How Much "Should" This Cost?

delllat

I am looking for a Small nice looking but Simple Site To sell goods.

I am not looking for something space-aged or original or even designed by a pro

A decent template would suit me great(as long as the links work and its easy to navigate)

It must incorporate a shopping cart and and paypal button and an email address for customers asking questions

I just need it to have seo

Id like to be able to update ,prices ,products and photographs myself as the goods will go in and out of stock frequently

Also need it to be in some easy format that will upload to one of the popular cheap hosts like godaddy or gatorhost etc

I was thinking of putting a contest on that design site and letting the students have a crack at it

I would like to keep costs low as possible since theres a good possiblilty of failure (like every new business!)

I have been quoted everything from 100euro right up to €3000+ for this

does anyone have any views on this or knowledge to share about how to do it best?

S.M.B.

Why would you want a site that's not designed by a pro? If you're looking for your business to suceed you should give it every chance possible by making sure your website (which I presume will be your only source of business) is of the highest quality.

cashmni1

From what you are looking for, you need a semi pro. Not quite a professional design house but someone who knows what they are doing and they should have no problem quoting you for the exact work. Unfortunately, a friend of mine just had a baby and is not doing this in his spare time any more. I will ask him if he knows anyone.
The student idea is ok but going forward, you will need to make adjustments and changes to the site and the student will be long gone. You need someone who will be around for a while, unless you make a complete change to the site.

delllat

I dont want to go overboard on price since im just exploring selling online without a platform such as amazon or ebay stores

This website wont be the only source of revenue and there is a chance that it wil get no customers at all in which case i dont want to waste much money

i had thought about doing it all myself but after about 6 hours of reading and still fully understanding everything i thought id better leave it to some one who knows what theyre doing or at the very least a student studying the subject

Solarpitch

I would say invest at least €1,000 on the project to get something that's decent enough. You say it might fail, fair enough but if it doesn't and you get alot of business you should make that back in no time.

Have you though about promoting the site also? Advertising? Google PPC (AdWords) etc. Without some promotion it would be hard to get any business. Alot of people invest in small online stoes and just take it that people will find there business via Google which isnt the case. SEO insn't an exact science and can take alot of time to progress up the ranks.

Also have you looked into the market for what your selling. Maybe some competitors websites and see if there is a market there for another online store. See how they rank in Google and what your up against. I presume you will be selling in Ireland only?

I don't know who quoted you €100... but I couldn't even begin to imagine what the site would be like for that sort of price. I'd stay way clear of anyone offering a website for that.... unless it was a family member doing you a really good favour

The Mighty Ken

delllat wrote: »

there is a chance that it wil get no customers at all in which case i dont want to waste much money

It beggars the question... why even bother?

delllat

theres always the possibility it might popular
in which case i will be prepared to spend more
but at the moment all im looking for is a page
i can send people to from ebay and the likes
this will enable selling to customers at slightly lower prices
and not having to give ebay a % of every sale

forbairt

The Mighty Ken wrote: »

It beggars the question... why even bother?

+1

You're going to invest X in your store at any rate. It doesn't really sound like you've done much background research apart from thinking ... I want a store.

You'll have realex (or another payment processing company) fees to deal with.
Hosting charges.
SSL cert

so automatically you're up to a couple of hundred quid (per year)

there are open source ecommerce solutions out there.

Magneto / OSCommerce / Zencart / Joomla with Virtua Cart + template.

If you're really not willing to spend though why even bother ? It doesn't sound like you're serious about it ? its more a oooh it'd be nice to have that ?

SEO for a store will probably be a ***** depending on what exactly you're trying to sell.

Marketing budget for PPC campaigns as well will probably run to a few hundred quid a month (again depending on what you're selling / volume)
(over a year 1k+)

As you said you may be able to drive the traffic to your site from Ebay ? or whatever though so maybe that'll cut down on costs.

Just a few thoughts on it all ...

squibs

I have been quoted everything from 100euro right up to €3000+ for this

Who quoted you €100? At minimum wage you wouldn't complete this project for less than €1000, and a good developer won't work for anything remotely like minimum wage.

The store will work for you 24/7/365 for free once set up. An initial outlay for an eventual return. Given the functionality you are looking at, I would say allow €3k+ to have it done right. You may find a 1st year student to do it cheaply, but it may be a false economy. The fact of the matter is that a lot of time needs to be invested in implementing a website like this, and it is so weird that people will pay 1000s for a print job or a merchandising order, but they think a website should cost a tenner.

delllat

I dont mind spending a few quid to get a decent job done

I was just trying to avoid unnecessary expense

Actuallly the guy who quoted the 100euro said for a basic site its just a matter of taking an existing template ,a half an hour of clicking and voila!

I havent the first clue about this kind of thinng ,hence i started this thread to hear from those who do know what theyre talking about

squibs

You might get lucky and find a whizzkid who will take it on for beer money, and be able to do it right, but theres a greater chance that they will make a hash of it and leave you with something unusable. If your €100 guy will take cash on delivery, you have little to lose, but I suspect he will want it in advance and then be back for more.

It also sounds like he was quoting you to put text into a free template which many others will have. This wouldnt include domain/hosting and it wouldnt include ecommerce, polls, etc.

I'd say do the sums and figure what profit you would realistically hope to make from it in a year. Does that justify an outlay of €2000+? If not, consider a brochure site and a contact form as a stopgap, which would be substantially cheaper.

forbairt

squibs wrote: »

I'd say do the sums and figure what profit you would realistically hope to make from it in a year. Does that justify an outlay of €2000+? If not, consider a brochure site and a contact form as a stopgap, which would be substantially cheaper.

+1 to everything squibs is saying ... get your business plan / projected figures together ... marketing budget and so on and figure out if its really viable ...

if not get your domain together .... and work on your logo / branding / blog style website over the next while.

Goodshape

I'd agree with what Squibs, Forbairt and others are saying.

You say you're after a small, 'simple' website... but with shoping carts, seo, content management (the ability to update products) and more, you're getting some distance away from what most developers would call 'simple' - and I'd expect the quotes you're getting to reflect that.

If you think you've got a business then spend the money and make that a reality. Otherwise get yourself a smaller brocure site and see where you go.

Based on your loose outline, 3k is by no means unreasonable and I'd be cautious of any serious developer offering to do the whole lot for much less.

Gordon

delllat wrote: »

theres always the possibility it might popular
in which case i will be prepared to spend more
but at the moment all im looking for is a page
i can send people to from ebay and the likes
this will enable selling to customers at slightly lower prices
and not having to give ebay a % of every sale

If that's all you want then just make a page with your email address on it for people to email you and you can email them back. If that's all you want.

pontovic

Remember the saying 'buy it cheap, buy it twice'. Like the others have said, if you want your site to succeed you have to be prepared to pay a proper professional to put it together for you and you also have to be prepared to put as much energy and time into it as they have.

I have had clients in the not-so-distant past who asked me to make them a website and put it online while completely ignoring my advice about search engine marketing. The site just sits there gathering dust now unfortunately because they expect it to start attracting customers. They also ignored my advice about keeping it regularly updated with fresh content.

To put it simply, if you want things done properly it will cost you around 3.5-4k depending on what you are trying to sell.

Selling popular items will command a higher CPC (Cost Per Click) rate.

Good luck with it.

jhegarty

squibs wrote: »

Who quoted you €100? At minimum wage you wouldn't complete this project for less than €1000, and a good developer won't work for anything remotely like minimum wage.

I would presume that's just for a simple install of oscommerce...

forbairt

jhegarty wrote: »

I would presume that's just for a simple install of oscommerce...

I hope to god so

you could always look on your control panel and see what 1 click installs there are. A lot of hosts come with 1 click installs for wordpress .. zencart ... oscommerce

egan007

€2500 baseline for this from a pro.
Selling online is not just about having a website.

CamperMan

This is very good advice.....

Solarpitch wrote: »

I would say invest at least €1,000 on the project to get something that's decent enough. You say it might fail, fair enough but if it doesn't and you get alot of business you should make that back in no time.

Have you though about promoting the site also? Advertising? Google PPC (AdWords) etc. Without some promotion it would be hard to get any business. Alot of people invest in small online stoes and just take it that people will find there business via Google which isnt the case. SEO insn't an exact science and can take alot of time to progress up the ranks.

Also have you looked into the market for what your selling. Maybe some competitors websites and see if there is a market there for another online store. See how they rank in Google and what your up against. I presume you will be selling in Ireland only?

I don't know who quoted you €100... but I couldn't even begin to imagine what the site would be like for that sort of price. I'd stay way clear of anyone offering a website for that.... unless it was a family member doing you a really good favour

littlegreenman

If you want to do it on the cheap, cheap...
Find a hoster that supports oscommerce, buy a design template from Monstertemplates for about 100 euro, link in with PayPal, and off you go.

However based on your posted messages, it sounds like any solution that is presented to you, will require an element of support? That's when it starts getting expensive, expensive

delllat

littlegreenman wrote: »

If you want to do it on the cheap, cheap...
Find a hoster that supports oscommerce, buy a design template from Monstertemplates for about 100 euro, link in with PayPal, and off you go.

However based on your posted messages, it sounds like any solution that is presented to you, will require an element of support? That's when it starts getting expensive, expensive

That sounds great,after careful consideration i have decided to do all the work myself based on the reasoning that if i put it all together i should have a better understnadinng of how it works and be better equipped to trouble shoot potential problems

I am currently trying to fiqure out if its better to get the domain,hosting,template,ssl ,checkout cart from one company or use multiple companies for all these things

Does anyone have any advice regarding using multiple companies for everything or is it better to just use the one ?