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Buidling a e-commerce website... so painful !

Denis from BE

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Hello dears,

I'm currently building an eshop website based on WordPress using WooCommerce add-ons.
2 years ago I paid an company to develop another business website that cost me 7k€. This time I wanted to save money.
But F*ck I'm not an expert on it and I find it so painful ! Have you guys handled the entire development of your website by your own ?
Especially that I’m really not a “creative person” when it’s about design, graphics and good looking content…
And because of that it’s hard to keep motivated, I got a good niche there but I feel like I must spend hundreds hours before I can enter in real stuff you know..

Any opinion is welcome


Denis
 
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GSF

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Hello dears,

I'm currently building an eshop website based on WordPress using WooCommerce add-ons.
2 years ago I paid an company to develop another business website that cost me 7k€. This time I wanted to save money.
But f*ck I'm not an expert on it and I find it so painful ! Have you guys handled the entire development of your website by your own ?
Especially that I’m really not a “creative person” when it’s about design, graphics and good looking content…
And because of that it’s hard to keep motivated, I got a good niche there but I feel like I must spend hundreds hours before I can enter in real stuff you know..

Any opinion is welcome


Denis
Go with Shopify, you can be up and running within hours with no coding/ designing needed
 

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Hello dears,

I'm currently building an eshop website based on WordPress using WooCommerce add-ons.
2 years ago I paid an company to develop another business website that cost me 7k€. This time I wanted to save money.
But f*ck I'm not an expert on it and I find it so painful ! Have you guys handled the entire development of your website by your own ?
Especially that I’m really not a “creative person” when it’s about design, graphics and good looking content…
And because of that it’s hard to keep motivated, I got a good niche there but I feel like I must spend hundreds hours before I can enter in real stuff you know..

Any opinion is welcome


Denis
Hey man.

I've been building out my WordPress and Woocommerce online shop for a few months. I had a background with HTML and websites from my school days and I got my girlfriend to take some udemy graphic design courses (she likes it anyways and it is also helping her social media presence so I didn't have to force her :p).

What's the biggest hurdle you're facing right now?
 

Denis from BE

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Hey man.

I've been building out my WordPress and Woocommerce online shop for a few months. I had a background with HTML and websites from my school days and I got my girlfriend to take some udemy graphic design courses (she likes it anyways and it is also helping her social media presence so I didn't have to force her :p).

What's the biggest hurdle you're facing right now?
That's a good deal to have the help from your partner :)
I'm in the phase where I need to list what elements do I need to put it in service. The business is a monthly-subscription based and I want to give customers the opportunity to modify their subsription products. (modify their list of product that will induce a change on the price charged each month)

I configured WordPress on the hosted server and installed the WooCommerce plugin. But I've seen on internet there are several type of WooCommerce add-ons. (Membership, Groups, Payement facilities, etc...)

For Membership area, I read a bit about MemberMouse. Do you know it ?
 
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ApparentHorizon

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That's a good deal to have the help from your partner :)
I'm in the phase where I need to list what elements do I need to put it in service. The business is a monthly-subscription based and I want to give customers the opportunity to modify their subsription products. (modify their list of product that will induce a change on the price charged each month)

I configured WordPress on the hosted server and installed the WooCommerce plugin. But I've seen on internet there are several type of WooCommerce add-ons. (Membership, Groups, Payement facilities, etc...)

For Membership area, I read a bit about MemberMouse. Do you know it ?

Always start with the official WC repository: WooCommerce Extensions - WooCommerce

Membership + Subscription (separate plugins) may work for what you're looking to accomplish.
 

Longinus

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Like said before, Shopify might be a good alternative. WP might be tough to setup by yourself without experience, but there's a lot to find on Youtube.

I've setup my own ecom site with WP, here's the main plug-ins I used:
  • Elementor Pro (theme builder)
  • AnyWhere Elementor Pro
  • Gravity Forms
  • ShortPixel
  • WooCommerce Amazon Fulfillment
  • WooCommerce PDF Invoices
  • WooCommerce Stripe Gateway
Feel free to reach out if you need help!
 
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Denis from BE

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Like said before, Shopify might be a good alternative. WP might be tough to setup by yourself without experience, but there's a lot to find on Youtube.

I've setup my own ecom site with WP, here's the main plug-ins I used:
  • Elementor Pro (theme builder)
  • AnyWhere Elementor Pro
  • Gravity Forms
  • ShortPixel
  • WooCommerce Amazon Fulfillment
  • WooCommerce PDF Invoices
  • WooCommerce Stripe Gateway
Feel free to reach out if you need help!
Thank you Longinus.

As long as I've seen, here are the elements that would need according my plan:
  • WooCommerce Subscription (must - non-free)
  • WooCommerce Membership (must - non-free)
  • WooCommerce Shipping (must - free)
  • WooCommerce Print invoices and packing lists (must - non-free)
  • Dynamic pricing (must - non-free)
  • Product Add-ons (must - non-free)
  • Paypal (must - free)
  • Smart coupon (must - non-free)
  • MailCheat(Chimp) (optional - free)
  • WooCommerce Google Analytics (optional - free)
Based on the website it would cost 620$ to have them all.

I guess it's not a good idea to develop my website with just some of these stuff as I'll need all of them to make it running properly.

I'm sloooowly starting to see clearly what has to be done here.
 

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I’m using Shopify with the PayWhirl plugin for subscriptions. Shopify is like $29.99 a month. The basic plan of PayWhirl has no monthly fees. They take 3% on top of the Stripe fees of 3% + $0.30 per transaction.
 

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The Racing Driver

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But f*ck I'm not an expert on it and I find it so painful ! Have you guys handled the entire development of your website by your own ?

Hey Denis,

I've just built an e-commerce site with WordPress and Woocommerce. I must say, it was tougher than I expected. Not everything is really straightforward, but you can figure out most things by yourself.

I have done most of the development on my own using the X theme, but recently I couldn't (and didn't want to) figure out how to change the appearance of something. So I hired @dmichaelmccann to help. I think there was coding involved, but he did an excellent job and found a solution really fast.
 

dmichaelmccann

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Hey Denis,

I've just built an e-commerce site with WordPress and Woocommerce. I must say, it was tougher than I expected. Not everything is really straightforward, but you can figure out most things by yourself.

I have done most of the development on my own using the X theme, but recently I couldn't (and didn't want to) figure out how to change the appearance of something. So I hired @dmichaelmccann to help. I think there was coding involved, but he did an excellent job and found a solution really fast.

Thanks for the shoutout @The Racing Driver!

As others have said before, Shopify is definitely a good solution if you don’t have any coding/design experience. You can get set up real fast with a decent looking site all by yourself.

If you need to do it with woo though don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any issues/questions. I’d be happy to help.
 

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This time I wanted to save money.
But f*ck I'm not an expert on it and I find it so painful ! Have you guys handled the entire development of your website by your own ?

Statements you never hear:

"Last time I had tooth ache, it cost me $7k to get it fixed. This time I'm going to do it myself to save money".
"I make $200/hour as a doctor. But I'm going to fix my home plumbing myself using YouTube instruction videos."
"I need to be at a meeting in 20 minutes, but a taxi is expensive. So I'll walk to save money and just be late."

Repeat after me: false economy.

Make more money in what you are good at, and then pay a developer. It's called division of labour, and it's what the whole species is based on.
 
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Denis from BE

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Thanks for remarks guys, indeed I'd like to develop it because I feel I'm able to. Even if it takes a bit time.

To be honest, the second reason is also because of limited budget for this project.

As I want to start it now because it's a good time for it, I just prefer to save money here and there when I can. And place that fixed budget in stuffs that I really cannot handle by my own (ads training, ads fees, web hosting&elements, design&illustration, physical ads...)

I don't consider myself as a cheap guy, not at all. But in this case and for the moment I just must define priorities. In a while if revenues are starting to increase I would for sure give that labour to someone who'll do 3 times what I do for a same given time.

PS: I don't go for WooCommerce because it's a cheaper option compared to Shopify. Altough when I recap the required elements it's far more expensive than a Shopify account. I'm just more comfortable with WP in term of extention/evolution/support. But I repeat it's my point of view and maybe I'm wrong about it.

Denis
 

Denis from BE

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As I want to start it now because it's a good time for it, I just prefer to save money here and there when I can. And place that fixed budget in stuffs that I really cannot handle by my own (ads training, ads fees, web hosting&elements, design&illustration, physical ads...)

But f*ck I'm not an expert on it and I find it so painful ! Have you guys handled the entire development of your website by your own ?
Especially that I’m really not a “creative person” when it’s about design, graphics and good looking content…

Emphasis mine.
 

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Was building a shop with 'shopware' back then for my old boss, we then switched to 'xtCommerce/modified shop' - I dont get his choices of software, but whatever - It is a pain in the a**.

Shopware took me months to implement all products, then the customer wanted to have some special look, so I needed to learn about customizing themes, then some other implementations, my boss then said 'nah, lets go with xtCommerce/modified shop', so I needed to re-learn all the stuff and also needed to put all the products again, by hand, additional to that I needed to take care of the design. Got underpaid, frustrated, wasted many nights for only 500 bucks. Since he didnt pay me I didnt take care about security, updates and other stuff, shop got hacked 2 times within 1 week last month and guess who called me...

I would say, go with shopify.
Wordpress with woocommerce is so... meh, I wouldn't use a blog system for a serious shop.
If you are able to handle all the stuff, maybe magento self-hosted, but then again, you need to take care of everything. Server security, server updates (and hope that updates won't screw packages and bring your website down), monitoring the server and have an eye for log files (because hackers), the software itself (updates, hotfixes, CVEs because vulnerabilities), backups, database.

Save your time and go with something simple, really.
 

Denis from BE

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Wrodpress e-shop themes are pretty well done actually. I bought a popular one used by thousands of e-commerce websites. I didn't implement all features yet I progress step by step. But it's fine so far.
I'd become mad as shit if I get hacked, you're right I need to pay attention at this point.

Today and after 4 hard working days the website is operational for "one shot" orders and payment.
I'm working on the "monthly subscription" that is for me the more difficult shit;
But I'm starting to hands on the CMS system pretty good.
 
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kcaps

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I'd become mad as sh*t if I get hacked, you're right I need to pay attention at this point.
I guess everyone would... better safe than sorry. If you know how to secure a server, it is the better option to use a virtual private server (imho). If you can write bash scripts to automate stuff (backups, alert on suspicious activity, updates, check running services and alert if something isnt running, etc.), then you are good to go. I still manage a couple of servers by hand and its so much work. If you get paid for the actual 'security' work, go for it.


Today and after 4 hard working days the website is operational for "one shot" orders and payment.
I'm working on the "monthly subscription" that is for me the more difficult sh*t;
But I'm starting to hands on the CMS system pretty good.
Luckily with Wordpress there are plenty of plugins which can handle this, but: Have an eye on the plugins, esepcially the 'last update' part. If its too old, don't use it, because of vulnerabilities. Also you might want to take a look at the changelog because of the update frequency. No one should use a 2 years old plugin which only got 3 updates in 5 years (for example). Also, use 2 Factor Authentication for the admin account at least.
With wordpress you need to find a good mix between plugins and usability. Don't install every plugin you can find, especially so called 'all-in-one security plugin', they can screw your entire website and even lock yourself out. Better go with solutions like 2FA, a strong passphrase (with high entropy - hint: use a password manager like lastpass or bitwarden), not using 'admin' as the default login (even though its easy to find out every admin account name) and: don't install nulled plugins/themes. Just don't. They are backdoored 99.9%.
 

kcaps

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If you want even more infos and tips and wanna spend a couple, let me know. I could do a quick penetrationtest and some reconnaissance.

I don't even know if its ethical to offer this here.

Mod, help.

@Fox @Andy Black
 
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Denis from BE

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Hi guys,
today I come just to tell that the website is almost done with all wanted features inside. Subscriptions, automatic payements, security settings, etc... some little issues with my hosting provider but I'm quiet happy of my work these last two weeks as I started from scratch and now I have a running e-shop website. That's great, I can now slowly start writing words that sell and marketing campains.
 

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Thanks for remarks guys, indeed I'd like to develop it because I feel I'm able to. Even if it takes a bit time.

To be honest, the second reason is also because of limited budget for this project.

As I want to start it now because it's a good time for it, I just prefer to save money here and there when I can. And place that fixed budget in stuffs that I really cannot handle by my own (ads training, ads fees, web hosting&elements, design&illustration, physical ads...)

I don't consider myself as a cheap guy, not at all. But in this case and for the moment I just must define priorities. In a while if revenues are starting to increase I would for sure give that labour to someone who'll do 3 times what I do for a same given time.

PS: I don't go for WooCommerce because it's a cheaper option compared to Shopify. Altough when I recap the required elements it's far more expensive than a Shopify account. I'm just more comfortable with WP in term of extention/evolution/support. But I repeat it's my point of view and maybe I'm wrong about it.

Denis

I started with Shopify, moved to WP/woocommerce because I thought I'd have more control, and then moved back to Shopify.

I'm thoroughly convinced there isn't a single good reason to go with Woocommerce over Shopify for an online store, especially with the way Shopify has evolved in terms of support and plug-ins since I switched back to them a couple years ago.

It's simply a no brainer. There's lots of plug-ins and integrations for Shopify that directly increase sales, make life a whole lot easier for you, and give the customer a better experience. Not to mention security and compliance issues are taken care of for you.

If you don't really take a lot of time to look into Shopify before moving ahead further with Woocommerce, you're not being very wise with your time and probably making a very unwise business move before your store even has launched. You seem to be making this decision rather blindly without really knowing much about the alternatives.
 

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I built my WP website with the help of a service that screen shared with me and walked me through the process, step by step. Call them at 1-844-608-9473. They were worth every dime that I spent. I wanted to be able to work on the site myself, so I had to learn how to do it myself.
 
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NewManRising

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You can always learn some coding taking some courses and watching videos. You could also find an up-and-coming coder who wants to build a portfolio who might do it for free or a very cheap rate.
 

Denis from BE

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If you don't really take a lot of time to look into Shopify before moving ahead further with Woocommerce, you're not being very wise with your time and probably making a very unwise business move before your store even has launched. You seem to be making this decision rather blindly without really knowing much about the alternatives.

Mh, thanks for your reply but I don't know why you're pretending I made a bad decision by not working with Shopify. Especilly if you did the same move in the past. As you said I've chosen Woo over Shopify because of "unlimited" tweaks & settings.
And the time I would spend to discover Shopify, I just spent it on my Woo developpment and after 1 week the website was operational. (excepting few details again)

So I personnaly find my choice wise as I succeed what I wanted in a short period of time.
 
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NordikaX

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I'm having the same issue setting up my payment system. I built my own WP site with WooCommerce & I'm trying to learn the payment system/plugin called Braintree. I thought if I could list two shirts for sale it would give me the experience to add more items and grow, but I can't even get the Shop page right. The WooCommerce Shop page won't let me insert text unless it's crammed into the Sidebar or Footer, and the Product page is restricting font size & placement. I don't want 'Related Products' at the bottom either, ugh. I know this is my fault due to being an amateur, but I've lost months of my life just trying to put up two shirts for sale. Maybe I should just sell my shirts on the street corner. Any advice is welcome, and I don't have resources to pay a web designer. Thanks & sorry for coming across so frustrated, but I'm on a mission to get into the FastLane. Cheers to you!
 

Jeff InfoPreneur

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My experience with any of these platforms from WooCommerce to Shopify or other membership platforms I have used to sell courses is that there is ALWAYS an up-front learning curve - take a few hours to learn how to manipulate the platform and be willing to throw a $100 or so at contractors to help when you get stuck (there are tons of WooCommerce experts out there) - you can also post specific questions to technical forums and get the answers for nothing though it may take a day or two.
 

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