March 25, 2008 at 10:50 pm3 steps to creating a website for a successful online store
The Tale of CMS
For a long time I was going to write an article and share my thoughts on creating an online store. I have some experience with them, and therefore the prepared information may be useful to a number of readers. I’ll immediately warn you that the article is more likely for beginners in this business and people who want to open their own business in the e-commerce industry, but do not know how.
It is impossible to describe all stages in one article, from concept to implementation. For the curious, I note that a very good article by Arthur Welfin the publication "Kommersant" Money "(I give a link to Habra, because there is a useful discussion of the material). In the material, he offers an excellent analysis of the market of online trading in the field of household appliances and electronics. But this is only an analysis, small calculations. The article did not set goals to create a guide to action. I’ll try to get closer to the point. In my first article, I will cover the issue of choosing a site engine (scientifically - site management systems, CMS).
Preamble
It must be remembered that Internet commerce is not only kettles and microwaves, laptops and televisions. In the field of e-commerce there is the same small business, medium business and large. There are many areas of trade. I offer my classification.
Small businessengaged in the sale of T-shirts, badges, a small assortment of souvenirs, erotic toys and something similar. You can engage in such a business on the job. Very often I heard from my acquaintances and partners how they opened small shops without any office: they hired one person who processed the orders, delivered them and kept the bookkeeping. For example, a friend of mine opened an intimate goods store. His wife performs all the functions described above, and he monitors advertising, is responsible for the technical part of the site. Some kind of warehouse right in the apartment. Ideal for a small family business, isn't it?
There is another example. The manager of a wholesale company decided to open his own mobile phone retail store. The assortment was chosen the same as at its main place of work, made a website, filled with goods. He, as an expert in his market segment, monitors the assortment, can offer not only good prices, but also earn as much as the rest (he receives discounts as an employee of the company). Another person is involved in the delivery and processing of orders. Again business for two. There are many such examples now. Any "mobile store" is just their brainchild, managers.
As a matter of fact, such a small, or rather “small” business is in many ways an illegal occupation. I will not go into details, but I assure you that soon such things will become impossible: either competitors or the law in the person of his guardians. Small businesses in the field of electronic commerce should "rise" to the next step and move into the category of medium-sized businesses.
Medium business . Here we are talking about real investment, albeit relatively small - from 400 000r. and higher. Opening a store with a turnover of millions of rubles, a permanent office and a staff of employees will require the constant employment of its manager and a structural approach. Such stores conclude agreements with suppliers, create delivery and customer service departments (call center), and engage in targeted sales.
Stand alonebig business . And talking about it seems like it makes no sense, since getting into it from a swoop will not work - this is absurd. Large companies have a long history of development and perhaps someone who has started with small investments in 5-7 years will come right up to a new frontier with completely different turnovers, regional expansion, etc., etc. ...
So, it’s quite clear that the barriers in this market is becoming less and less, and confidence in online commerce is growing. Therefore, now online stores breed like rabbits.
***
And now, after such a significant preamble, let's get back to where we started - to the first step - the choice of CMS.
One of the most important issues of creating an online store is the creation of a site. How to build it? You need to do only three steps:
1. Choose a CMS.
2. Design and layout pages.
3. Configure the server, site and fill it (the site) with content.
1. Choosing a CMS An
online store website can be done in three ways:
* order development from a team of programmers and write a store from scratch;
* order a store based on a free CMS;
* order a store based on a paid CMS.
What to choose?
Usually it happens like this: the initiator of the project goes to his familiar programmer or admin, or maybe just to a friend who knows computers or web-technologies, consults with him and most likely completely trusts his choice. The project initiator agrees rather out of ignorance (often the future director is a manager, not a techie) and then this process becomes uncontrolled. Why? A familiar programmer’s initiative and interest disappears quickly and the project dies, because a lot of money was spent, and the result is zero. This is a common mistake, I met her many times, and I want to warn those who are taking their first steps in e-commerce.
Choosing a solution method, you need to seriously think about the following parameters:
* How many partners, the so-called "implementers", have experience with the selected solution.
By the number of partners, one can judge the quality of the system. Someone will say that this is just the marketing of developers, but one can safely object that they will not work with bad goods, no matter how they unwind. In addition, the creation of a network of partners requires financial investments, or a very competent approach to the market. This is only a plus for CMS - whatever one may say.
* The quality of services of these companies.
See the portfolio of developer partners. If among them there are many standing companies with large projects, then the developer should be trusted.
* Functionality.
The more features CMS offers, the more convenient you are. Your development will not be hindered by the initially poor functionality of the site. Look in the portfolio for exactly those sites that are closest to your vision. If there are none, then it might be worth looking among other developers.
* Extensibility.
Extensibility is the ability to add new modules. Here, the ability to add the necessary module from scratch with the help of development partners is also important. If the system is simple and logical, then there will be no problems with this.
* Security.
In business, the most important is safety and reliability. The more stable the site works, the more you earn.
* Updatability.
Security holes are inevitable, but timely updates reduce this danger to zero. Updates often also apply to new functionality, a change in the logic of the CMS, and other significant attributes.
* Customizability.
The ability to set a discount in the store is a feature. The ability to make a discount immediately on the entire group of products is customizability. The richer the customization, the better the system - you have more options.
* Cost.
The cost of a system is often poorly related to functionality. All other things being equal, you can safely choose a cheaper solution, because it does not affect the quality. And remember that overpaying for something that you do not need and is unlikely to be useful sometime is a completely useless task.
* Technical requirements.
The more voracious CMS, the more problems you will have with its work. The increase in traffic and site content will affect stability, followed by warnings from the hosting, which can lead to critical situations. It is better to exclude such a risk in advance by checking reviews of the system for high tech. requirements.
* Documentation.
The documentation is needed in order to independently and quickly cope with the tasks in order to delegate the site maintenance to a person unfamiliar with the system, but who will have the opportunity to easily learn thanks to the documentation. Documentation may not be at all, but it may be completely unprocessed.
* Friendliness.
Whether the site is friendly or not is a subjective question. The device of the admin panel should not create additional problems with management, and the user part should not have problems with choosing and making purchases. If the arrangement of elements you can easily configure using the designer, then the logic of the processes is unlikely without additional programming.
Now let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the above solutions to the site.
Order development from a team of programmers from scratch
More often, the development team already has a “core for all solutions”, and then they already begin to add functionality to it. This core is often the old forgotten CMS project that nobody liked, or the university thesis of one of the developers or owners of the office. On the website of their studio there is often a small portfolio of the best works.
Pros:
+ after reflection, all the pros turned into cons.
Cons:
- it will take you a lot of time to write a TOR for development;
- it takes a lot of time to develop a functional that can be difficult to reproduce in a programming language;
- the site, most likely, will constantly “break down”, because the developer will not have time to optimize the code;
- the site can often be “broken” as soon as your attendance is envied;
- you will dream of new functionality, but dreams are unlikely to materialize, because new modules will have to be written to the system from scratch, which is quite expensive;
- most likely, you will be strongly attached to the developers (in every sense), because only they know how it all works (this is also a sentence);
- there are no updates - the developer passed the order and forgot;
- the cost of such a decision in view of the fact that your requirements may change will be astronomical;
- Often there is no documentation (this reduces the cost of development);
- friendliness will tend to zero - the project is being tested for you and, possibly, for other clients, so it will take a long time before everything is done at the proper level.
Total score: 0 / -10
Many disadvantages can disappear if the functionality is limited to a catalog with two levels of nesting, and the name of the product and a picture for its text description. This is perhaps the only option when the decision to "write from scratch" is justified.
In general, a “self-written” store will be very expensive and make your business unprofitable.
Ordering a store for a free CMS
The more popular a free CMS is, the greater the coefficient that can be placed next to the merits, but the higher the coefficient next to the minuses.
Pros:
+ a lot of companies ready to set about creating a store - you will not have a lot of people who want to do this for fairly little money;
+ A large number of free add-ons and modules;
+ large communities that are ready to support and help you with a problem or advice - replacing paid technical support, but no one gives guarantees that they will answer and help you;
+ the older the version of the system, the more and more it will improve, but at one fine moment its development may stop (the fuse will dry up) - this should be remembered;
+ free.
Cons:
- many vulnerabilities, up to critical, which increases the risk of being left without profit due to a non-working site - the only source of customers in the online store;
- the site is constantly susceptible to hacking due to the fact that the system has been studied up and down, and its security level is low;
- expansion of functionality is possible with the involvement of third-party technical specialists, but it is extremely difficult to carry out;
- Updates, most likely, are installed manually, but not automatically, and come out with a delay;
- lack of official technical support;
- documentation may be missing or incomplete;
Total score: + 5 / -6
The most popular solutions on the following free CMS:
* Drupal
* Joomla (and VirtueMart module)
* osCommerce
* Shop-Script
and many others.
The main disadvantage of free CMS is their popularity and knowledge. Everyone has access to them: you can freely download and dissect, the code is open! On the one hand, popularity plays into the hands, and on the other, it blocks access for free CMS to the business where the site is the main character.
Ordering a store on a paid CMS
More money was invested in commercial systems, which means qualified specialists worked on them, the systems were tested, and more were created taking into account the needs of users. Their main goal is to please the client.
Pros:
+ unconditional technical support: all issues that arise, problems are solved by specialists;
+ regular updates that eliminate possible errors;
+ upgrade the system to newer versions with new functionality;
+ a paid solution does not create unforeseen server loads, stably and predictably: it has more polished and perfect code, verified and tested by specialists;
+ in a paid solution, all the actions that the buyer will have to perform are optimized, because serious developers care about the high level of usability;
+ In a paid solution, all the functionality that may be needed is already implemented, and adding a new one will be as simple and convenient as possible;
+ high-quality commercial CMS are alienated. That is, you do not lose independence and can change one full-time programmer to another;
+ full documentation that describes all the processes and mechanisms of the system.
Minuses:
- it is paid;
- some CMS suffer from chronic diseases - they are all different. It is important to identify the level of criticality of these diseases for you, as for the customer. For example, not all solutions have full integration with 1C.
Total score: + 8 / -2
The most popular solutions on the following paid CMS (sorting by the cost of the minimum solution for the i-store):
* Amiro.CMS 18,990 rubles.
* 1C-Bitrix 24 900 rub.
* NetCat 21 280
* UMI.CMS 20 790 RUR
and many others.
When I initiate a project, regardless of its complexity, I choose a ready-made commercial solution. There are no problems with it - isn’t it necessary for a person who is ready to invest money?
I recommend to continue studying paid and free CMS on the sitewww.cmslist.ru . Here you can see reviews, compare different systems by functionality, chat with knowledgeable people.
2. Design and layout
The next step is to describe how your site will look like, what you want to see on it and give this task to a team of designers and layout designers who will draw a sketch and then make it up for the site (i.e. make a template for CMS, which can be installed).
Design can be ordered either from the studio or from a freelancer, whose work is usually cheaper. Any CMS (both paid and free) is strikingly better because it has a site design management setting, where you can change templates in one go - it remains only to develop them.
The freelancer design template costs an average of 15 000r. (3 pages) + 1500 rub. for the following pages. Layout of the template 6000r. (3 pages) + 1000 rub. for the following pages.
Studio prices will be strikingly different and may be more than two or more times. For comparison, a freelancer with little experience and imagination is ready to make a design and layout for 15,000 rubles, and in a St. Petersburg studio for a slightly more qualified work they will already take 35,000 rubles.
The prices are given for online stores, however, they can be very different from each other: it all depends on your success in searching for the contractor of your order.
To search for freelancers, I recommend using the
* website www.free-lance.ru .
To search for studios:
* section "Find a site developer" on the site of the selected CMS;
* advertisements for search queries in the Yandex system ("site development", "site design").
3. Tuning
And at the end of creating the website of the online store, configure the server and the site, fill it with content and, if necessary, integrate with 1C if you plan to use it in contact with the site.
Server configuration depends on the selected CMS. Some of them are famous for the fact that they require large resources (sometimes a dedicated server or a special tariff plan - here 1C-Bitrix has already gotten everyone’s teeth sore), and some, on the contrary, are very flexible and not demanding.
Setting up the site depends on your experience, the complexity of the system. Perhaps you can do it yourself, but you can give it to the developer. Such a service will cost about 1500-2000r. However, you can configure any paid CMS on your own, if necessary, requesting help desk support.
A little more complicated is the situation with filling the site with goods. If you intend to trade in goods that do not require a description, then it will be enough to photograph them, if for some reason you do not have photos. You can hire a student who is fond of photography - with a certain skill, it will be easy for him.
If you trade in equipment where an extended description is simply needed, then you will need serious content. It’s good that information on technology on the Internet is enough and it’s enough to simply copy it to yourself from reliable sources. The cost of an hour of work of a content manager is 100 rubles ... He manages to fill up to 10-12 goods per hour. The cost of entering the information of one product in this way is about 10 rubles. Count!
For a long time I was going to write an article and share my thoughts on creating an online store. I have some experience with them, and therefore the prepared information may be useful to a number of readers. I’ll immediately warn you that the article is more likely for beginners in this business and people who want to open their own business in the e-commerce industry, but do not know how.
It is impossible to describe all stages in one article, from concept to implementation. For the curious, I note that a very good article by Arthur Welfin the publication "Kommersant" Money "(I give a link to Habra, because there is a useful discussion of the material). In the material, he offers an excellent analysis of the market of online trading in the field of household appliances and electronics. But this is only an analysis, small calculations. The article did not set goals to create a guide to action. I’ll try to get closer to the point. In my first article, I will cover the issue of choosing a site engine (scientifically - site management systems, CMS).
Preamble
It must be remembered that Internet commerce is not only kettles and microwaves, laptops and televisions. In the field of e-commerce there is the same small business, medium business and large. There are many areas of trade. I offer my classification.
Small businessengaged in the sale of T-shirts, badges, a small assortment of souvenirs, erotic toys and something similar. You can engage in such a business on the job. Very often I heard from my acquaintances and partners how they opened small shops without any office: they hired one person who processed the orders, delivered them and kept the bookkeeping. For example, a friend of mine opened an intimate goods store. His wife performs all the functions described above, and he monitors advertising, is responsible for the technical part of the site. Some kind of warehouse right in the apartment. Ideal for a small family business, isn't it?
There is another example. The manager of a wholesale company decided to open his own mobile phone retail store. The assortment was chosen the same as at its main place of work, made a website, filled with goods. He, as an expert in his market segment, monitors the assortment, can offer not only good prices, but also earn as much as the rest (he receives discounts as an employee of the company). Another person is involved in the delivery and processing of orders. Again business for two. There are many such examples now. Any "mobile store" is just their brainchild, managers.
As a matter of fact, such a small, or rather “small” business is in many ways an illegal occupation. I will not go into details, but I assure you that soon such things will become impossible: either competitors or the law in the person of his guardians. Small businesses in the field of electronic commerce should "rise" to the next step and move into the category of medium-sized businesses.
Medium business . Here we are talking about real investment, albeit relatively small - from 400 000r. and higher. Opening a store with a turnover of millions of rubles, a permanent office and a staff of employees will require the constant employment of its manager and a structural approach. Such stores conclude agreements with suppliers, create delivery and customer service departments (call center), and engage in targeted sales.
Stand alonebig business . And talking about it seems like it makes no sense, since getting into it from a swoop will not work - this is absurd. Large companies have a long history of development and perhaps someone who has started with small investments in 5-7 years will come right up to a new frontier with completely different turnovers, regional expansion, etc., etc. ...
So, it’s quite clear that the barriers in this market is becoming less and less, and confidence in online commerce is growing. Therefore, now online stores breed like rabbits.
***
And now, after such a significant preamble, let's get back to where we started - to the first step - the choice of CMS.
One of the most important issues of creating an online store is the creation of a site. How to build it? You need to do only three steps:
1. Choose a CMS.
2. Design and layout pages.
3. Configure the server, site and fill it (the site) with content.
1. Choosing a CMS An
online store website can be done in three ways:
* order development from a team of programmers and write a store from scratch;
* order a store based on a free CMS;
* order a store based on a paid CMS.
What to choose?
Usually it happens like this: the initiator of the project goes to his familiar programmer or admin, or maybe just to a friend who knows computers or web-technologies, consults with him and most likely completely trusts his choice. The project initiator agrees rather out of ignorance (often the future director is a manager, not a techie) and then this process becomes uncontrolled. Why? A familiar programmer’s initiative and interest disappears quickly and the project dies, because a lot of money was spent, and the result is zero. This is a common mistake, I met her many times, and I want to warn those who are taking their first steps in e-commerce.
Choosing a solution method, you need to seriously think about the following parameters:
* How many partners, the so-called "implementers", have experience with the selected solution.
By the number of partners, one can judge the quality of the system. Someone will say that this is just the marketing of developers, but one can safely object that they will not work with bad goods, no matter how they unwind. In addition, the creation of a network of partners requires financial investments, or a very competent approach to the market. This is only a plus for CMS - whatever one may say.
* The quality of services of these companies.
See the portfolio of developer partners. If among them there are many standing companies with large projects, then the developer should be trusted.
* Functionality.
The more features CMS offers, the more convenient you are. Your development will not be hindered by the initially poor functionality of the site. Look in the portfolio for exactly those sites that are closest to your vision. If there are none, then it might be worth looking among other developers.
* Extensibility.
Extensibility is the ability to add new modules. Here, the ability to add the necessary module from scratch with the help of development partners is also important. If the system is simple and logical, then there will be no problems with this.
* Security.
In business, the most important is safety and reliability. The more stable the site works, the more you earn.
* Updatability.
Security holes are inevitable, but timely updates reduce this danger to zero. Updates often also apply to new functionality, a change in the logic of the CMS, and other significant attributes.
* Customizability.
The ability to set a discount in the store is a feature. The ability to make a discount immediately on the entire group of products is customizability. The richer the customization, the better the system - you have more options.
* Cost.
The cost of a system is often poorly related to functionality. All other things being equal, you can safely choose a cheaper solution, because it does not affect the quality. And remember that overpaying for something that you do not need and is unlikely to be useful sometime is a completely useless task.
* Technical requirements.
The more voracious CMS, the more problems you will have with its work. The increase in traffic and site content will affect stability, followed by warnings from the hosting, which can lead to critical situations. It is better to exclude such a risk in advance by checking reviews of the system for high tech. requirements.
* Documentation.
The documentation is needed in order to independently and quickly cope with the tasks in order to delegate the site maintenance to a person unfamiliar with the system, but who will have the opportunity to easily learn thanks to the documentation. Documentation may not be at all, but it may be completely unprocessed.
* Friendliness.
Whether the site is friendly or not is a subjective question. The device of the admin panel should not create additional problems with management, and the user part should not have problems with choosing and making purchases. If the arrangement of elements you can easily configure using the designer, then the logic of the processes is unlikely without additional programming.
Now let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the above solutions to the site.
Order development from a team of programmers from scratch
More often, the development team already has a “core for all solutions”, and then they already begin to add functionality to it. This core is often the old forgotten CMS project that nobody liked, or the university thesis of one of the developers or owners of the office. On the website of their studio there is often a small portfolio of the best works.
Pros:
+ after reflection, all the pros turned into cons.
Cons:
- it will take you a lot of time to write a TOR for development;
- it takes a lot of time to develop a functional that can be difficult to reproduce in a programming language;
- the site, most likely, will constantly “break down”, because the developer will not have time to optimize the code;
- the site can often be “broken” as soon as your attendance is envied;
- you will dream of new functionality, but dreams are unlikely to materialize, because new modules will have to be written to the system from scratch, which is quite expensive;
- most likely, you will be strongly attached to the developers (in every sense), because only they know how it all works (this is also a sentence);
- there are no updates - the developer passed the order and forgot;
- the cost of such a decision in view of the fact that your requirements may change will be astronomical;
- Often there is no documentation (this reduces the cost of development);
- friendliness will tend to zero - the project is being tested for you and, possibly, for other clients, so it will take a long time before everything is done at the proper level.
Total score: 0 / -10
Many disadvantages can disappear if the functionality is limited to a catalog with two levels of nesting, and the name of the product and a picture for its text description. This is perhaps the only option when the decision to "write from scratch" is justified.
In general, a “self-written” store will be very expensive and make your business unprofitable.
Ordering a store for a free CMS
The more popular a free CMS is, the greater the coefficient that can be placed next to the merits, but the higher the coefficient next to the minuses.
Pros:
+ a lot of companies ready to set about creating a store - you will not have a lot of people who want to do this for fairly little money;
+ A large number of free add-ons and modules;
+ large communities that are ready to support and help you with a problem or advice - replacing paid technical support, but no one gives guarantees that they will answer and help you;
+ the older the version of the system, the more and more it will improve, but at one fine moment its development may stop (the fuse will dry up) - this should be remembered;
+ free.
Cons:
- many vulnerabilities, up to critical, which increases the risk of being left without profit due to a non-working site - the only source of customers in the online store;
- the site is constantly susceptible to hacking due to the fact that the system has been studied up and down, and its security level is low;
- expansion of functionality is possible with the involvement of third-party technical specialists, but it is extremely difficult to carry out;
- Updates, most likely, are installed manually, but not automatically, and come out with a delay;
- lack of official technical support;
- documentation may be missing or incomplete;
Total score: + 5 / -6
The most popular solutions on the following free CMS:
* Drupal
* Joomla (and VirtueMart module)
* osCommerce
* Shop-Script
and many others.
The main disadvantage of free CMS is their popularity and knowledge. Everyone has access to them: you can freely download and dissect, the code is open! On the one hand, popularity plays into the hands, and on the other, it blocks access for free CMS to the business where the site is the main character.
Ordering a store on a paid CMS
More money was invested in commercial systems, which means qualified specialists worked on them, the systems were tested, and more were created taking into account the needs of users. Their main goal is to please the client.
Pros:
+ unconditional technical support: all issues that arise, problems are solved by specialists;
+ regular updates that eliminate possible errors;
+ upgrade the system to newer versions with new functionality;
+ a paid solution does not create unforeseen server loads, stably and predictably: it has more polished and perfect code, verified and tested by specialists;
+ in a paid solution, all the actions that the buyer will have to perform are optimized, because serious developers care about the high level of usability;
+ In a paid solution, all the functionality that may be needed is already implemented, and adding a new one will be as simple and convenient as possible;
+ high-quality commercial CMS are alienated. That is, you do not lose independence and can change one full-time programmer to another;
+ full documentation that describes all the processes and mechanisms of the system.
Minuses:
- it is paid;
- some CMS suffer from chronic diseases - they are all different. It is important to identify the level of criticality of these diseases for you, as for the customer. For example, not all solutions have full integration with 1C.
Total score: + 8 / -2
The most popular solutions on the following paid CMS (sorting by the cost of the minimum solution for the i-store):
* Amiro.CMS 18,990 rubles.
* 1C-Bitrix 24 900 rub.
* NetCat 21 280
* UMI.CMS 20 790 RUR
and many others.
When I initiate a project, regardless of its complexity, I choose a ready-made commercial solution. There are no problems with it - isn’t it necessary for a person who is ready to invest money?
I recommend to continue studying paid and free CMS on the sitewww.cmslist.ru . Here you can see reviews, compare different systems by functionality, chat with knowledgeable people.
2. Design and layout
The next step is to describe how your site will look like, what you want to see on it and give this task to a team of designers and layout designers who will draw a sketch and then make it up for the site (i.e. make a template for CMS, which can be installed).
Design can be ordered either from the studio or from a freelancer, whose work is usually cheaper. Any CMS (both paid and free) is strikingly better because it has a site design management setting, where you can change templates in one go - it remains only to develop them.
The freelancer design template costs an average of 15 000r. (3 pages) + 1500 rub. for the following pages. Layout of the template 6000r. (3 pages) + 1000 rub. for the following pages.
Studio prices will be strikingly different and may be more than two or more times. For comparison, a freelancer with little experience and imagination is ready to make a design and layout for 15,000 rubles, and in a St. Petersburg studio for a slightly more qualified work they will already take 35,000 rubles.
The prices are given for online stores, however, they can be very different from each other: it all depends on your success in searching for the contractor of your order.
To search for freelancers, I recommend using the
* website www.free-lance.ru .
To search for studios:
* section "Find a site developer" on the site of the selected CMS;
* advertisements for search queries in the Yandex system ("site development", "site design").
3. Tuning
And at the end of creating the website of the online store, configure the server and the site, fill it with content and, if necessary, integrate with 1C if you plan to use it in contact with the site.
Server configuration depends on the selected CMS. Some of them are famous for the fact that they require large resources (sometimes a dedicated server or a special tariff plan - here 1C-Bitrix has already gotten everyone’s teeth sore), and some, on the contrary, are very flexible and not demanding.
Setting up the site depends on your experience, the complexity of the system. Perhaps you can do it yourself, but you can give it to the developer. Such a service will cost about 1500-2000r. However, you can configure any paid CMS on your own, if necessary, requesting help desk support.
A little more complicated is the situation with filling the site with goods. If you intend to trade in goods that do not require a description, then it will be enough to photograph them, if for some reason you do not have photos. You can hire a student who is fond of photography - with a certain skill, it will be easy for him.
If you trade in equipment where an extended description is simply needed, then you will need serious content. It’s good that information on technology on the Internet is enough and it’s enough to simply copy it to yourself from reliable sources. The cost of an hour of work of a content manager is 100 rubles ... He manages to fill up to 10-12 goods per hour. The cost of entering the information of one product in this way is about 10 rubles. Count!