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If you're at all competent, though, rolling your own platform that accepts payment via PayPal/Google Wallet/Amazon SimplePay is actually not all that difficult. These are lower-friction payment options for customers than credit cards, anyway, and a much lower-friction integration path than raw credit cards.
I actually do web development for a living ... They already turned down an offer from somebody else to build their site for $4k.
PayPal certainly has a cart system that you can augment onto a mostly static site, though a shopping cart implementation is so trivial that it's almost absurd to rely on a third-party solution for such a system. For payment processing, though, there are obvious wins to offloading that to PayPal/Google/Amazon.But are you overthinking things? How many products? frickin paypal itself has tools for the basic stuff. What payment processors were you planning? I think google checkout has the same kind of tools also.
My friend, if they want an e-commerce site for $4k I suggest you run. Run as fast as you can. ...snip...
Avoid the dreamers bud, all they'll do is drag your business down and before you know it you'll wake up one day and realize 5 years have passed and your business really hasn't grown any.
Just some friendly advice
PayPal certainly has a cart system that you can augment onto a mostly static site, though a shopping cart implementation is so trivial that it's almost absurd to rely on a third-party solution for such a system. For payment processing, though, there are obvious wins to offloading that to PayPal/Google/Amazon.
It's not completely unreasonable that it could be done within a $4k budget. Even at the upper end of the pay scale, that still affords more than a full week for full-time development. For a basic, no-frills platform, that's an achievable prospect.
Is it possible you're over-defining the term "shopping cart"? At its core, a shopping cart is just an array of SKUs that users have some capability to manipulate through an interface. The implementation of such a system, whether it's session-based or whether its implementation rests more on the client-side, is trivial. The other components to an e-commerce platform are decidedly less trivial, but depending on what tools you're going to leverage to put something together that is not necessarily something that is going to exceed 50 hours or so of development. A single productive developer can make that happen.
Something that's exceedingly well fleshed-out is going to take many more hours to develop an order of magnitude more time in many cases but a very basic e-commerce platform is manageable within that time frame. You could certainly expect to see a lot of general unpleasantness in the back end, but functionality is key there.
Similarly, I've seen the expectations and baseline comparisons made by non-technical clients for a "simple shopping cart" also go beyond what was described.But the hard truth is that even a "simple" shopping cart is much more then what you described.
I can't really respond to that unless you elaborate on "much more". What, specifically, are you referring to?But the hard truth is that even a "simple" shopping cart is much more then what you described.
Similarly, I've seen the expectations and baseline comparisons made by non-technical clients for a "simple shopping cart" also go beyond what was described.
I can't really respond to that unless you elaborate on "much more". What, specifically, are you referring to?
This is all tangential anyway. Given such a limited budget, using an existing solution is an obvious win, which is why the OP asked for recommendations on such solutions. I'm just saying that the "it costs an order of magnitude more" statements aren't necessarily on the mark.
that would be basically stealing that money. Robbery dudeAt the price range, here's what I would do.
1. Install and configure Magento
2. Buy, setup and install template for Magento
3. Modify template for their logo, colours
4. Wish them luck.
If they want more, they'll be paying more than $4k.
that would be basically stealing that money. Robbery dude
...assuming the client doesn't change his mind at any point which pretty much never happens.
What people pay for isn't just the labor. It's for the knowledge. If I invest 6 years into a trade skill why on earth would I work for like $15/hour? Might as well flip burgers and move into management or something.
It's my job as a developer to consume technology and determine what's a good option for a client. What we use to produce the result is irrelevant as long as it fits the spec of what they want.
I haven't used Magento personally but maybe it takes 20-30 hours to theme it out and another 10 hours to configure it. Perhaps the site also has a few static pages too. What looked like a 1-2 day task ends up being easily 40ish+ hours assuming the client doesn't change his mind at any point which pretty much never happens.
I still need to meet with the client to gather details before accepting this gig. Since their budget is tight, I was hoping to come across a plug 'n play platform. How about WooCommerce? That is free and is used with WordPress. I could give the client an option of purchasing a pre-made theme, or have one built for them. I'm not familiar with Drupal so I would rather not spend the time to learn another platform if WordPress and Woocommerce can do the same thing.
By all means, please elaborate how you would be more effective in ShoeLace's hypothetical presentation.If it takes that kind of time to do it then you're not a worthwhile developer
If it takes that kind of time to do it then you're not a worthwhile developer
that would be basically stealing that money. Robbery dude