Easier to reverse engineer WP, or to start from scratch?

[TroyD]

I have a wordpress theme that I love in terms of the styling, but will need to gut it for functionality. The theme is here: [1] http://themewich.com/aware/

However, I am a novice to WP and the site is going to be an e-Commerce site. I will need a coder to basically install a back-end where users upload images, the images are handled/resized/stored/structured/etc, and made available for purchase through a shopping cart like system. Also the galleries and product images etc need to dynamically call and refer to these pictures.

The theme functions great, but it is WP post-based. Meaning, it is great for blogs and creating new posts yourself, but I don't think it will let users create new posts. Not only that, I don't want users adding content, just uploading images which would go into their "profile" or their "gallery" if you will.

I am digging through the theme's code and man I am in over my head. I know some guys who are willing to code a back-end, but I dont know if they can plug it into all this code.

I have a limited budget so I need to be efficient with what I hire for.

TL;DR - I want to use this layout, but I want to have my own backend/database.

[Ronald Roe]

You have a couple of options here:
1. There are e-commerce plugins for WP. Have you tried one?
2. That theme is incredibly basic, and could be recreated pretty easily. I know, by looking at the files, it seems like a lot. WP themes are like that. It really isn't, though. Take a look through header.php, index.php, footer.php and styles.css. Header, index and footer come together to create what you see on the main page. If you look, and you ignore the PHP, you'll notice that they contain basic HTML markup that would make up any site. Styles.css is just the stylesheet for that.

[mlseim]

I guess that I think it will be rather hard to customize ... it can be done, but will take someone a while to script the modifications. Ron is talking about layout changes, but I'm talking about the member scripting where registered members can affect their own galleries, not only photo and content, but also ecommerce. This won't be easy. I'm guessing this will be out of your budget.

Another part of your site is where your members upload photos and they are for sale? How is the sale handled? Who gets the money ... you the site owner, or the member selling? How do the members get paid through you website? It sounds simple enough, but think about it. Every CC transaction comes with a fee. Whose CC merchant is being accessed by your website? If you take all the money and somehow pay the members, how is that going to work?

[TroyD]

These are some good questions.

I haven't tried an e-commerce plugin as most of them are too out of sync with the structure of the layout/appearance to incorporate. I know of some freelance groups who could style something like WooCommerce to fit with a theme, however it is expensive enough that I may as well have someone just code the back-end as I mentioned. At least, I think.

Yeah, I did pour through the CSS files and such. The layout is easy, however the incorporation of the galleries like isotope.js kind of throw me off. There are tons of classes and things being thrown around everywhere. I used firebug to analyze it a bit and kind of see how it is structured, but it is pretty overwhelming. You know how it is =/

@mlseim, thanks for responding. My main concern is indeed the member scripting and file handling functions as that is the core of the site obviously. If I don't have that, I don't have a business; the rest is cosmetic which - while very important, can be tweaked and changed, etc. Core function has to be solid.

With this in mind, a bunch of PHP guys on reddit and some other forums said that account management, file management, uploads, etc... are very easy and rudimentary. One guy said he's done simple stuff like this in a weekend. Now obviously integrating it with shopping cart functionality is more challenging, I was thinking of having a dev work with Magento as the shopping cart system as it is super flexible and powerful.

Members get a royalty off of every item that is sold from their portfolio. Whether this is handled by the merchant or by me manually through weekly or monthly order fufillment is not set in stone yet.

What are your follow up thoughts? Thanks again.

[mlseim]

Royalties and split transactions can't be handled by the merchant. They just process credit cards and they have all of your CC processing tied to one bank account (which is your bank account in this case). So you would have to keep track of all receipts and somehow pay your members each month, week, etc. Again, that is going to involve some secure website database stuff and all of the necessary scripting. You also have sales tax to consider (in some cases), and any CC fees. And by CC fees I mean the transaction fees you have to pay for each transaction, any problems that occur with credit, problems with customers not getting their items or disliking it, or whatever problems come up. There's no way your members can handle them as all money goes to your account, not theirs.

The burden of responsibility becomes yours (the site owner). Your site will become a daily chore to manage, and making sure everything is working OK. You said it involves uploaded photos ... I assume you mean digital goods (files to download) and not tangible goods (actual paper photographs)? If you are dealing with tangible goods, that creates a whole new set of issues.

Have you completed a business plan? Researched what you're planning on doing, demographics, how many members you will have that will be creating an account with you, etc? Will you be able to cover your costs (secure webhost account, transaction fees, your time and effort)?

[TroyD]

I think I will be going with a solution like Shopify, after looking into it. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and can be quite anal about design in particular, so I think I was wanting to do it a very specific way with no exceptions - and it was going to cost me.

At least with the core systems integrated through Shopify, which provides the merchant services, shipping integration, and all the other behind the scenes hassles which I would have been dealing with - I will be able to tweak any templates or themes to my liking from there and not have to worry as much about the really core, business-essential elements.

Don't take this offensively, but I am not here for business advice - rather technological implementation of the online store side of it. You started to dip into my business strategy in the last paragraph which is definitely not the point of this topic. The reason I stated I have a limited budget was because I refuse to let myself go wild with the storefront. The limited budget forces me to not just throw $10k at a developer, but rather be more efficient and try to achieve what I can without having to pay. Basically think of it as a disciplined allowance.

I realize now that I simply don't have the time or know-how to implement a site from the ground up, thus my heading in the Shopify direction. I will still have to have a bit of work done implementing a few customizations, but the core and most integral functions are already there, which is such a relief. Quite a lot of stress involved with this.

I will admit though, I did not consider one thing you brought up which was the routing of payment royalties, etc. I had assumed payment systems could handle this. I will have to flesh this out and add this to the plan. Thank you for pushing me and poking me, I need that feedback. =)

[TroyD]

I must also say, you two were both very, very helpful. Not many forums these days where users (and staff!) are willing to type such lengthy, informative responses to issues that don't affect them personally.

Thank you. =)

[mlseim]

I guess I did stray from the topic (my apology).

But also know that the questions asked about how your business will be handled are directly related to how we would answer your questions about customizing an existing application (like WordPress). We could give you a list of WordPress plug-ins to install, but none of them may do you any good. That would be frustrating for you, and a very big waste of time.

This is a coding forum and should be about coding. Ironically, I actually believe most of the websites on the internet are not necessary. People are spending a ton of money and time on websites that they really don't need, or someone has convinced them that they need a website.

Your decision to test the waters with Shopify is a good idea (in my opinion). It should take very little time to determine if your business is viable and profitable, and your investment will be minimal. If you "build it and they come", you'll have the need to pursue a full-on custom site that you create and own.