Thursday, November 14, 2013

Cutting through Web Development Clutter with Wordpress and Shopify

When starting an eCommerce website without much technical know-how, finding a starting point may seem daunting. Questions like how should I build this site? How can I get the formatting right? and who can I turn to for support? are key issues.

The reality though is that for most purposes, there are great platforms that can be adapted and formatted without much knowledge or expense. By using outsourced programmers through a website such as oDesk and setting up a domain through goDaddy or similar - you can have programmers install WordPress for blogging, text and surveys and an eCommerce platform such as Shopify for simplicity.

These tools are not only easy to customize for someone with basic programming skills, but also are easy to manage through tablets and apps given their widespread use and uniform admin pages.

Earlier this semester at Columbia, I took a class called "Programming for Entrepreneurs" where we explored the complexities of programming languages including HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. While being an expert in all of these facets would be ideal - as a business manager it's more practical to have a basic understanding of these languages, manage others to execute change and manage administrative changes through best in breed technology such as WordPress and Shopify.

Getting through the clutter of online development is easier said than done, but by tinkering around with platforms that are out there, you can find your niche in an entrepreneurial world.

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