Storefront Switch

Hello All....

I am pretty new to all of this, and don't have a great understanding, though I feel like I've done quite a bit of research.....in any case here is my question/ problem.

I will be opening an E-Commerce site in the near future and have had it developed from rock bottom pricing. The issue...I like what the designer has done, but now that it is coming to the end of the he is having some back end programming issues that he did not forsee. I had requested a shipping solution that would integrate fed ex, ups, and the USPS as shipping options. Now that he has gotten to this part, he has realized that this is not something he can do. We've gone back and forth and he said the only option is flat rate shipping.

My question....if I switch to a new shopping cart, give the new designer the files he created, can he plug those to the new system, or will the files my programmer created not jive with any new cart?

I'm not sure I'm even asking the right questions here, so any help anyone can provide would be great!!

Thanks for all your help!!

Tim

It's hard to answer without more information. What is the programming of your site? PHP, asp? I have helped in the development of 2 cart systems and they support FedEx, UPS and USPS. Do you have a URL to the site as it is developed so far?

You mentioned you want to move to a new shopping cart. Do you mean you want someone else to develop a shopping cart or you want to move an existing shopping cart like osCommerce or Miva Merchant?

If moving to an existing shopping cart system most of the files your programmer created for you will be useless, but probably most if not all of your functionality and design can be carried over to the new system. You will be able to hire a designer to follow the example of your old site and recreate it on your new shopping cart system.

PS: Miva Merchant 5 w/ the Viking Coder's Advance UPS module is a good solution if you need to customize your shipping calculations with various box sizes, shipping methods, and other needs.

Thanks for your replies. Again, I didn't know much when first getting into this (and not too much now!), He seemed very knowledgeable and I took his word for it when it came to all this.

I do not know the programming language, or the system that he is using..I've asked a few times, but he has been quiet about it. I think he beleives that I'll see that it's fairly simple, and just complete the work he has already done. He did send the general instructions to me, and I came across this site.

http://www.justintranets.com/doc.asp

It doesn't look like anything that anyone has discussed on this forum. Do I have reason to be concerned?

The site will be hosted on Brinkster, is this another concern I should have?

Is JustIntranets your company?

No I'm not. It's the portalapp Documentation version 4.0 that he sent me.

is the site live? can we see it. did he write it from scratch or use a pre made cart. if its pre made than you will be able to find someone who can integrate the shipping. if he is being quiet then i bet its a premade cart and he dosnt want you to know. do you have the files? if you post some of the code, we can tell you what it is.

Our solution can be integrated in any offline working Design.
(meantime it has usps, zones and formula shipping caluclations)

I hate to have to ask this question at this point in the developent of you site but - do you have an SSL Certificate yet? You are going to need one. Along with an SSL you will need a dedicated IP address because the SSL Cert requires it. Dedicated IPs cost more money.

As for not knowing what your website is being written in, you should know this even if you know nothing about programming - YOU own the code and speaking of code, do you have copies of it? If you don't you need your developer to email you a zip file of all of the coding he has done. This belongs to you and if your developer skips out on you (I'm not saying he will) you'll be left in a world of hurt.

As for your web hosting provider I can't speak to that but you should have an idea of how well your site performs. That is, is it always available when you visit the site? Do the pages display promptly, etc?