Forum Moderators: buckworks
I am trying to get a reasonable ballpark assessment of how much it should cost to get a basic ecommerce site installed, configured and setup ready to go from a-z, including:
1. online store
2. entry of 10 - 20 products.
3. creation of a nice header.
4. creation of a company logo.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
However if you were wanting a good shopping cart, merchant account, professional logo, etc...then I would expect to pay $1k-$2k.
This is just my estimate. I'm sure some people will say that's too cheap/expensive. The best thing for you to do is go and search the net for the services you want.
Tim
You can find low-ball prices in the $1-2K and also upper tier prices at $20K+. It would help if we knew if you were a cheapskate or willing to pay a fair price for reliable quality work and original designs.
What would be in a $20K store project that would not come with a $2K store project?
Sounds the $20K deal is something for an established business which already has a high volume and wants to take it to the next level.
I am refering to the type of shop for a small business owner who wants to go online with 10 - 20 products; someone who's not sure if he'll even sell anything or not online, just wants to give it a go with a decent, respectable shopping-cart based site.
Given these parameters are things a little easier to estimate?
Also, what do people recommend: a shop built with an open source cart like oscommerce/CRE/OscMax, or a commercial cart script?
What do you recommend to someone who's got a very small business, is cheap, knows only a little, and is willing to put in some work but can't program?
The same guy also did my Logo Creation, Business Cards, Business Letter Header, Envolopes etc for $399.. He even printed them all out.. I can get you in contact with the guy who worked out great for me if you would like.. just email me and I'll give you his info.. he is here in Dacula, Ga
But since I know nothing about being a webmaster I've now got a new hobby- :).. And I now have a site, but nobody to visit it, accept maybe a few hapless eBayers. It appears the real challenge seems to be getting the website where people can find it. This is my first visit and post to Webmaster World, but I think this is exactly the type of place I was looking for and hopefully I'll learn a lot from the members here and possibly be able to contribute a little to the community.
[edited by: lorax at 1:14 pm (utc) on Jan. 29, 2006]
[edit reason] No URLs please [/edit]
As far as shopping carts go asecurecart.net is very user friendly to a novice.. Its integrated with paypal and allows everything one should need for their business. creating products using their html wizard is too easy. 30 day free trial as well.. $14.95 a month after that.. Works awesome! Can even take credit card orders over the phone.. I don't know jack about anything, but asecurecart.net is some good software for a dummy for sure
We want a store which is expandable, as powerful as you can get so we can grow with it, has product attributes/options (eg. color, model, size, etc.).
Yahoo and those other simple stores just won't cut it.
Need something on the level of a CRE/OscMax.
As I said, there are about 10-20 products, will also need a logo, header template designed.
So far I have a range of $1,000 to $20,000. The $20K store features described is clearly not in the cards.
We also don't want a rinky dink store which will have to be replaced after a year or two. We want a store which will likely grow with the business to the level of a successful small online business (we don't need to be amazon).
Does this help? Any more estimates?
(BTW - I am NOT looking for offers to build the store, just would like to know what a store like this should cost.)
Thanks.
This plus your desire to avoid a Yahoo type store then I'd say you'd be looking at one of the off-the-shelf solutions customized to suit your needs. If you're looking for a quick-n-dirty logo/letterhead package then I'd budget about $500-$700. The cart: $2500-$5000 depending on how much customization you'd want.
There are a number of pre-packaged carts. Review them and the functionality they provide then find a developer who is familiar with one or more of them. Ideally the designer/developer will be able to help steer you toward the right cart for your needs.
IMO, low ball quotes tend to give you exactly what you pay for so unless you know exactly what you want and just need the technical expertise to build it, you may want to look at the mid-range. For example, if you need some hand-holding and education along the way, then a bit higher price might be worth it.
This thread is very helpful for me. Hopefully others are finding it helpful as well.
So, in the $2,500 to $5,000 price range: Is that just for installation/configuration/setup of the cart with products?
Or, would that price range also normally include the few "standard" pages of a surrounding website that the cart integrates into (about us, contact, policies, FAQ, etc.)?
Thanks to all those participating. Keep it up!
The initial estimate was the basic package + around $1500 for custom features etc, and about 3 weeks time.
6 months later they had spent over $14,000 and it still was not online, and the owner was searching for the 3rd developer to take over the project.
We have had an online store since 1997, and have seen and tried a few options, and have seen others try many many more. And the bottom line is with custom stores you can get exactly what you want - but you may also be tied forever to it, and you may be tied forever to the programmer/developer that designed it.
And just for the record, we sold $9.2 million on our crappy Yahoo store last year :)
Real Cheap - Free hosting or under $5 per month I used one for $10 per month with a cart provided that worked well until I was up to 400 products. Expect about $10-20 per page for products and basic store information. If you can type you can create them your self easily with most current carts and software. $100-200 will get you basic necessary custom graphics you might want to go the rent a coder overseas route.
If you are looking for all of the most requested features,
Under $500 should do fine probably $399. A good cart will have a forum and/or a list of developers that specialize in modification/installation of the cart. $500 if you find someone hungry but $1000-2000 generally.
I would not consider more than that unless you have an underlying business that is going to support it and benefit from it. ie ( opening an online channel to a major B&M)
When I went looking for a redesign and implementation of a new cart for a 700 page 1000 product the bids ranged from $3000 to $50,000. We did it in house ok but still need some professional help after 4 months with one part time semi skilled person. Clean up estimates $500 to 1500.
Your real cost / effort should go to getting traffic to the site. I would recommend a 2 to 1 to 10 to 1 ratio. Getting this done is much more of an art than setting up the site
Expect wasted time and money in trial and error.
About the only thing I would take issue with is that the ecommerce should include a forum - I would strongly suggest that if you want a user and/or support forum that you use a 3rd party solution, like phpBB or [simplemachines.org...] - both are essentially free and work very well unless you get thousands of posters per day, then you would want Lithium or a similar platform.
or,
a site of which a store is a part of (so when the user first arrives at the site, he doesn't immediately feel like he is in a store, he reads about the company, maybe some news articles about the company, the services the company offers, general info about the products the company has, etc., and ALSO there is a link to the "store" where you can purchase the products.
Which do you think is better? Which should sell products better?
