gpilling - 3:00 pm on Nov 29, 2009 (gmt 0)

Time and time again, I win proposals in a literal ocean of lowball $50 bids. It's seldom about price, and I am beginning to believe, it's NEVER about price with a serious client. If it is, I (and you) don't need that job.

I agree, especially with a cart type site. I do mostly work on my own things, with occasional work for other people. On one of my own projects this past year I have spent $thousands on wages for a person to upload product into the cart. You might think this is insane, but the effort required to organize and optimize data that you get from many manufacturers is a real nightmare. Each one codes their widgets differently, needs to have html coded into the descriptions, cross linked intelligently (not automated), with the correct keyword, descriptions etc.

If your client is too cheap for real hosting and PCI compliance, they are never going to be able to afford everything else they will need to do. As rocknbil says, they are not a serious customer.