[tstegart]

I said free or low cost. I'm not looking to low-ball anyone here or ask for free work on one of my ideas from the HN community. I'm looking for something out there that I can shoehorn my idea into at a low cost. It seems like what I'm looking for is done a lot on the web, and I was looking for ideas on who does it at a low cost. I can get a cheap e-commerce site done for practically free or for $7-$30 a month that charges cards, ships packages, calculates taxes and has stats and searches. It seems like someone, somewhere would be offering something less technical for the same price or less. So do you know of anyone?

[rartichoke]

Comparing an e-commerce site to what you want is like trying to compare a tarantula's fangs to the rudders on a speed boat.

I'm not trying to bust your chops but I'd be curious as to what makes you think your idea is less technical than an e-commerce site. What basis did you use to make that conclusion?

[tstegart]

Well, it seems that a shopper would search for different characteristics of a product and be given search results, much like I want a user to be able to do. They could then calculate shipping, which is analogous to calculating distances between two points. A user could enter product data, much like I want users to do, and site registration could keep data from different users separate.

I'm actually thinking of using an e-commerce site and just not putting product data in, rather each "farm" would be a product and have tags associated with it and when you narrow down the tags you get the farms as a result. Seems like the cheapest option at the moment given the other answers in this thread.

[rartichoke]

It's not as simple as you think it is.

You mentioned wanting to allow farmers to make an account and add in their details of various stuff along with having their own profile.

That is much different than a typical e-commerce setup. Most product sites have products. Which account added the product doesn't matter. There's no "show me all shoes filtered by the user of Mary", it's "show me all shoes by price filtered by size, etc.".

I also encourage you to research shipping cost calculators that let you use them seamlessly in your custom site.

Also I'm not trying to discourage you from executing your idea. You're free to do whatever you want but I'm just saying you'll have to spend a decent amount of $ to get exactly what you want up and working as a reasonable solution.