1.) Find out where the designer intends on getting the illustrations for your site, and what their experience is in creating custom graphics.

Ideally you would like to find a designer who creates their own custom art according to your needs and here is why.

If the designer uses royalty-free stock images, your site won't be one-of-a-kind.  They may only be used once by that designer but the entire www has an option to use this illustration too. In addition, there are many legal license issues you need to know about when using royalty free graphics. For instance, they may not be used as any part of a logo or trade-mark.

If your designer intends to manipulate stock art and the designer is inexperienced they will look manipulated.  Look carefully at the designer's portfolio.  Most of the time you can spot an inexperienced designer a mile away.  Look for distortion, blurriness, jagged edges, edges that don't match the background, body parts or portions of the graphic that look pieced or copied together.

If the designer contracts out for custom illustrations, many times your message is lost and the design is not what you envisioned. Ask to speak directly to the illustrator.  I think quality is compromised whenever you start adding other people into the project.

2.) Ask do you have a waiting list?  If none, the designer most likely does not have a busy business or solid reputation, is working on more than your site at once which is never quality work in my book, or has other people doing the work.

3.) How long will it take to do the website?  If more than a few weeks, again the designer is not your top priority and most likely is working on other things. I personally have other small projects going on for down time during a project but rarely work on more than one website development project at a time.

4.) Will my site be search engines friendly? How? Will it be optimized? You need to study up on this. If your site is not search engine friendly nor has the structure to allow complete optimization, it's not going to generate any traffic and will be worthless.

5.) Can I update my website myself?  If not, all your hard earned money will be blown away each month on updates and having the designer available to you is an entirely different story.  There is no reason nowadays to not have a site that can be updated by you, every page, without experience. 

6.) Who will teach me to update my website, how, what is the support like?  Many designers install the ecommerce catalog and leave you stranded and abandoned with no clue of what to do.  Many ecommerce content management catalogs are not that easy to figure out if not impossible all by your lonesome. Ask previous clients what the designers' availability is like after the fact, when the site is done and all paid for.  What is the designers' response time like to questions via email? How easy was the catalog to learn? Does the designer offer an online teaching session to orient you to your catalog?

7.) If price is too good to be true find out why. Most likely the designer is primarily installing a catalog, no custom one of a kind graphics, no identity, no support, no one on one teaching, no search engine optimization etc... So cheap makes me wonder if you are getting what you need to have a successful business and/or the designer does not think highly of their own work. It will cost you much more in the long run for this kind of site.  I have received many clients who come to me to start all over, paying twice what should have been paid once if done right.

8.) Does your catalog require customers register to buy something?  Think again if yes, most hate the inconvenience of registering and will go elsewhere.

9.) Who will host my site and whose name is it in?  Is my product catalog installed on my host and can I take it with me wherever I may go? I would want the hosting and control of my website in my name on a server that the designer has no affiliation no matter how much I trusted the designer.  A recommendation by the designer is one thing; control of my bread and butter is an entirely different story.

10.) Does the web designer have recent testimonials and happy clients?  Do these clients still work with the designer with updates and additional frills after the fact?

11.) What are the terms of the production?  Get the details in writing, if something is not reasonable or standard for most designers, inquire more and find out why.