Website contruction

[toeless 12]

I'm needing rough prices for setting up a website for an online based company.

I need it to work like eBay with constant images being added as well as a checkout system linked to PayPal.

Can anyone help, I need prices first to submit an application for s grant

[indizine 10]

You can't just ask a question like that and expect even a rough price.

 

You need to sit down and draft up the specification for exactly how it will work - every page, every function, etc.

 

Most designers won't sit down with someone and do this for free as you are likely to then go out and get more quotes, and go with the cheapest and not the one who put the hard work into working out the best spec for you. Just bear that in mind.

 

If the F word is involved, people also tend to bump up the price. Bear that in mind too.

 

You want quotes from people without mentioning funding, where you provide the spec, or if they draft it for you, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that spec meets your requirements. Use a novice and they will try and give you a basic wordpress install and a couple of plugins which may not actually do what you wanted.

 

You can't say "like ebay" - you do not have hundreds of thousands of pound and neither does your funders. You won't come remotely close. Find out what the grant is likely to pay up to. If you are only getting £1k, forget it for any kind of decent auction site you are looking at a few thousand and more, depending on what you thin you want it to do. And you will always say "and can you just" - well "can you just add this" costs extra money if it wasn't included in the quote.

 

You want to tell someone what you want the site to do, and they can provide a price once they have worked out what you need, without providing you with the breakdown of the spec as such, as I would if I were quoting, saying this is what you would get for XXX pounds. This is better than you trying to drum up a spec or thinking they will do one for free.

Edited November 19, 2013 by indizine

[toeless 12]

Thanks for your guidance, is this what your qualified in and would you be willing to help devise exactly what u may need.

Pls pm me.

[SportsTrophy 10]

mmm, I think its not fair just yet to play the robot tune but I think its coming. I was at an e-commerce conference at the ebay/Paypal offices London and the building is pretty impressive. Have a word with dotforge

Edited November 22, 2013 by SportsTrophy

[rsfc 10]

I'm needing rough prices for setting up a website for an online based company.

I need it to work like eBay with constant images being added as well as a checkout system linked to PayPal.

Can anyone help, I need prices first to submit an application for s grant

 

Did you get this sorted? If not I can help.

 

---------- Post added 04-12-2013 at 10:36 ----------

 

Did you get this sorted? If not I can help.

[willford 10]

Did you get this sorted? If not I can help.

 

---------- Post added 04-12-2013 at 10:36 ----------

 

Did you get this sorted? If not I can help.

 

Please contact me on 07525191864 to discuss my own website requirements.

[mmitchell 10]

Give Nigel Dodds a call on 07931642656. He has sorted all my website out for me. Very happy with what he has done for me

Thanks

M Mitchell

[ConorRhys 10]

Give Nigel Dodds a call on 07931642656. He has sorted all my website out for me. Very happy with what he has done for me

Thanks

M Mitchell

 

Hello, i have had a look at your site - that is a simple Wordpress blog, the designer of this may not be able to design an e-commerce site.

 

I would find a company that is specifically e-commerced based as they know what helps a website sell for your specific market.

 

I would recommend Magento, it is the leader e-commerce platform and is actually owned by eBay (well google) so you know that it is quality.

 

Visit my site in the sig to get an idea of what is possible with Magento - i built mine myself (7 years web development experience).

 

I can tell you for a fact, that people who say "You need to sit down and talk" are just companies that will bump up the price for everything you say.

 

For example you'll say "I need a button to add it to the cart" they will say "Ohhh, a button - that will cost you".

 

Basically, you have a selection of e-commerce packages and platforms that you can choose from (if i was you i would do some research on this) and it gives you a fully functional website, you will just need to pay for someone to re-skin it with your brand image, and if you need some stupidly complicated functionality that's when you will be looking at extra costs.

 

Most open source platforms (Magento, Zen Cart, Click Cart Pro) have a wide range of free extensions (pre-build add ons for the platform) for just about anything, integrating with Facebook, calculating dynamic shipping etc.

 

Don't get me wrong, i'm against "WYSIWYG" website builders such as 1 & 1, you will never have a quality website, but i can guarantee you - you will get a fully functional website, skinned how you wish to do what you want for around £500 + hosting and domain costs.

 

If you need anymore information, just contact me - and if you wanted i could build you one, i would just need some information on your color scheme, your logo and you would have a functional website in a week - then we would go from there discussing any extra functionality you may need for it to work specifically for your business.

 

Do not go for any bespoke e-commerce platforms, this puts you in a cage as you are tied to the company you originally start with - it is their own platform which is entirely bespoke and if you want to change anything they will charge you an arm and a leg because they can because they are the only people that can do it.

 

Key points to take from this:

 

1.Go open source

2.Don't listen to big companies charging you hideous amounts.

3.Contact me if you want any more suggestions or information on platforms.

[indizine 10]

if suggesting Magento, you need to make the OP aware of the heavy resource requires that Magento requires.

 

Sit down and talk does not equal adding to costs at all. Perhaps to some but then, there are cowboys in many if not all industries.

 

Sit down and talk is about meeting client expectation. if you are a web developer for commercial clients you will know all too well that they don't give all the finite detail of what they expect. They say "can you just...." quite often.

 

Well, "can you just" can range from making a button a darker shade of green (no cost there, fine) or it could be in fact, custom coding (extra cost with ANY decent developer)

"so when customers place an order it sends me a form with all components of the item showing their individual costings, with my specific codes at the side and when clicked, they send an email to the supplier who knows to charge an extra £5 delivery for that component". I made that up, but you get my drift.

 

They may not say that to you when they "want a site to sell my products online" but as you get going, disaster could occur if you did not sit down and talk to fully explore the end to end sales/order processes of the cart, etc, and make sure the client knows what they are getting from you, and that you have discussed and will provide exactly what they need (because you talked about it, then you clearly described it in the quote) so they are clear what that website will do when they take ownership.

 

Otherwise, just Google and read all the stories. It's all down to us asking the right questions insofar as we can to understand what the client exactly wants, we then quote for exactly that and make it clear that anything extra WILL COST (unless it's minor amendments of course).

 

However we should advise as best we can, warn in advance where we can, be impartial to making more money when it's not in the clients interest to have something they really do not need, and work to our clients best interests.

 

That does not mean they end up getting lots of free work for nothing, and we also don't work for nothing. But it means their expectations were met for the price they felt fair, and it is for the client to undertake due diligence and compare on LIKE FOR LIKE quotes to ensure that price was indeed, good value for money. The supplier then should make sure they supply to the client, exactly everything they quoted for, and nothing less.

[ConorRhys 10]

Just like cowboys, there will always be people looking to prey on people who are not totally clued up. Web development is a complicated thing - and hidden costs often crop up, a web development company would suggest you a fully paid, fully bespoke platform over one of the open source ones that are available if it makes them more money, even if it would not be the best choice for yourself.

 

Clearly, the OP is a start up business - wanting to start an online company. This means he has no company profile, no requirements its just a START UP company which means he does not know exactly what he needs as of yet.

 

How can you quote him for something he does not know the requirements for?

 

By the way, no Magento is not a massively resource hungry platform. You will find people who claim this have a poorly set up server or have not optimised the site correctly.

 

Magento can easily be optimised for a 2 second first page load and 100/100 Google speed rank. Either way, if you are thinking about seriously starting an online business you would want to avoid shared hosting anyway so the choice should be at least a VPS.

 

So Indizine, what would you suggest for him?

[sharpend 11]

I think the first steps *before* jumping into bed with developers and arguing the toss over button colours, server loads and all that should be some very simple ones.

 

1. WHAT is going to be sold? And how is it going to be shipped.

2. Do people ACTUALLY buy this online? (yeah remarkable I know)

3. HOW are you going to get them to the store? - traffic - and away from the million and one other online stores. (And I mean a proper traffic strategy rather than just a few self promo tweets)

 

Building the store is the easy bit ...

[ConorRhys 10]

Sharpend basically said what i as trying to say in about 1/10 the amount of words.

 

Building the store is the easy bit

Edited December 18, 2013 by ConorRhys