankful.

samer

Admin

Re: Building an online shop

You could use something like Magento with a nice theme as a starting point.
Save yourself the hassle and get a Shopify plan for 30$/month. That shouldn't be a big expense for an established business like your father's (I hope). Sure, you don't get to use your VPS, but you save tons of time and the result is likely to look and work better.
Good luck!

rolf

Member

Re: Building an online shop

If you have neither experience with design nor developing a dynamic website I dont know where to start with the advice and you probably dont know where to start either so maybe try to find something ready made, although maybe magento is too much for what you want to do.

But you were right with your platform choice (php mysql). Some might recommend another language than PHP.
For the IDE, I don't know, I use Sublime Text which is a great text/code editor, and I believe it to be the "right way", as opposed to Dreamweaver or other things messing with your code.

With regards to your decision, no it may not cost much hard money at the beginning but thats rarely a factor in such cases, its all about time, and then you have to suppprt your software; if someone is actually going to use it. Are you ready to spend say 50 to 100 hours on this project? How long it takes depends on the choices you make and how high you set the standards, but I hope you get the point.

Which brings me to the last concern, which is wether there is a demand and technological readyness for it; will the users buy from it, and will the business keep it updated, in the long run?

I believe in e-commerce. In richer countries it is becoming a de-facto standard way of buying certain things for a large group of people, but it also runs on a proper infrastructure. (e-payment and postal services) So in the end I let you decide, if its a good thing in this particular case, based on the particular situation that you have and wish you good luck.

If you decide to let someone de the work for you I recommend finding a couple of good freelance designers/developers. I am not sure if I know someone to recommend but I can ask. In any case, pick carefully, software quality makes a difference.

Last edited by rolf (November 23 2015)

xazbrat

Member

Re: Building an online shop

I cant give you recommendations on the website or design, but you will need it to interface with you father's store's inventory system.  If you don't have one in place, you may have to implement one for the items you will be selling on the site and then expand it if needed to the whole store. You can ruin your reputation in a hurry if you are putting things up for sale that you don't have in stock.  The system does not need to be really sophisticated and depending on the volume of the items sold, can be updated each week instead of daily or real time.  That saves a lot of manpower and time.

Also, keep in mind the aforementioned payment options---that is a big cost in this country.

scorz

Member

Re: Building an online shop

@samer
Thanks for the info dude! But like rolf said, I think Magento and Shopify are way too much.
It’s not about price but I think it’s not really necessary in my case you know. Well at least for a start, such services may be used in the future if the idea worked.

@rolf
Exactly I don’t know where to start haha but I’ll try to figure it out, well I believe in simplicity so I don’t think it could be complex even though I am willing to make it dynamic using php. So basically it will be similar to pcandparts + images of products. And yeah I chose php because I know a little bit...
[off topic]
Do you remember those days when every Lebanese was using hotmail.com and on irc. “Cable Internet” security was a joke? Well I’ve used php back then to make scam page to retrieve various information from users so I think it is “almost” the same but of course I’ll be the good guy now.
[/off topic]
Secondly I prefer to make the website by myself for a simple reason: Learning new stuff.
-so I don’t mind working 100 hours or even more-
Since my father is “the boss” and it will be a beta at first of course so it’s like killing two birds with one stone.  If it was good, I’ll publish it. If it was a mess, I’ll retry until it’s no longer a mess.
I am not sure about users’ interaction, but I got the idea because there is a lot of people who find our number on google (whereleb.com, yellow pages) and become our customers eventually. So I think adding a website will help right? (Even if we didn’t get involved in delivery option)
And yeah e-payement right now is out of question. Not everyone is comfortable with it yet.

@xazbrat
My father’s idea was to put only branded item because like I’ve mentioned before there is a good amount of people who call us looking for specific item, and they become our customers later on.
I am thinking of writing a friendly app so my father can update the db easily.
Teaching him to use mysql client and ftp to upload pic is a nightmare.. Or I will be responsible to do all the work manually. Real-time update is hard because we still use pen and paper for income/outcome so update on a daily basis is the best thing to do right?

TheStunMan

Member

Re: Building an online shop

You get what you pay for. In business professionalism is what defines if its good deal or not as a start. In the case of pcandparts even if their commitment and service is somewhat good, but I do know if they improved their website I'm pretty sure their business will improve.

Georges00

Member

Re: Building an online shop

pcandparts site is really old.
Use MySQL and databaes to manage inventory. You could have it linked to your local shop and check if the item is out of stock then display it or shows available quanity etc..
Dont use shopify since it wont work in Lebanon. Use the cash on delivery whoch is better.
Pcandparts use aramex. Maybe they have cheap prices because they ship in bulk? But they usually charge 6$ locally.
For a theme, maybe get a template for an ecommerce website and edit it.

Good luck with your project!

scorz

Member

Re: Building an online shop

@TheStunMan I somehow agree with you. I believe the current website targets only geek, or may i say people who have a not-so-bad background in hardware. The website is so 90s. But it's not always "You get what you pay for" there is a lot of dudes who spent like 10k or 15k only on "interior design" and decoration but close later.

@Georges00 That's what I am going to do php/sql. I am more worried about delivery. 6$ is a lot within Beirut for a start. My father suggested that we just deploy the site at first and monitor its activity and see if users really email us or call and be like " hey I saw your website bla bla"

xazbrat

Member

Re: Building an online shop

@xazbrat
My father’s idea was to put only branded item because like I’ve mentioned before there is a good amount of people who call us looking for specific item, and they become our customers later on.
I am thinking of writing a friendly app so my father can update the db easily.
Teaching him to use mysql client and ftp to upload pic is a nightmare.. Or I will be responsible to do all the work manually. Real-time update is hard because we still use pen and paper for income/outcome so update on a daily basis is the best thing to do right?

Since you are starting out, I wouldn't recommend the expense of a real time system.  Adhere to the KISS principle (Keep it simple stupid)--make it as easy as you can initially so the transition can be as smooth as possible.  As for tracking inventory, I am assuming that most, if not all of the items, you will be initially selling, will have bar codes.  I think that if you can write an app for your father that scans the item through his phone or other device and have it linked in to a database, it should be pretty manageable.  It isn't very difficult to have a database, even in Excel or Access which can track and update the inventory almost real time. 

That database will help not only track sales of inventory, but give you a wealth of information such as the sales, gross profit, sales per month, etc which will help in making decisions going forward.

Good luck.

scorz

Member

Re: Building an online shop

@xazbrat

I see thanks for the info..
Today I've started playing with php (done the mysql yesterday with appropriate permissions for security. -I am using query on view not directly to tables)
Writing query was pretty easy (since the db is not that complex).
Next step will be the design itself and generating html using php.. So I'll see what I can do.

scorz

Member

Re: Building an online shop

I am not sure if I am allowed to post it but that's the progress so far: link
I keep it simple on purpose.. so don't expect a disney-like website.

What I did:
- The design obviously... Sarcasm is welcome since I suck at designing and this is my first serious project (some advice would be nice though) I used css to make the menu and photobanner(found its code online), photoshop for the logo, background texture and borders.
- I used php to generate html index.php is unique. When you click say "Contact us" its href is index.php?id=some number and then server decides what to generates using a switch statement. The generated html is  written in an external php file (I used include(page.php)) 
- Added google earth api to show the stores' location ( I also used php to print <script src="...> in <header> I am not sure it's necessary but I did it anyway.)

To do:
1- Linking the database: When it comes to coding that's basically the easiest part for me because I am familiar with sql but it's harder to enter the data because it's peak season. We are thinking to do this part after xmas so...
2- Adding random products in the first page.
3- Linking the brands in photobanner to db-search.
4- And finally find out what's the best to make delivery available!

Hybrid

Member

Re: Building an online shop

Honestly speaking, it looks like it was made in the early 90s.

I suck at coming up with a good designs as well. A good approach would be to copy a popular ecommerce website design and add your own tweaks

scorz

Member

Re: Building an online shop

Honestly speaking, it looks like it was made in the early 90s.

I suck at coming up with a good designs as well. A good approach would be to copy a popular ecommerce website design and add your own tweaks

I've take a deep look and realized it is true  except that css/php were not released/used-world-wide back then.
A friend of mine -a graphic designer- told me to change the logo (she said too many colors)
Copying a known e-commerce site is a good idea, but you know I prefer to write it myself (even though it may sucks) because I am not very familiar with css and designing I looked up some website code and had a headache!
Plus, I don't really want it to look like a "pro e-commerce service website" since it's a toy stores and a 5 years old kid now know how to use a mobile/tab/pc so I am using mixing/using colors from toys store websites... and try to keep it as simple as possible
Anyway what I've uploaded is just a beta, I am going to change logo, fonts, and maybe bg-texture... And thanks for your feedback and for the laugh!

rolf

Member

Re: Building an online shop

I think my eyes hurt.

Some advice maybe:
- Loose that background. A background should be discrete and not attract attention. The content should attract attention.
- Logo also too flashy, and could use work
- Whats with the huge borders? Try maybe 2 pixels.
- Change from the default font (that is a big contributor to the early 90ies look). Maybe something from google fonts? But please not a crazy font or comic sans - there is enough flashy styling on that page.
- Try to avoid centered and uppercase text.

Overall, try to aim for something more subtle.
Only do flashy when you need to attract attention. Othewise it's just too much for the user and not a pleasant experience or first impression.

Please take no offense in my tone. I did not bother putting things in a "diplomatic" way and was frank. I hope you will see beyond that and appreciate my advice. Otherwise, thumbs up and kudos!

Hybrid

Member

Re: Building an online shop

Copying a known e-commerce site is a good idea, but you know I prefer to write it myself (even though it may sucks) because I am not very familiar with css and designing I looked up some website code and had a headache!

By copying I don't mean to steal their CSS and exactly clone it. I mean getting inspired by their design and functionalities. Try to find a toys e-commerce website, if they've been in business for a while, it means they have the experience and know how to persuade their users and facilitate the buying process which is the ultimate goal in any e-commerce website.

If your design is terrible (sucks), users will be reluctant to buy and will question the authenticity of your business.

Georges00

Member

Re: Building an online shop

Or get a template.

scorz

Member

Re: Building an online shop

@rolf
No offense at all dude! Thanks for the advice, and like I've mentioned at first I know shit about web development/designing
I've already changed the logo now (Not that improvement though but I took the advice of a friend.. still think it's not that good but anyway..)
And I'll do the rest maybe tomorrow changing background/border/fonts.. just a question why I should avoid centered and upper text?

@Hybrid @Georges00 I got it. What I am trying to do now -as a first step- is just setup a regular website (no e-commerce involved) and when it's done I'll add it later (The reason I am doing this is because I have zero experience in web) And thanks for your suggestions!

rolf

Member

Re: Building an online shop

@rolf
No offense at all dude! Thanks for the advice, and like I've mentioned at first I know shit about web development/designing
I've already changed the logo now (Not that improvement though but I took the advice of a friend.. still think it's not that good but anyway..)
And I'll do the rest maybe tomorrow changing background/border/fonts.. just a question why I should avoid centered and upper text?

It does the job but its very 'old school' and not pleasant to look at. Try to find another way to attract attention instead, such as playing with font sizes and spacing, maybe?

scorz

Member

Re: Building an online shop

@rolf
No offense at all dude! Thanks for the advice, and like I've mentioned at first I know shit about web development/designing
I've already changed the logo now (Not that improvement though but I took the advice of a friend.. still think it's not that good but anyway..)
And I'll do the rest maybe tomorrow changing background/border/fonts.. just a question why I should avoid centered and upper text?

It does the job but its very 'old school' and not pleasant to look at. Try to find another way to attract attention instead, such as playing with font sizes and spacing, maybe?

Thanks for the advice, I will modify it soon.
(I am busy "playing" with my new steering wheel... I'll never grow up I guess)