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I know I could buy a template and modify it but about how much would it cost to hire someone on elance.com to build an auction site that has a merchant account built in so users can pay with credit card directly and deposit into their bank account without using a third party such as paypal?

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"that has a merchant account built in" you still need to sign-up for a merchant account and payment gateway to be able to do this, an example of companies offering such a service are: Authorize.net, FirstData, etc... – Ricardo Jun 23 '10 at 0:55

4 Answers

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Many will say - your results may vary.

I would start off understanding what type of auction software would meet your needs and then work towards customizing it to suit your visual / process needs.

A good example of a simple php auction script can be found here.

Then, you can look for specific experience on a specific application and see what they have done before awarding your business to them.

Of course, my customized business process j2ee b2b reverse auction effort cost north of $400K to build & launch - but that's a different time and story. ;)

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I would be interested in reading about it. Let me know if you ever post your startup story and what it took to build your application. Thanks – Stephen Jun 22 '10 at 16:04
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+1 to jimg's comment. I helped a colleague consider various auction packages vs building our own once. He opted for PHPProBid (the link jimg provides) because building it from scratch was over his budget. There are a lot of complexities in good, secure, scalable, & usable auction software (e.g. making sure unscrupulous users don't try to game an auction, making sure it handles languages & currencies in all of your int'l markets, making sure it's flexible enough for your users, making sure it can handle lots of products & lots of users, etc). jimg's estimate looks pretty spot-on. – Mike Lee Jun 22 '10 at 21:54
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I think you got it - a fully custom solution can vary wildly, but if you want quality and sustainability, it's going to be expensive. But with so many options for templates that can be customized, it's probably best to get some cash flow with a solution like that, and use that income to fund a complete rebuild if it's deemed necessary at some point in the future. – Elie Jun 23 '10 at 12:39
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Be careful hiring offshore for anything too complex. Auction sites in particular can be very involved depending on the level of user activity and type of auction. Make sure you have very clearly defined requirements before going too far into the process.

Maybe try a requirements service like www.ezrequirements.com

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+1 for the comment about off-shoring complex applications. I'm starting a rebuild process for an app that was built that way and is now completely unmaintainable, extendable, or understandable. Plus, it doesn't do more than 80% of what it's supposed to. – Elie Jun 23 '10 at 12:37
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Hiring a service provider for your project should not exceed $ 2000.00 USD. Try posting your project with 99Desk.com and receive bids/ proposals from professionals, Freelancers or IT companies. Its Free to Join and post your project.

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This may be offtopic, but:

Make sure to research your payment plans carefully. If you're planning to user your own merchant account to collect money for someone else (sellers on your auction), you may be factoring. Just wanted to make sure you're aware of this before you invest in the code and everything else.

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Hmm... I do plan to accept credit card for sellers on my site. How do I go about doing this without it being illegal? – Stephen Jun 23 '10 at 17:23

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