I have been unbelievably frustrated trying to get someone to help me build a site to sell CDs, downloads, and merchandise.
 
• There are lots of cheap templates out there but either they don't do e-commerce, or else they are geared towards someone with a catalog of lots of items (like jewelry or small tools).
• Custom design firms usually work with large corporations and their fees are going to be out of line for an independent music producer.
• Some sites (bandcamp) are optimized to sell music, but that is all they do: they won't build your other web pages.  Although what they do looks good, it is a pretty rigid template.
 
My needs are not that great.  I can give someone the layout and artwork, the content (music and videos), the PayPal button code (or whatever the web builder recommends), the domain names, etc., but I need that person to build the site so it works and then upload it to my service provider (e.g., Network Solutions).  Functions I need (besides the obvious text and buttons): stream music, stream video, sell CDs, sell merchandise, sell downloads, and keep records so I can be sure I ship to everyone who buys and so I have the mailing list info later.
 
Surely there is someone who can do this.  Of course, I will pay—but hopefully something in-between the $9.95 template and the $50,000 corporate fee.  Thoughts?

They won't sell CD's but I found www.emubands.com to be cheap and comprehensive for electronic distribution and reporting.

I do my own sites and do them for other people, although I haven't built in any distribution features yet, mainly because there seems to be other priorities or not enough time and money to do it (People tend to use Excel or something).

ie

http://www.whiplashcooperative.com
http://www.ajantamusic.com

They are designed to be reasonably easily updated by the customer, there are probably loads of improvements that can be done to them but the budgets were limited.

You may need somebody similar who is US based I'm in the UK, the exchange rate isn't so competitive.

Cheers...

Have you looked at Bandcamp? They handle downloads and CD sales, and the user can customize their music page to an extent.
 
Also, if you look around you'll find that you can do a lot better than Network Solutions. 

I'm a web developer and can help with advice and suggestions.
A couple of options:
Bigcartel - There's a free option that allows you to list 5 products
Bandcamp - You can sell downloads and physical goods
Wordpress - Register a domain and build a wordpress site and then you can create buy now buttons or use one of the shop plugins to build the store.
The site I use for Field Records is built using OpenCart but that it more geared towards large amounts of products. I'm currently building a new shop built in Drupal which will give me the best of both worlds.

I will hunt around for sites that handle the distribution/payment parts of things, that also allow some custom content to be added to describe the seller and the merchandise.
 
A thought.  Check with the academic computer programming department at a couple of your local colleges.  The professors and/or a dean may have some ideas on helping you get up and running for cheap - possibly they would do the work on the side, or they would recommend a small number of students that they feel could handle it.
 
I used to work at DePaul University in Chicago, and we used to get these kinds of requests - it worked out well, as it was normally just some guy wanting a pretty straight-forward web page or site, and it was great real world experience for the students, as well.
 
I will spend some time today looking into the above, and into other options for you, and will post back to this thread within the next 4 hours.
 
Bob Bone
 

Ive sent you a pm konradh
 
Regards
 
Lee

I love how 2 people cited Bandcamp when he already mentioned that in the original post. Read, then write. ;)
 
My guess is that sadly there isn't much of a demand for music-specific e-commerce sites because music sales are dropping. New technology tends to follow the rising star, not the falling one.

Build it yourself.  This way, you will have the knowledge to administer the site also.
 
Wordpress is the most popular template based software on the planet and quite easy to use.
There are excellent tutorials on YouTube for free and if you don't mind paying,  Lynda.Com has a great one that is straight forward and well thought out.
 
Plenty of free templates and some really nice ones for $50 or so.
They do have templates that are set up for e-commerce.
 
If you sell on CD Baby,  they provide a code (called a widget); You can paste this code on your site and your customers can not only buy a high quality mp3 (also a flac file) but also hear a short sample of the song.   

tom1
 
If you sell on CD Baby,  they provide a code (called a widget); You can paste this code on your site and your customers can not only buy a high quality mp3 (also a flac file) but also hear a short sample of the song.   

1+

Be careful if you're selling Cd's through CDBaby. A new policy, if you don't sell enough they can now destroy your inventory if you don't decide to ship copies back ( at your cost)
I have an old title that sells only 3-4 copies a year, they decided I can only have 1 copy in stock!!
 
They destroyed the other 4 (used to be 5 limit)  I recently sold a copy  & I get an email requesting to send them ONE copy for re-stock!!

It used to be a great company for Indie bands & musicians until Derek sold it..