I am in th process of researching to get an e-commerce website built. I came across: sophea.com[ who does website on the cheap.
The draw back here you don't get to speak to the designer by phone only through emails and faxes. They mention in their ad that if you purchase the "Plantinium" package you get to speak to you designer and progarmmers. The cost is $995.00 for 9 pages. Has anyone out there has any experience with the above mention company. Also what do you think it will cost to buid an ecommerce website in today's market and interaction with your
designer on a none to one basis is important.
IF YOU CAN RECOMMEND ANY WEBSITE DEVELOPER WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.

tHANKS' EVERYONE

RICK

I have the same question.

Interesting no one replyed to this thread at all.

OK
I can't edit the above message so I will retype the edit here.

As well as add a few comments.

I aslo have looked at www.Sophea.com I connot find any unhappy clients and that is what is interesting to me, as everyone has at least one unhappy client.

I am looking for a designer/host that will listen to what I want and need, and that will not lie to me to get my business.

I have the basic home page design done. I designed it in FP2003. I like it but it could use a professionals touch to polish it, and integrate a cart that actually works. The one my current host integrated does not look like my home page at all after a month of asking. Also they posted my cost on the items and have thus far refused to make the needed changes. So in some cases the price they posted my products for sale at is less than what the products cost me in the first place. They can't see the problem.

I have a few vendors that get the information to me on updates and products via a large data feed file. As well as some I will manually imput. The data feed files are large (16MB) for the pictures and the(2MB) for the verbage. They are on seperate files that will need to be uploaded. I need someone that will teach me how to do this for future updates. I need a cart that will work with my products and not sell them for less than they cost me. And one that does not have a link to a page that shows the complete cost of every product I sell listed on every page in my site.

Thanks in advance for the imput

An email I just recieved from Sophea.





These are the detailed list of the things refered to as FREE on your web site package:

=======
Exclusive
=======

1. Unlimited Web Site Maintenance
Web Site Maintenance with Unlimited Changes = You can change your web site as many times as you want. We will do all the work free of charge. Unlimited Text and Pictures changes are allowed!

2. Web Hosting
Unlimited Web Hosting with FREE Domain Name = Web Hosting, free www.YourName.com, Unlimited Email Account, Unlimited Domain Forwarding, Unlimited Sub domains, 2 GIGS Storage, 2 GIGS Bandwidth, MySQL, PHP, ASP, and UNLIMITED everything else. Everything that is needed to program your web site is included, we will never charge you anything more for web hosting.

3. 48 Search Engine Advertising
Give us a short list of keywords and we will help you find hundreds of other keywords to advertise your web site on. Furthermore, we will submit your web site to Yahoo, Altavista, MSN, Excite and all of the big search engines for you. You can see your web site in the search engines 48 hours after we submit it! Yes all you have to wait is 48 hours to see your site on Yahoo and the rest of the internet!

Okay here is a little advice,

BE VERY CAREFUL when recruiting a web designer. Especially if you are going to put your clients needs and materials in their hands. Many of these people are very well skilled and perfectly trustworthy. But just as many are also simply trying to make a few bucks in their "Hobby" and do not take the job seriously.

Make sure they have ample references from past clients that you can contact. If you can not pick up a phone and contact them then I would be concerned.

So far they have showed me several pages that they said the had done and even had me look at a page that clearly had someone elses name on the bottom.

When I click on the reference pages they showed me none would open except their site. That left me concerned.

This is an aftermarket auto parts e store, but they would have access to the data feed files but that is about it as my mercahnt account is with someone else. Should I be concerned?

I have found them (sophea) on several list of web designers not just one, and not by simply looking at sponsored sites on search engines. I will not even consider a sponsered sight for any purpose.

Hey there, I would personally stay away from companies like the ones you've mentioned.

A good design company is www.webrhinostudios.com or www.4design.tv :)

Regards.

I am beginning to figure tha out
Thanks for the heads up.

I am still looking though. I need someone that will listen to what we want and need.

I have contacted webrhinostudios in an email. I am awaitng a reply.

I also spoke with someone from this site (WHT) who was going to call me back and never did.

I may be mistaken, but it looks as if Sophea has been ripping their 3d work. Who's We Inc. comes straight to mind looking at one piece of their work. The standard of their work seems quite inconsistant. This is just my perspective, but take care with whoever you deal with.

Seen a few "Don't deal with X" threads about, so make sure you get a contract, save yourself the money!

I also spoke with someone from this site (WHT) who was going to call me back and never did.It is absolutely astonishing how prevalent this is.

I can't speak for or against Sophea, as I've never worked with them. However, here's a recent discussion about questions you should be asking potential design firms, and more importantly (in my opinion, since this is was the basis of my contribution), what questions they should be asking you - http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=417119 .

Another observation: it does appear that the primary image on the home page is showing the image toolbar one would see if they took a screenshot of Internet Explorer (check in the upper-left corner). I may be wrong, and if I am right, infer what you will from this. It's simply an observation.

Thanks guys.

It is easy to get taken by the "designers" in this field. It is amazing to me how many sites there are out on the web and when you look at the sites the "links" to their recent clients do not work.

I am no designer/ engineer but wouldn't that be a clue they are no professional in their field? I mean if they can't even make the links work on their own home page?

Anyway, after looking at Sophea again after you all have given me some ideas I have decided to stay away from them. They told me they were in LA nad I sent them an e-mail (bait). Well, I asked for a response that the email had been recieved. They acknowledged the reciept. When I got it back the email response was for tomorrow, meaning it had come back accross the international date line, meaning the response did not come form LA. I also did a tracing search on the response and it came from Pakistan. Now don't get me wrong or tear my head off here OK. But if you tell me you are in LA and you email me from Pakistan you can't be in two places at once, Right? I know there are some very good designers from out of this country. But one should not have to lie about where he is to get the job? Right?

Pauly,
Yes it does seem inconsistant and the only way to communictate with the design team is through emails. That seems like a hint to me, Should it?

PM,
I will look at the link you provided. I will also look at the site again. I have noticed numerous incomsistancies with the site. For example the only links that work are the interior links to their own sites. If you click on the referance links there are two that work. I have contacted both and both are are company owned sites. The search for corporate offices come up wth the same address.

It just seems to me that there is to many freebeis here. If something sounds to good to be true it probably is. Has anyone heard that before? Correct me if I am wrong. I will not bite back.

I really do appreciate your help on this issue. I really do want my site to look like someone designed it that actually cares about what the end result looks like. Is that asking too much?

With design projects email works great for updates.
As for feedback, I feel listening to client and conversating about alternative is always the best way to go.

What usually happens with the conversation is understanding of the clients needs and educating the client on what works well or just giving them suggestions. It always will be a smoother ride communicating over the phone.

Just my 2 cents.

Originally posted by 4RE KLR
Pauly,
Yes it does seem inconsistant and the only way to communictate with the design team is through emails. That seems like a hint to me, Should it?


Yes, I personally would be careful of 'companies' that don't offer an alternative contact method, whether or not it's suitable for you. Only one method of contact is both inconvenient, and something to be cautious about.

I really do appreciate your help on this issue. I really do want my site to look like someone designed it that actually cares about what the end result looks like. Is that asking too much?

You will find there are a lot of designers who are passionate about their work, I for one hate seeing my designs 'flop'. Website layout and style can be quite a challenge in the opening stages of development, it must be perfect for the company.

A method I prefer is, creating several options, which I feel suit the company best, and presenting these. They often don't look 'right', but follow a general theme, sometimes differing in style, we can then identify what the client likes, and doesn't like. This helps us determine which route is best took. Of course, we give our input throughout.

Obviously there's a lot more work involved, but thought I would give you a bit of an insight into the kind of process taken.

Other things I would recommend looking for are, standards compliant websites (At least WCAG Level A), cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility amongst other things. These are all easy achieved by a knowledgable company, and have things still look very nice.

Hope this helps!

WCAG Level A ???


Here is what I designed so far In Front page 2003. It is very close to what I want the entire site to look like. INCLUDING THE CART!!!


http://www.highperformancemailorder.com/beta/

http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

Level A is really not very difficult to achieve at all. It's pretty much common sense and thoughtful delivery. AA is also all about thoughtful delivery. When you get into AAA compliance, you're talking about having to compromise physical/stylistic aspects of your site, a piece of the balance most people do not want to sacrifice.

But there's no reason every single site on the Web can't look and act precisely the way they currently do and not be at least A compliant. Again, you'll achieve that just by using good coding practices in general.

Thanks for clearing that up Paul, I should of touched on it more.

Like he said though, Level A and AA aren't hard to achieve at all. If what you've made is close to what you're looking for, it may be an idea (No offence intended) to just have someone with better graphic design and (X)HTML/CSS skills 'spruce' it up for you.

That is EXACTLY what I am looking for. and someone to integrate a cart that actually works.

I am getting bids now. They are all over the place. It would seem that they should be close in cost but they are not even in the same range, and all of my instructions have been the same. I have had one company ask me for a few extra things and they were going to break that into an options so I could get apples to apples bids.

innatemediagroup . com They are a good design group too.

http://siteownersforums.com/showthread.php?t=9239 You might wanna read that and do an extensive google on them. I don't have personal knowledge as I design my own but there are MUCH better designers out there than this....................original work too.

Thnaks
i will check it out.

I am still getting bids. I have talked to

http://www.webrhinostudios.com/home.shtml

I really like their work. I am waiting on a bid from them now.

I have my domain name in place. I have hosting that I am not real happy with but I could stay with them if I had to. I have a merchant account in place with Card Service and the gateway is Linkpoint.



The design company I have now is not working out. I personally designed the home page myself and when they integrated the cart it looks like something from Mars. Here is a link to the front page that I designed myself trying to get this done.

\ http://www.highperformancemailorder.com/beta/ .


It is as close as I can get myself to what I want. It could be polished a little to make it more friendly or redesigned all together if needed. It was built in Front Page 2003. The cart is Loudcart. I do not like the cart and I cannot get it to work as I need it to. The designers that incorporated the cart into my website have posted MY cost on my item and refuse to change it.



I have monthly updates from a few vendors that come via data feed files. The monthly report is 2-3MB in size and the product pictures are 16MB in size (x2). There are two picture files that I can’t get loaded into my site due to the host refusing to allow this size of file to be imported. Even though he know who they are coming from and what they are.



I need a web designer that will listen to what I want and help me put this site up on the net like it is supposed to be. I will need a new cart that will handle all my product lines and needs. I would like to maintain the site myself but will need to learn how to do so.



If you are interested please email me or PM me and give me a phone number to reach you at and a time to contact you. I will pay for the call. I am ready to move on this and look forward to hearing from you.




Steve Parks

High Performance Mailorder

Steve@HighPerformanceMailorder.com

www.HighPerformanceMailorder.com