Simon Willison's Weblog: ecommerce

What would be a good web application framework to use for running a small online retail business?

2013-11-23T11:50:00+00:00

My answer to What would be a good web application framework to use for running a small online retail business? on Quora

I'd look at hosted SaaS solutions rather than running your own. I haven't tried it myself but I've heard excellent things about www.shopify.com

Tags: startups, webapps, web-development, quora, ecommerce

What systems/software are absolutely worth purchasing for a solidly funded e-commerce startup?

2013-09-22T17:37:00+00:00

My answer to What systems/software are absolutely worth purchasing for a solidly funded e-commerce startup? on Quora

I'd use a small fraction of that budget for relevant SaaS subscriptions - things like www.kissmetrics.com or www.mixpanel.com for user analytics, www.moz.com or www.ginzametrics.com for SEO reporting, or www.geckoboard.com for building a custom dashboard.

The great thing about SaaS is that you can stop paying for it if it doesn't work out, rather than burning a ton of money upfront and the realising the software doesn't work for your needs.

Tags: funding, project-management, startups, quora, management, ecommerce

How long should I budget for an experienced designer to design a responsive ecommerce store?

2013-08-13T15:00:00+00:00

My answer to How long should I budget for an experienced designer to design a responsive ecommerce store? on Quora

There's no single answer to this - it depends on the scope of the project. A one-page store selling 3 items is quicker to design than a thousand page store with dozens of category homepages etc.

I suggest putting together a brief and getting estimates from a number of different designers - that should give you a pretty good idea of how long it should take.

Tags: design, startups, ui, web-development, quora, ecommerce, ux, responsivedesign

What is the difference between Windows and Linux for web hosting, in other words, what are the pros and cons of each, each’s limitations, performance development environment and deployment between Windows and Linux?

2013-08-05T12:24:00+00:00

My answer to What is the difference between Windows and Linux for web hosting, in other words, what are the pros and cons of each, each’s limitations, performance development environment and deployment between Windows and Linux? on Quora

Any and every operation you perform on a Linux server can be trivially automated by copying the commands you ran in to a text file. I haven't managed a Windows server in years and I hear PowerShell is pretty great these days but an OS based around a GUI is always going to be harder to automate than one based around a command line.

Linux has a much stronger complement of high quality open source software - and new open source server software (stuff like node.js) usually becomes available for Linux first.

If you don't know anything about Linux but are comfortable with Windows, you'll find it easier to manage a Windows server in the short term.

Tags: hosting, linux, web-development, windows, quora, ecommerce

What's the best platform I can use for a food delivery startup? Shopify? Or should I instead learn to code?

2013-06-11T13:35:00+00:00

My answer to What's the best platform I can use for a food delivery startup? Shopify? Or should I instead learn to code? on Quora

Don't build an e-commerce system as your first programming project - I know engineers with many years of experience who wouldn't trust themselves to write code that handles money.

Instead, go low tech. Prove your business model by running everything by hand using a spreadsheet and a PayPal account. If it works, you can either hire an experienced developer or use the traction you have proved to bring on a technical co-founder to automate your manual process.

Tags: entrepreneurship, startups, web-development, quora, leanstartups, ecommerce

What happens at Amazon once I make an order?

2012-09-15T13:09:00+00:00

My answer to What happens at Amazon once I make an order? on Quora

Here's a fascinating article about Amazon's fulfilment center in Swansea, Wales which gives a glimpse behind the scenes: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/new...

Tags: amazon, quora, ecommerce

Does Amazon have a API for websites to utilize order and delivery fulfillment?

2012-07-04T17:56:00+00:00

My answer to Does Amazon have a API for websites to utilize order and delivery fulfillment? on Quora

The Amazon Fulfillment Web Service used to handle this http://aws.amazon.com/fws/ - but their site now says "Effective June 2012, Amazon Services will no longer support Amazon Fulfillment Web Service (Amazon FWS). All functions and services currently supported by Amazon FWS are currently available through Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS)." So I guess you want the Amazon Marketplace Web Service: https://developer.amazonservices...

Tags: amazon, apis, programming, web-development, quora, ecommerce

Which web frameworks should I focus on to make myself the most well rounded and to be able to solve the most problems as a web application developer/architect?

2012-01-18T17:17:00+00:00

My answer to Which web frameworks should I focus on to make myself the most well rounded and to be able to solve the most problems as a web application developer/architect? on Quora

Being an expert web developer isn't about which framework you know, it's about the fundamentals. It's important that you know how the tools you are using work, so you can fix things when they break - Joel Spolsky's law of leaky abstractions is a great essay about this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ar...

So pick a modern framework, but make sure you're learning how web technology works. You need to understand all aspects of HTTP, including cookies, caching, content negotiation etc. You need to understand web application security: XSS, CSRF, the OWASP top ten. You need a very solid appreciation of front end development technologies - CSS, HTML, JavaScript - even if you don't specialise in front end engineering most backed decisions you make need to take these in to account.

Then there are the systems architecture concerns: persistence, sharing, replication, when and where to apply both SQL and NoSQL technologies, load balancing and so forth.

The web framework you use ends up being a relatively small part of the overall problem - it's just the bit that passes an incoming HTTP request through to your custom code, then hands the resulting response back again.

So as long as you pick something that doesn't prevent you from getting stuck in to the underlying details (a closed source framework would be a bad idea here) you should be fine.

Tags: frameworks, java, programming-languages, software-engineering, web-development, quora, ecommerce, hibernate