I know people in digitalpoint run one or two or more website. In fact, building a website is not very difficoult. The big problem is that how do you run it? Only one man can not run the website well. Then I am very interesting in how many people you guys think will be good in a team for one site? And what part of them when running a website together? For example, you are going to sell some toys on line. Then what will you do to get more people to run this website?
To run a e-commerce site, your minimum requirements are:- ~ Two web developers, that is, a designer and a programmer. ~ An accountant who'll be also in-charge of supervision to manage the customer's orders of the products to be delivered. ~ Couple of delivery persons, that will purchase and delivery the products.
This will depend on how big the shopping cart is, but you don't really need delivery people because you can use a courier service such as DHL, UPS or Parcel Express. You will need a developer and a programmer maybe someone to add products all day.
Also you need a SEO -SEM team to market your online store and its products. Without them it is tough to get buyers.
Definitely you will need 1 Designer + 1 PHP developer (intermediate to senior level). A team of two if you are building a basic e-commerce website with a timeframe of 4-6 weeks. But if you are planning a custom ecommerce platform starting from scratch, that will take 3-4 months to develop for a single programmer. In that case, you need to add one or couple junior-intermediate level programmer/s to haste the coding. That is just the first phase - design & development. Then it comes the second phase... There are developers that codes in a search-engine friendly way. They do the on-page SEO aspect by way of putting the right tagging. But there are developers that they don't actually do it. And if you want to expand your marketing efforts to convert sales, make sure you have an SEO specialist on place to push visitors to your site. Indeed. And what is your thought about it?
I think the most important people in this team should be the one who know how to build the website and how to promote it. For the people who do job of "Designer + 1 PHP developer", I will pay money for those people who can do the parttime job. The second people should be the one who reply email everyday. Sometimes, this people should help to update products on the website. The third men should be the one who are always dealing with suppliers for products. But here is the problem comes how to manage their job everyday so that people in the same time can work smarter?
A lot of it depends on how much business you're dealing with. I've heard of many one-person shops doing fine (but the 'one-person' needs to be a 'jack of all trades, master of none' And the more ppl involved with the business, the more coordinating involved. It may be better to at least outsource some work so you can focus on your core strengths for your business. Then hire in-house when it makes financial sense. Good luck!
You got me all worried now! I just had mine designed by altaimage and they done a complete handover - now I'm on my own running the store and doing the accounts and it all runs fine! I think if things get much busier then I will need to hire some help but the idea of an eCommerce site is lower overheads! I can even manage my store on my iPad or Blackberry so how I'd need these big development teams and dedicated accountants is beyond me! I'm looking to turn $150,000 in my first year so no accountant for that so far (obviously for year end figures sure) but my store at allforme.com.au seems to be doing just fine without all this big initial expense - isn't that a big reason behind eCommerce?! I think these sites can and do fail often because people spend the wrong money in the wrong areas first - work hard yourself, spend that money on adwords and ad campaigns and getting some SEO done - then hire people who can help you manage your workload!
If you are not a developper, i would suggest you find a designer to create a beautiful site and choose for an hosted ecommerce solution. That way, you can focus on what really matters. Marketing and shipping!
i need a designer, i need a programmer, i need a online marketer, i need a researcher. I think 4 kind of character will be good enough.
A lot of people are saying "it depends". I'll go ahead and tell you why it depends and how it depends. For me, I have now learned a bit of php and am a html / css superduperfragalisticexpealidocious designer. For my brand new ecommerce site that I am playing around with, I do not need anyone else to put their finger in my pie. Why? Because I am also a market genius. Once the site is built, by me, I can maintain and market the site, to get it to number 1. It's not that you get big, that you need more people to help you, it's that you want to open doorways where specific knowledge is needed. What does that mean? It means if you are trying to increase profits, by streamlining certain expenses, you want to make business to business propositions with the companies that are generating your costs. For instance, if shipping is a cost, you may need a person with advanced knowledge in business transactions to contract with the shipper to make a bulk agreement, to get the cost down. Or, you may need a person to come up with an agreement with the manufacturer to contract for a larger bulk purchase to lower cost per units. However, if you were to sit down for 20 minutes you would realize that all those things can be actually hired out just for that specific task. You can hire a negotiator, a business attorney, a financial planner to do just that one job for that one time. They will do the deal for you and explain everything in the deal. In essence, you could be generating $200 million annually, and still be a 1 man shop. You think that ridiculous and impossible? I personally know a handful of guys that do that. [ yeah, I hate them so much ]