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Hello, my original website is built in Shopify, but now I think I can go to the big next step which is building my own from scratch, do you recommend hiring a developer to do it using WordPress or to be built from the ground up? And where to find someone qualified for the job or should I rather look for an agency?
You’re going to get bombarded with people saying they can do it. I’m sure many of them can, like myself. But places like [codeable.io](http://codeable.io), and upwork might be a good start to at least see what questions might come out of the conversation. Then at that point, you can figure out if a single developer, or a team of developers (from an agency) might be the best direction for you. Most likely this would be to low of a budget for an agency, btw. And the original question, yes, this can definitely be built in WordPress, but eccommerce has a lot of moving parts, so you need to discuss all of them with your developer to make sure that you know what is being developed.
Don’t tell people your full budget upfront because that’s what it’ll end up costing.
Do a spec of what you actually need and invite quotes.
Honestly, it entirely depends upon your specs and requirements. There are many talented sole traders out there and thousands of resources available. You probably already are aware because you’ve come to this sub, WordPress is a great CMS and extremely flexible if you know your way around it reasonably well. Hiring anyone, be it an individual or an agency, would be invaluable to getting the best site for your needs.
Now, speaking as someone who has worked as a WordPress professional, mainly in the agency space, I would say that (most) agencies need to focus on speed as a priority, usually due to their business model. This means that your project would likely be done relatively quickly. But in some cases it might also mean that development may be done in a less efficient or future proof way, and might be locked into using particular services or 3rd party plugins and themes that may be more difficult to bend to future changes. That’s not to say this is always the case, nor would I rule out sole traders from that caveat.
My personal recommendation would be to find someone who you feel really understands your needs (first making sure that you understand them too) before signing anything. Don’t feel obliged to go with the first person you speak to unless you feel they are a good fit. Your relationship with them can sometimes be more important than their overall abilities.
Best of luck finding a solution. Keep us posted on your progress!
Generally i would advise to look for an agency, that is local to you.
You state your project and get a proposal. „Most“ agencies are professional enough to outline your scope. From there, i would advise either go with them, if they have a good track record, or look for someone else who you feel better with. With that kind of budget, i would like to meet the person, instead of hiring someone over the internet. I have my own agency and i tried so many options of outsourcing or hiring someone through codable etc and it almost always was just done 80% and then i had to invest so many more hours into it that i couldve done it faster and better all by myself.
What sort of issues are you are having with shopify? With a budget like that you should spend some time researching what your site actually needs first (independent of the architecture). Just jumping into WordPress because it’s “the next step” isn’t a solid plan.
Everybody giving advice but don’t even know what you need.
Assuming you’re using Shopify for e-commerce. I suspect you want a custom template made rather than using the free ones Shopify provide? So your store looks fully custom.
You can buy a template and just design within it. Turbo template was the fastest loading one when I was involved in e-commerce. It was very customisable as well. So your storefront would be unique. You don’t need to be able to code to achieve this.
Or you can pay for a custom template to be built.
The real question is why do you feel you need to move to something custom?
RIP your inbox
What a surprise! I exactly take 31k for these projects. Just joking. It depends on how big ur site should be. If its a private blog, u could build it by urself. But anything serios for business, I’d recommend hiring an agency/dev. My first approach would be probably to look for some local devs. It doesn’t have to be the next best one, but one from the city or larger area, for example, so that they are familiar with your applicable data protection regulations such as GDPR, for example.
Is your business e commerce? If so, why would you move outside Shopify?
What is your goal by moving away from Shopify? You could use Shopify as a headless CMS and build a custom website on top of it which would likely save you money and headaches of rebuilding everything.
I’m a huge WooCommerce and WordPress fan, but honestly going the WooCommerce route means you will have significant ongoing investment if you are going to continue to add functionality, especially 3rd party integrations. I’ve found that Shopify’s third part integration costs seem to be more controlled IF you are able to find a marketplace solution in their app store.
You should look on dribble.com for websites that you like and contact them through there.
A lot of really good designers post their portfolios on there and since you have a decent budget you’ll probably be able to hire a good chunk of the creators on there.
Find and hire a local dev in your area!
31k is a healthy budget, depending on what you are looking for…
31k, whoa. That sounds like a year’s salary
The question is what do you want to be custom? Is it functionality, the visual layout of your website? What can’t you do with Shopify?
If the answer is more visual, you can achieve that in Shopify if you want a developer to build a theme with certain requirements, same is true with WordPress or course, which would probably require using something like Woo Commerce.
I would not recommend paying someone to build an e-commerce website completely from scratch (no plugins) in WordPress, doing so would be very expensive and you might as well pay for a more modern site build that’s more scalable.
I recommend scoping out what you want from the website now, and what the scope is like for the future.
Once you know / think you know what you need, get a few quotes and see what some devs say.
I would stick with what you have and invest your website money into improving what you have or in other areas of the business.
A WordPress website is a nightmare and you’ll need a developer, things will break and plugins will stop working or break.
You’ll be spending another 30k a few years later.
Your poor inbox.
You have a healthy budget and probably higher than you need to pay for a good ecommerce site. **The majority of costs go into content creation (graphics, images, videos, positioning).** I think a lot of the comments you are getting are based on a disconnect of the languages we all speak and think in.
You are saying “build from the ground up” to imply something that feels bespoke to your brand and achieves the user journey and experience you envision. If you are willing and interested to use a platform like WordPress you are not totally building from the ground up nor should you and it seems like most of the comments here are from devs / contractors speaking to their perspective.
The approach to take is to first understand what you want. It’s the only way you can come to an accurate budget.
There’s no issue starting with budget and it’s great you’re so open about it but I wouldn’t lead with that moving forward simply because in web development and design there’s a huge range of pricing you will get.
Agencies will charge more because they manage end to end and have more costs involved. It does not mean you are going to get what you pay for from an agency, it just means they will charge you higher rates.
I just DMd you to set up a quick call. I help guide a lot of non-technicals for free so they understand the direction they are moving in and avoiding the common pitfalls.
First break up these things even before you move ahead
1. What you want in new tool/websitr
2. What is missing currently.
3. What are you going to achieve.
I have known shitty websites that makes thousands per day. For most of your case , Shopify should be pretty much enough and also easy to maintain (yourself) with little effort and money.
Spend that budget elsewhere if you can.
I would stay with Shopify. Much less hassle. No upgrades cost/testing, no server issues, or security problems. App integration. I’m thinking of going straight to Shopify instead of going custom woo commerce in my next projects
Never lead with your budget or if you do, lead it with 70 percent of what you would pay
First, figure out your website goals and what you want to achieve. You can find talented developers on Upwork, Fiverr, or even here. Given your healthy budget, you’ll likely attract a lot of skilled professionals interested in working with you.
Honestly, I’m not sure going from Shopify to Woocommerce is the best option. WordPress is not the best option when it comes to high performance with logged in users which is how Woocommerce works and I had a hard time dealing with a client’s site like that.
Let’s assume that is a USD currency.
I am working in an agency and that is a big budget. Like 3x bigger than our base ecomm bespoke website.
What would take more time than the website itself is migrating the data like your product details, images, old orders, etc. Yes, there are automated ways to do it, but half the time, they don’t. Especially if you are using different Shopify apps because some don’t even have an export functionality.
Anyway, if you want a bespoke website, you can hire a developer or an agency. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have enough knowledge to know that what they are building is not just a templated website. This is a daily occurrence with our clients. We ask them to give us sample websites they like or don’t like and they’ll see one or two of their competitors has the same website as them, just with different colours, text, and images. I don’t know if I should laugh or be sad for them because they spent thousands of dollars for a “custom” website that is basically just a clone.
What I can recommend is list down the things you want on your website. I’m not talking about design but things like the optimisation scores or how a specific feature should work. For page speed, you don’t need a 100 score, but at least 80. And make sure you test it yourself. The scores are good indicators, but the user experience is what matters the most.
Don’t go with “custom”, you’re setting yourself up for a nightmare down the road.
You need “standardized” tools set in such a way that the website looks and feels exactly the way you want it, and can be maintained by any decent web designer worth their salt.
It’s really not that hard to set up an e-commerce store, but getting it to look exactly the way you want it presented and flow the way you want is what will distinguish your amateur designers from your pros.
A good WordPress site developer will assess your needs and talk about how to meet those needs using as few tools as possible. The more tools and custom code thrown at a problem, the higher the likelihood of failure later.
A great WordPress site developer will also recognize potential problems you may have with your plan of execution, and mitigate those problems early on or explain how to better do what you want.
An amazing WordPress developer will make suggestions for things that you may not have even thought of, to help you build a business that offloads your workload as much as possible. Things like data automations, payment processors for your industry, external site backups, load balancing and failover. They’ll get your site to look great, be fast, and function in ways that make your life as a business owner easier, and they’ll do it with as few plugins and as little custom code as possible.
Pricing varies widely, generally based on skill level. Ask to see examples of past work, current works, and don’t be afraid to call their references. You’re investing into your business, you want it to have a good ROI out the gate, and not have to jump from one developer that bit off more than he could chew to another developer, to another developer.
Is it long term project? It depends on the complexity. Maybe you could get some offers to compare
I agree with the comments above that say not to list your budget as well as identifying what makes you think you need custom. That said, we would likely be way below $31k in most cases, but more importantly I’d love to have a conversation with you regarding your needs to help you navigate. If we can help you great if not no worries or obligation. Let me know if you’d like to chat.
Now that you have a budget in mind it’s good to understand what you need done.
Maybe you don’t need to spend all $31k.
Having a budget is always good but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to spend it all. You could save some for marketing purposes, or rebranding or something like that.
If you have any questions we can always work something out.
Same like few others suggested, I suggest to stick on Shopify unless it’s limit your business needs.
If you already have a Shopify store, you already invested a good amount of money. Also you are experienced in Shopify. Running cost of Shopify store & WooCommerce store is almost similar.
Both are platforms & people never buying from an online store due to look and feel of the website. I agree that you need a decent store. They have demand & you are showcasing your product to them. That’s enough. Even you can use WooCommerce default Storefront theme & can achieve awesome sales. The fancy effects and gimmicks are not part of sale.
But if you are facing some serious integration issues or some important customization that your customers demand on your store, surely I suggest WooCommerce. Because it’s flexible & can achieve any requirement you need.
At the end, I’m a WordPress + WooCommerce developer looking for freelance jobs.
We build WordPress and Shopify websites.
I would highly recommend switching from Shopify to WordPress if the goal of your next big step is to increase work, costs, and headaches.
Otherwise you should stick with Shopify.
You should identity the reason for the move. Also if Shopify is having limitations for you then WordPress will probably as well so I always say custom in that scenario
When you hire a web developer, make sure he understands SEO as the best website can’t attract people when they can’t find it.
I support several WordPress sites and I would suggest making sure you really need it. There are a lot of long term support costs associated with a custom site. Even using standard plugins and themes. Plus, depending how you do it, you may open your company up to more PCI requirements.
Such budget can get you an team of 2-3 in-house developers & designers from countries with lower cost of living.
So much depends on your goals, but in a nutshell I don’t see anything you’ve mentioned that leads me to believe you should leave Shopify.
I’ll do it for 3100
Pay someone on fiverr 1k, save yourself 30k
I’ll build you a site in wordpress for 31k, but hey wordpress isn’t that great anymore. Literally a monthly subscription to install templates and themes is a bit ridiculous. Why don’t you try something like React?
I think you would need to have something you can use for users but can improve over time. Define what you want it to look like and quote people on the scope. I would maybe hire a developer for x months and over time continue to pay from what the company makes and how it aligns with the vision
Minimum 10k save the other 21k
Ah ur PM box will be bombarded like hell now
Just dropped a DM