I am planning a new business venture involving an online store. This is an area where I have no experience (my background is in desktop software & device drivers, not web sites). I would welcome advice on 2 aspects of this project.
First, I could learn about this and set up everything myself, or I could pay someone to set things up. Doing it myself is attractive because I could then maintain & develop the site more easily. Getting someone else to do it is attractive because an experienced professional should do a better job, faster. Plus I will definitely need assistance with the site design, as my efforts are certain to look awful. So I would like some advice on the buy v build question. How steep is the learning curve for this work? Is it something I could easily pick up? Is a professional worth every penny or do they just do things I really should do myself?
The other thing is timetables. I am at the initial planning stage of this project. What would be a sensible time to get a web store online? I realise this is a "how long is a piece of string" question and I don't expect an accurate answer, but I have to co-ordinate this work with other parts of the project so I need a ball park guesstimate to work with.