How long should it take?

[vikmartin]

Hello

I realise theres no way of giving a guaranteed answer to this, but,

I am about to embark on my first ecommerce site using zen cart. I'm working with a graphic designer, and I have knowledge of html and css but no zen cart experience as yet.

To quote for this job I need to know how long it SHOULD take me, rather then how long it actually takes me including the time spent teaching myself.

The client wants all these things:

Product Set up attributes:
- Product Cat / Sub Cat
- Images on the product set up
- Multiple channel pricing
- Avg cost pricing: To cope with cost price changes and stock holding at diff cost prices
- Promo cost pricing support
- Price Segmentation
- Attributes: Size / Weight / Colour etc ...
- Descriptions & Copy
- Carriage Paid
- Min Order value and quantity
- Packaging Size and Weights
- Postage costs
- Currency conversion and duty rates - to be able to build the cost up to a £sterling
- Variable Vat Rates
- Currency rates and different vat rates (EG kids clothing)
- Ability to do mass uploads from spreadsheets into the system
- Payment terms
- Ability to link products on promotions: IE give-away products
- Ability to offer free delivery vs. an order threshold
- Barcode and ISBN compatible

- Reporting:

- Weeks / Periods / Seasons
- Promo Reporting: Saves & Discounts / Multi-buys / Giveaway
- Link to Google analytics etc ....
- CRM functionality
- Customer data base and purchasing cycle and by type of product etc .....
- Ability to segment customers by postcode etc ...
- Return on investment vs. quality of space on the site
- Loyalty program functionality.
- Ability to segment sales from PPC / SEO / Emails / Affiliates - Some of this covered of in Analytics

- Stock:

- Normal stockholding by unit / value
- Stock turn
- Weeks stock
- Quality of stock - Aged stock report (IE if it has been around for 3 months / 6 months / year etc ....
- Opent to Buy functionality would be great
- Stock out alerts
- Forecasting tools - The ability to assign forecasting curves and in turn order curves would be great.
- Ability to check stock off and keep track of customer deliveries
- Ability to download customer orders on Direct Delivery orders to suppliers on a daily basis and track these.

Ordering:

- Ability to take customer track orders
- Ability to create auto ordering vs forecasting tool and for us to sign the order of or adjust
- Link into sage payments system to check off payments vs. orders etc ...
- Track late and short deliveries
- Ability to check stock off / in to warehouse with scanners etc ...
- Returns processing


- Financial:

- Link into Sage systems for invoicing / tax return etc .....

- Multichannel

- Market Place price tracking

- Support

- Preferably 24 hour support
- Quality servers etc ...

So - can I do all of this in zen cart?
And how long (ball park figure) would it take someone who knows what they are doing?

Apologies in advance if there is no way of answering this. I'm completely in the dark at the moment.

Vik

[stevesh]

There's no practical way to answer such a detailed question here in the forums (though someone might try), in part because we don't necessarily know what you are referring to in each instance. For example, I don't know what 'carriage paid' means (free shipping?), nor 'price segmentation' or 'average cost pricing'. In what sense should it be 'barcode and ISBN compatible'?

Almost every thing you list can be done in Zencart, but some may require custom programming.

If by 24 hour support, you mean Zencart support, you're looking at it. Server choice is up to you.

My suggestion would be to install Zencart on a test server (including the sample products) and fiddle with it for a while, then come back and ask more specific questions, which we should be able to answer.

[gilby]

Personally, you are thinking of taking on a massive project with absolutely NO zen-cart experience
There are many here with years of zen-cart experience that would think twice before quoting on those specs.
I also am unsure what some of your terminology means?

I suspect it will require lots of custom coding (open ended quote)

html and css are fine....
but ecommerce and zen-cart require LOTS of php and mysql coding experience.
To be blunt, I doubt you can deliver this project at this time.

You will need to install zen-cart and "play" with it a lot before quoting on such a job.
Time for you to develop this? (Years.... imo)

[RodG]

I agree with the previous replies and comments, BUT, I'm going to take a slightly different approach with my response.

Firstly, as long as you don't run into any unexpected problems, you should be able to get your 1st ZenCart store up running (with example products) within 2-4hours. It will be quicker (short term) to use one of the 'one click installs' provided by many hosts, but you will pay for this convenience dearly further down the track. Don't do it.

After the initial install, the next task will be to identify/locate a template/theme for the site and install it. This could take a day or three to find one suitable for your needs, and 30mins - 1hr or so to install. Look for a theme/template with the *layout* that you like (ignoring any colours/fonts, and other secondary aspects). This step is *essential* and you shouldn't consider adding any additional store functionality until AFTER you've completed this step.

At this stage you will have a fully functioning store, but I'd allow at least a week going through all of the different configuration options and setting them to suit your specific needs - This will include things like the Currency, Tax and Language settings )just to name a few), and learning the "ins and outs" of the way zencart functions.

From here things get a little more difficult because a lot of what you are asking for isn't native to the zencart core code, but can be achieved with the various addons/modules.

Although most of these are pretty straightforward and easy to install (10-30mins) some of them will require a LOT more time and effort. One of the hardest tasks here is in being able to identify which of the 1000's of add-ons available are going to be required for your specific needs.
As a rule of thumb, I'd suggest that you allow a day or two for each addon needed - This includes the time to research, install and configure each one... Bearing in mind that ZenCart will already support many of your requirements 'out of the box'.

Based on your list of requirements, and the fact that like the others have stated, some of your terminology is a little vague, I'd be estimating 6-8 weeks before you'll have something close to show the client.... but knowing how such estimates always appear to not meet the reality, it will be closer to 3 months.... If you are totally new to all of this, you can probably double that....

At this time you'll be ready to start looking into some of the esoteric requirements such as "Track late and short deliveries","Ability to download customer orders on Direct Delivery orders to suppliers on a daily basis and track these" and "Market Place price tracking", which will probably need custom code to be written... This will take about as long as a piece of string. :)

The bottom line here though is that for a 1st time eCommerce store this is quite the project to undertake, and quite frankly, if I were you I'd almost certainly wouldn't want to take the job on (you need to learn to walk before you can run). I'd expect it will take you at least a year to meet all the requirements (and I'm talking about working on it several hours a day, not just a few hours on a weekend).

Now, having said that, I will repeat my opening comment... you should be able to get your 1st ZenCart store up running (with example products) within 2-4hours, and realistically, after that, it's really up to you how long the rest will actually take... Gibly says 'years' - I'm estimating 'about a year', but that doesn't mean you can't get something the customer will be happy with in a far shorter time frame, as many customers are quite happy to cut back on their initial specifications once they realise it can't be achieved with a click of a button.

Having said all of that, I like Stevesh's suggestion.."install Zencart on a test server (including the sample products) and fiddle with it for a while, then come back and ask more specific questions, which we should be able to answer".

Cheers
RodG

[vikmartin]

Thanks all of you - I realise it was a vague question but you've all enlightened me quite a lot, thanks. I have enlisted the help of a programmer who knows PHP and mySQL, so hopefully between us we can do it.

Cheers

Vik

[gilby]

Thanks all of you - I realise it was a vague question but you've all enlightened me quite a lot, thanks. I have enlisted the help of a programmer who knows PHP and mySQL, so hopefully between us we can do it.

Cheers

Vik

And don't forget to come back and show us the results.
I would like to see what parts (if any) had to be cut back to get it operational.
Get it up and running and start selling. The rest can wait till later (imo)
Good luck