hi all, forgive me if this is not the appropriate thread, mods - feel free to move them elsewhere.
well, i am an on and off freelancer with ‘majoring’ in wordpress and joomla CMSes. recently i was approached by a client who wish to setup an online sandwich delivery business. well, this was definitely a challenge as this ecommerce thing is pretty new to me because i never had first-hand experience setting up ecommerce sites. i said yes to the deal and promising the client that i will get back to her when i have decided of what CMS platform to use. my decision is i have chosen Magento.
i am not sure if magento is the right candidate, and i would welcome more recommendations from ya’ll pro’s out there. on the other hand, i am in dilemma as i have no idea how about charging this client as this is the biggest project i ever acquired, so guys i would welcome any advice on how i should charge this client and what is the rough cost estimate of this project if these tasks were to be executed by me;
domain and webhosting registration (client havent got a site yet)
consultation and presentation (visio + mockingbird)
keyword analysis + organic seo
copywriting
template design and implementation
CMS selection and testing
Blog + Site bridging (i plan to bridge wordpress with magento because client wants a blog too)
SSL implementation (ecommerce need to be secured)
written reporting (monitoring SEO, traffic and ranking stuff)
monthly maintenance OR pay as you go (charging per task)?
PPC campaigns
I would strongly want to know if magento is the right candidate for a sandwich delivery business operating only in certain opening hours whereas the typical ecommerce operates around the clock? please advice me on this.
i am asking all these just to make sure that i did not end up overcharging my client and just to make sure that i got the right ecommerce package to deal with this sort of business nature.
As far as whether you chose the right cart setup – it’s hard to tell. I wouldn’t generally order sandwiches online so I assume this is a way to pre-order a plate of sandwiches for catering, or something?
Magento has a free open source version that you can download and install, so why not install it somewhere and have a play with it to see if it can work the most suitable way for your clients products and needs?
I’d also suggest post this question on the Magento user forums if you want feedback from magento developers.
magento is complex with a steep learning curve, and ‘limited’ documentation. If you aren’t familiar with Zend Framework, you will have a lot of learning to do. In short - charge a lot(!), because you will be wasting a lot of time search the forums looking for answers on “how to change xyz”
Magento is very complex when you start modifying files. Even if you are familiar with Zend you will still have a lot of work in front of you. Bid High so that you have the resources to get it done. If you bid low on this you’re not doing anybody any favors.
You’ll be poor and not able to finish and he’ll be yelling at you everyday that he’s gonna hire somebody else.
I’m sure by now you’ve long since moved along with your project, but I would have to second what Shaq says here. I’ve been experimenting with Magento for a long time now, and to make a long story short I would advise strongly against going with that if you’re not familiar with what you’re doing. Their forums are filled with programmers, and few designers, the documentation sucks across the board (unless you want to spend a fortune on books), and it’s not your standard ecommerce/CMS - the license is vastly different. It’s also known to be buggy from version to version, some versions come within quick succession of one another (days). 1.3.x was a horrible learning experience for me and though I’m no computer scientist I know my way around getting things done well enough. It’s just too cumbersome and they use the community version as a testing ground for the enterprise version. Try Ubercart, or TradingEye, or one of the Joomla or wordpress modules - you’ll be grateful in the long run that you did.
We’re dumping Magento altogether in favor of Ubercart.
so I assume this is a way to pre-order a plate of sandwiches for catering, or something?