Create new shop

[Riffcko]

Hi everyone!

I have been looking for different e-commerce platform to create a shop on, I was leaning towards Prestashop but found thirty bees and was impressed with the community.

Now I have been testing on setting up a demo shop, and I have much to learn to be able to set up a live shop. Now I don't mind learning new stuff, but sadly there is only 24h in a day and so I don't have time for trial.

So I'm looking for someone (preferably a full stack dev) to:

• Install and customize a compatible premium theme
• Optimize the performance & SEO
• Make sure that PrestaShop 1.6 payments modules are fully working on TB (will be using Swedish payments such as Klarna & swish).
• Install some modules such as add to cart animation, EU compliance module, GA etc ( I can do this, but would love some help if needed)

I will do add all the products my self so you are off the hook for that one.

Now I'm completely new to e-commerce, so I haven't thought out everything yet. I haven't even decided which host I'm going with (but right now I'm leaning towards cloudways or A2 hosting shared hosting). So advice on how to make a successful shop will weight in the selection.

Now since this a side project the budget will be somehow tight, to begin with.

Feel free to contact me if this sounds interesting.

Sincerely Rifad

[Baarssen]

I can help with setting up, however you will also have to learn the basics of Thirtybees/Prestashop. I can also help you with choosing a good hosting partner. I am not a developer, but a merchandiser with 15 yrs of experience. Its a hobby of me to help startups. I dont ask money, only when i have to buy software for your project, but its also possible you buy it yourselve.

[alwayspaws]

This is what thirty bees is all about! Thank you @Baarssen for offering help to our new people. ??

[Riffcko]

@Baarssen Wow that's indeed a very generous offer! I would be stupid to turn that offer down, however, as I said before I have a limited amount of time at the moment. I would rather allocate the time in finetuning the design and SEO ( not to mention to all the product description I need to do). However, I would more love to get get some feedback and advises along the journey. Still I think it's way too generous of you to offer your time and expertise for free, so I will insist on compensating for your time.

Ps. If I fail to find the appropriated dev, then I will take you up on your offer.

[Riffcko]

@baarssen seems like I'm going to take you up on that offer anyway. Haven't received any offer yet and I doubt I will get any this year.

So I was thinking that I will try to do everything by myself and ask you for help/advice when i'm stuck. Now installing TB is the easy part, I'm however unsure what to do after that. Should I start on installing theme, modules? or maybe setting up categories and products? In what order would you recommend that I do it? Now I have tried to find a tutorial on setting up Prestashop 1.6 but I haven't one that covers the parts after installation. Maybe you or someone else can recommend one.

Also, I have to insist on reimbursing you for the trouble :)

[Traumflug]

If installation is the easy part, go ahead and do it. Then get it in alignment with your local laws, which is the hard part. Then put it online.

Installation of modules and themes can always be done later. Unless you're in a highly competitive market (e.g. clothes), having a super fancy design isn't that important. Making your store known to the public is.

As always, running the shop gives experience. Becoming known takes time (and marketing efforts). That's why I consider being online as early as possible to be more important than solving detail design questions.

[wakabayashi]

I can't agree more with @Traumflug. This is exactly, what matters. Don't lose the times for details in design questions. You don't need to be perfect from day one. It's much more important to invest the time, to become an authority in your niche. Find your unique selling propositions and tell it to your visitors. Look for a creative ways, to drive people on your website.

[Troy.Roberts]

I have a customer who commissioned a site for selling handbags. The put a "graphic designer" as the person to contact with regards to design. The sheer level of nitpickery that they're engaging in before taking the site live.....

"The menu dropdowns have to be 70% opacity" "The mouseover color has be Pantone xxxxx" "The slider needs to be xxx pixels tall"

Meanwhile the store is not online and no products are in the catalog and they are dragging their behind on the merchant account (in spite of me telling them that it's going to take a while to set that up)

The advice is correct, launch with a basic design (even from a premium theme) work out your catalog issues and order workflow and process and nail the final look later. Design is far less important (for most e-commerce business other than high end apparel) than the overall customer experience.

[MockoB]

Let me disagree with you. If you want to stand out in the crowd, finish your design first. I think that first impression is the most important and if you need to build brand, just spend some time and money with the design. If your plan is just to have running store and sale some products without any future vision and plans it is very easy, check nemos' tutorials on YouTube are good to go after a week.

[lesley]

Use layered psd's, this is what client send us. I send them back if they are not correctly gridded either.

[Riffcko]

Thank you all for your advice. I'm seeing this from my own perspective, I don't think much when I'm visiting a well-polished webshop but I always think twice before making an order if the webshop seems generic or unpolished. And this the general idea much of the customers have in Sweden.

However, I totally get what you guys are saying, actually this is one of my biggest flaws, that I think too big and too soon which limits my opportunities.

Now I will not be as picky as @Troy-Roberts customer but I still would like to have the shop somehow polished before going live. TBH, since time is my biggest scarcity I would rather pay for the service of installing, integrate and debug the shop than doing it my self. That way I can rather polished shop while I'm investing all my time on the marketing side of the shop. But seems like my budget of 1 000-2 000 euro is somehow thin for this.

Please keep sharing your thoughts and advice since I'm determined to make this happening. I have decided to go with cloudways as provider and have already installed TB on it.