Advice on Hiring Web Pros for your eCommerce store

Pain Considered Harmful

I wrote this to help a potential client figure out what to do with her gorgeous design comps. Hopefully it will save somebody some pain.

I’m not sassing you. Really.

First question: Do you prefer the SaaS (Software As A Service) pay-per-month approach, or do you want to “own your own?”

Should you prefer the SaaS model, there are many established services (e.g. Volusion, PayPal, Yahoo Stores etc). They free you (and your developer, should you work with one) from uptime worries, software update costs and issues and other technical problems, and (ideally, though not always IRL) provide dedicated support services. But the limitations they do have are set in stone. And typically a custom design will cost you. How close they can hew to your comps, and what that will set you back, is different with each.

Remember the Alamo: Exit Strategies

The benefit of more standard shopping carts, should you go that route, is that they are built with the understanding that business owners WANT to customize, so that is a feature. That approach gives you the most flexibility (and portability) both in design and functionality, though the initial costs, and sometimes the costs and requirements of ongoing support, are the greatest of the two approaches. If you go with a more standard cart (e.g. OScommerce, ZenCart, Magento etc) you will find many people who have experience with those carts should your first developer not work out. And should you hit a wall with the software, they all have export tools to get the data out (as should the solutions providers). A question to ask of any solutions provider or cart system is, can I do that? It’s a fair question to ask.

My Precious Fonts! My Amazing Architecture! My Dwindling Bank Account!

The questions of fonts and navigation are unique to the Web. On this, developers who complain about those wonderfully obscure typefaces are not necessarily wrong (sorry, idealistic designers!). Historically fonts have been limited to those which are more or less guaranteed to be on people’s computers (or nowadays, mobile devices). And images are not SEO-friendly. It’s been a major irritation for Web developers who work with print designer’s comps for the Web (and have no concept of the differences between the two). However, there are ways around this, more so now than ever (sorry, lazy developers!). Especially with page headers and such. Reams of articles have been written about this issue. Educate yourself. Especially about “Web fonts” and “SIFR” and similar workarounds. And find out what the fonts used actually are.

As far as navigation goes, that depends completely on the infrastructure of the cart itself. Some brilliant ideas may not be practical for the limitations you have.

Incidentally, don’t neglect the mobile aspect of your store. Is there one?

Developer vs Designer Smackdown: The Middle Way

A word to the wise: hiring a designer to mock up a storefront without any knowledge of how the store back-end works is asking for problems. Unless, like Macy’s, Overstock or whoever, you have very deep pockets and can finance the entire thing from scratch, to your spec.

Though some providers, developers or carts may have more limitations than you personally can or should accept, you may not have the budget to realize a designer’s ideas 100% either, no matter who you go with. It needs to be a two-way street – developers and designers should work together from the beginning. Especially if there is a budget to stick to. If you ever find yourself with either one and not the other, be vewy vewy careful…

I hope this helps. Feel free to comment or ask me further questions directly

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