How I developed an e-commerce website in 6 weeks from the comfort of my home
About the Author: Sidharth Soni is a 3rd-year B.Tech student from Manipal Institute of Technology. He shares meaningful insights from his internship which led him to create an e-commerce website in just a few weeks.
When I joined college, I was quite keen on learning new technologies and wanted to enhance my skill set. I discussed this with my seniors and arrived at the decision to learn web development. After two years of honing my skills in this domain, I wanted to gain some hands-on experience. So, once the 4th semester was over, I started searching for internships. My seniors advised me to register on Internshala for finding relevant internships. I followed the advice and explored the platform. After making my resume, I clicked on the ‘internships’ button and was blown away, seeing the plethora of internships it offered. I applied to many internships that interested me and was finally selected for a company named Greyy after 16 rejections.
The selection procedure at Greyy was quite simple. I had a telephonic interview with Mr. Anant Mudra, the founder, wherein he asked me which programming languages and frameworks I was familiar with and some basic questions related to web development. Then, he asked me if I had worked on WordPress. I replied in affirmative and told him about the WordPress website I had worked on for Manipal Marathon, an event in my college. After a few more questions like the differences between margin and padding and the methods to reduce page load time, I was given an assignment. They gave me the login access to their WordPress account and asked me to develop the frontend of the product page of the website. Later that day, I received a Skype call from them confirming my selection for the internship. This was a virtual internship wherein I had to develop their website using WordPress and PHP over a time frame of 6 weeks.
On my first day, I was introduced to the team and explained what they did. It was decided that I’ll be assigned weekly tasks and the resources will be provided through Google drive. I could communicate with them via Skype, Hangouts, and WhatsApp. As a web development intern, my primary responsibility was to create the website and make it live, and so I prepared a plan. First, we readied a temporary landing page which allowed users to subscribe to our newsletters. I began with the shopping cart setup and employed PayPal for all the transactions. I took care of the security of the website and handled the backend of the site in the cPanel account. I integrated the FedEx API on the website for the tracking of packages. Apart from this, I had to finalise the theme and customize it using PHP to improve the existing features and add new ones. A few weeks later, we went live with the website.
During this internship, I developed a better grasp of PHP and WordPress plugins. I learnt to use virtual hangtags and to integrate the Razorpay and FedEx APIs. Developing this site also introduced me to the nuances of UI and UX design and SEO, teaching me how important it was to take little things into consideration to pique a customer’s interest in your product. More importantly, I gained a deep insight into the functioning of an apparel business and got familiar with the production department. The team was also quite supportive and the flexible work timings assured my convenience. As the work intensified, I began losing my focus and started making a lot of mistakes. This was when my mentor gave me an important lesson about not over-exerting myself and keeping my cool.
The internship was nothing short of a remarkable journey wherein I got ample opportunities to enhance my skills and prove my mettle. My joy knew no bounds when I received my internship completion certificate. As an intern, not only did I get familiar with the corporate environment but I also learnt to be a team player. Thank you, Internshala, for giving me this opportunity to explore my abilities and work on a real website.
Are you also looking for an opportunity to get a hands-on experience in designing a website? Well, the wait is over! Apply to these cool web development internships and launch your career.
Originally published at blog.internshala.com on May 15, 2018.
