Market rate for simple website

[Bubzeebub]

What is the market rate for a simple 5 page e-commerce site selling a handful of products at most?

[diamondgrl]

First, define what you mean by market rate. Purchase price of the business? Market rate for designing the site? Market rate for designing and building all components of the site, including a shopping cart?

[Bubzeebub]

Market rate for designing and building all components of the site, including a shopping cart

[pleeker]

The market rate for any project depends largely on the market you're in. In our (smallish) metropolis, we can't charge what they do in Seattle, San Francisco, etc. Market wouldn't support it.

[Jon_King]

Hugely different price to implement your own shopping cart software vs. something 'pre-setup' like Yahoo Shopping or Paypal.

If I had just a few items and the budget is low I'd do Yahoo or Paypal. If you are going for a higher end site with all kinds of features, buy and implement shopping cart software for complete customization capabilities. IMHO

[Bubzeebub]

The thing is...even with one or two products for sale don't you run the risk of losing customers going with Yahoo or PayPal? I mean most customers who see Yahoo or PayPal on a site instead of a regular cc merchant account look at the site as amateurish and run. What are your thoughts on this?

[Bubzeebub]

Also, in addition to that, what are the pros and cons to going with a Yahoo store or PayPal instead of an actual merchant account?

[Jon_King]

Yes and no. Depending on the product and the customer demographic Paypal or Yahoo can work just fine. I currently have 3 Paypal 'stores' that return excellent results. As a side note, Paypal no longer requires you to sign up for an account making it much more like a merchant account. I'm not advocating Paypal as I also have merchant account sites for the exact 'company image' reasons you mentioned, they just cost much more to implement.

[Bubzeebub]

Can anyone give me a ballpark figure what would be acceptable for a custom designed site selling no more than 5 products without a separate shopping cart/gateway setup? I know if varies but a rough estimate is all I'm looking for. Thanks!

[Bubzeebub]

...and thanks Jon...appreciate your reply as well as the others.

[nancyb]

That's kinda like going to a dress maker and asking how much a purple dress with ruffles will cost if the size is small. I'm not trying to be a smart alec, but there are so many variables no one could give you a "market price" based on your limited description.

One thing you might try is looking at some of the quotes on many of the web design sites. A number of them list estimates for small sites and that may give you an idea, especially if there are some examples of pages. Realize that many of those will be template sites with little, if any, customization. Also, these probably won't include optimizing the site for your market. Might offer some insight though.

[Hennatron]

With a straightforward design, no additional graphics required, no special functionalitty, payment gateways setup and your 5 product pages....

you would not want to pay more than $1000 / £500-600 for professional work.

You may need to ask yourself the following before contacting a webdesign company so you can elicit your exact requirements:

Who will update the pages?
Do I need a simple admin tool? (more £)
Will the site scale if I decide to add more products?
Who will host the site? (if them, more £)
Who will configure the email accounts? (more £)
How will extra work (if needed in the future) be charged? (more £)

Hope that helps

H

[Bubzeebub]

Thanks. Obviously there's a difference between a custom site and a template site. Oftentimes when I go to a site I can immediately tell if it is cheap or amateurish. Sometimes I leave the site and won't buy from them for this very reason. Question is can most people distinguish what a weakly designed site is?

[Bubzeebub]

Maybe it's just me but when I see an e-commerce site where the font and product images are so tiny that you need a microscope to see them, I automatically think it's an amateur job!

[Essex_boy]

amateurish and run - Mine are and I get around 1% conversion rate.

A TV cartoon merchandise site I used to have looked this way it grossed a mint last Xmas, with the added bonus that peolpe saw it was obvious that it was a hobbist site and quite often approached me via email for gear they couldnt find.

Now that may happen on other sites but with this I felt the look was very helpful.

The site Ive just setup - im not so sure this will help. Have to wait and see.

So I think it depends on just what your trying to sell and to whom.

[Raymond]

A 5 products shopping site with custom-made shopping cart should cost you no more than $500USD.

It probably doesn't come with backend management system of any sort though. (ie. inventory management system that sync with order database and accounting database.)