Cost of E-Commerce website?

[H6CJF]

I have decided that the time has come to set up an online shop to sit alongside our existing High St retail business. The question is how much should I expect to pay.

People I have spoken to so far seem reluctant to give even a ballpark figure without a fairly close brief on what I want. (having been in business to business sales myself I can understand this - you give someone a price and they just use it to shop around with) However, I dont want to waste my time or theirs going through this time after time.

In terms of functionality what I have in mind is something like http://www.motopike.com. However, I would stress that our business is in a completely different sector.

So, any web designers out there can tell me what I should expect to pay? (or pitch for it!)

Thanks


Chris

Edited by H6CJF on Tuesday 25th November 11:24

[Plotloss]

If you know anyone with even rudimentary web skills it is now simple to setup fully featured webshops with all the functionality you could want.

Design is worth paying for or potentially buying in as a template but these open source packages now make it all so easy as to keep it all very low cost.

[neneromanovagirl]

I'll PM you with a price for that website if i was to design and build it.

Edit:

hmmmm, ok. Won't let me email for the first 24hrs. if you want to contact me, you can go to www.digitalbutterfly.co.uk or just email me directly at [e-mail].

Edited by neneromanovagirl on Tuesday 25th November 11:38

[H6CJF]

neneromanovagirl.... you have mail

[JamieBeeston]

Hi Chris,

I'll have one of my guys get in touch.

Check out my profile, then let me know if you have any queries.

J

[neneromanovagirl]

just emailed you back

[neneromanovagirl]

pioneer said:

You can spend as much or as little as you like. Our first site cost around £5k and was crap. When we got serious we got quotes ranging from £10k to £250k. Ended up spending around £35k and the site does everything we want - and will turn over 7 figures in first year.

wow, that's huge amounts. obviously the price doesn't reflect the product though as you probably went to a big company didn't you, whereas I just work for myself and don't need to charge a lot for the same style of work and quality as I just have to pay myself. But also, the 7 figures you turn over doesn't necessarily represent the website as it also needs to have a good product and good advertising. I know you know this already but I just thought I'd say.

[JamieBeeston]

pioneer said:

I suppose it's all relative to the amount of turnover you are going to do. £35k is a lot of money but if it's a few days turnover then it isn't if you see what I mean? If you only have small plans for the site then I'm sure a site for a couple of grand will be fine.

Exactly.. it's all swings and roundabouts.

You can save money going small, but you then have the increased associated risks..

[DonnyMac]

Have it built in Open Source so you're not tied in, it's supported and any developer can run with it if yours disappears.
D

[The Moose]

you have mail...

[JohnV]

Well said, Donnymac. A lot of developers will try to tie you into their own proprietary Content Management System. Whilst this may seem great, be very aware that should you ever want to move to another provider or perish the thought, you fall out with them, what will you do if they don't give you the code?

At best, you will be left with the object code and not the source code. Your CMS will work - mostly, but should you want to make additional changes (apart from content) to 'your' site you could be stuffed. At worst, you will have a nice pretty site but no way of changing anything on it, all the code will be locked. Apologies if my technical terminology is wrong - I hope you can see what I mean. This also applies to simple run-of-the-mill websites that aren't ecommerce sites.

From my own experience an open source platform is much better as you can take it with you and will have access to many developers who should understand how to use it.

[neneromanovagirl]

JohnV said:

Well said, Donnymac. A lot of developers will try to tie you into their own proprietary Content Management System. Whilst this may seem great, be very aware that should you ever want to move to another provider or perish the thought, you fall out with them, what will you do if they don't give you the code?

At best, you will be left with the object code and not the source code. Your CMS will work - mostly, but should you want to make additional changes (apart from content) to 'your' site you could be stuffed. At worst, you will have a nice pretty site but no way of changing anything on it, all the code will be locked. Apologies if my technical terminology is wrong - I hope you can see what I mean. This also applies to simple run-of-the-mill websites that aren't ecommerce sites.

From my own experience an open source platform is much better as you can take it with you and will have access to many developers who should understand how to use it.

By law, if I am correct, if the customer has paid for the work that is done or being done, then they are entitled to all that they have paid for, source and everything. If the Business does not give you the coding or website domains, then you just go to court and they will give it back to you.

pioneer said:

Yes to a certain extent I agree with you, but what happens if you disappear in 6 months time? Going with an established company gives some security, plus our site enables us to change pretty much anything we want without having to speak to developers or have specialist skills ourselves.

That's not true. I worked for an established website company, and was made redundant in January, just like a work colegue (sp?) who left that place a year before and the company he worked for made him redundant too. His company was more established than mine so that says something.

[JohnV]

"By law, if I am correct, if the customer has paid for the work that is done or being done, then they are entitled to all that they have paid for, source and everything. If the Business does not give you the coding or website domains, then you just go to court and they will give it back to you."

Not necessarily the case in my experience. I can't speak with legal accuracy here, but my understanding is that they must give you your website back - that's what you have paid for after all [NB they can also be difficult in sending it back promptly]. If they are nice they will give you the object code for the CMS (this may also be required under law - not sure?) However, the source code is theirs and you probably only have a contract that allows you fair use of their code (their intellectual property), however, on termination they don't have to give it completely to you. They can lock it so that your new developers can't see it/ amend it. It will still be there and will work and will make your site perform, however, if you want to make more changes to your site your new developers will have to develop a lot of workarounds the locked source code. This will cost you more money. Maybe I am talking complete rubbish, but I did experience this once and this is the knowledge that I walked away with.

Going to court on a web issue isn't the best thing to do either as the laws aren't very clear at the moment and I would hate to be the sucker who has to pay for certain principles to be tested! Even if they 'by law' have to give you everything and you rely on taking them to court to get it - what happens to your business in the meantime if you can't put stock on your site or amend pricing, etc? Can you wait months?

Best to check the fine print up front and to cover your own back. Of course, everyone will say that they never fall out with anyone, but I suppose the fact we have a legal system is testimony to the opposite!

Apologies for taking you off topic slightly, as I know you were originally posting about cost, however, hopefully this is also helpful?

Edited by JohnV on Wednesday 26th November 15:05

[H6CJF]

Thanks for all th input folks. As you might might imagine I now seem to have the most poular e-mail address on P.H. lol

Joking apart, I can see I shall have to do my homework on this one as there are so many variables. Thanks to everyone who has got in touch with me direct and sorry if I havent got back to some of you.

Chris

[nekrum]

If you're after a fantastic open source solutions have look at magento http://www.magentocommerce.com/..

You'll just need to do (get done) a custom skin or use a template..

[deckster]

neneromanovagirl said:

By law, if I am correct, if the customer has paid for the work that is done or being done, then they are entitled to all that they have paid for, source and everything. If the Business does not give you the coding or website domains, then you just go to court and they will give it back to you.

You should brush up on your contract law...

By law, the customer is entitled to exactly what was written in the contract. If the contract doesn't say that they get access to or IP over the source code, then tough. If the contract doesn't say that the domain is theirs, then tough. This isn't consumer law where you get lots of automatic 'rights', this is the real world and the contract is king. It's also why contract lawyers get paid lots of money

[_Voyager_]

deckster said:

neneromanovagirl said:

By law, if I am correct, if the customer has paid for the work that is done or being done, then they are entitled to all that they have paid for, source and everything. If the Business does not give you the coding or website domains, then you just go to court and they will give it back to you.

You should brush up on your contract law...

By law, the customer is entitled to exactly what was written in the contract. If the contract doesn't say that they get access to or IP over the source code, then tough. If the contract doesn't say that the domain is theirs, then tough. This isn't consumer law where you get lots of automatic 'rights', this is the real world and the contract is king. It's also why contract lawyers get paid lots of money

Quite. neneromanovagirl clearly hasn't spent any time looking in to this at all.

[transactor]

mate have a look at cubecart, its well easy to use even i made a site out of it, speak to the designers/coders in the forums,, its UK based so support is readily available and its cheap,powerful enough for your requirements and has an extensive selection of mods available


oscommerce is good and has lots of mods but its very complex

if you ever need a project go to www.getacoder.com ive posted small projects on there in the past and had good response just be wary of all the guys in Asia sending you generic responses and claiming to have built loads of websites that they have not.

good luck either way shop around take your time and dont go spending tens of thousands whoever asks for that amount is takin the piss

[rich1231]

bks to spending many thousands.

Set a store up in August cost less than £1k and is approaching 175k of sales since.

[anonymous-user]

transactor said:

mate have a look at cubecart, its well easy to use even i made a site out of it, speak to the designers/coders in the forums,, its UK based so support is readily available and its cheap,powerful enough for your requirements and has an extensive selection of mods available


oscommerce is good and has lots of mods but its very complex

if you ever need a project go to www.getacoder.com ive posted small projects on there in the past and had good response just be wary of all the guys in Asia sending you generic responses and claiming to have built loads of websites that they have not.

good luck either way shop around take your time and dont go spending tens of thousands whoever asks for that amount is takin the piss

I looked at cubecart-check with your ISP as mine doesn't support v4 which you need for Google Checkout! Looked nice & easy though.