As you said, I looked into some of the companies that offer ecommerce software but I was not happy with how limited I would be.

This is why I decided to just do the site myself. Now my issue is what hosting company to use. Do you happen to know which companies would give me complete design control? I keep running into the ones that only allow you to use their software.

Regarding a site designer, I always assumed that route would be more expensive than doing it myself. Am I wrong? What about changes and updates? After a while wouldn't it be more cost effective to know how to do these things myself?

Thanks for all your help!