Good morning! I've read some threads over here and browsed for while. And I finally joined the forum. I am building(redesign) my site now and I have few things in mind. I used to work as front-end designer and know how things work but the thing is I am not familiar with some programming. I am making a site like ebates. Would it be better if the website is in wordpress? Definitely, I will need a developer for this project. I will finished up front end and how much should I pay for stuff like this? Thanks.
If you knew what you are doing you would not ask that. The answer is no. Wordpress is not suitable for anything like that. I think you could use a good business consultant as well. You will pay a lot. First off, I would not recommend anyone do anything like ebates. Think about what an accounting nightmare it will be to have to rebate back the majority of your affiliate commissions (and the PayPal fees). Think of about the huge volume of emails you will get from people who claim they never got credit for sales made through your site (you will get a whole lot). It is a highly competitive niche to begin with and top dog is partially owned by Google RetailMeNot (which does not do rebates) and it dominates search engine results and probably always will.
Try outsource the services but at the same time, you need to think of the risk of losing your business ideas.