How much for a website to be designed

[Rictina]

This question has probably been asked many times before, so please forgive me as I cannot find it anywhere.

Could anyone tell me how much it would cost for a website to be designed for a new online retail business ?

[fisicx]

You could do it for (almost) free with some open source software or you could pay £100,000 for something amazonlike.

And then you need to consider hosting costs and marketing which for a competitive product could easily set you back another £100,00 per year. Or you could pay zero (but not get any business).

So to come up with a reasonalbe figure the prospective developer would need to know the product range and ecommerce model you aim to use and the designer would need to know all about your prospective customers. It also depends on how much work you are going to do. Are you generating you own content or are you intending to just dump a dropshippers catalogue onto the site?

So many questions....

[Tommo]

Just adding onto the above - A website doesn't have a set price.

You need to figure out exactly what you want, how it needs to work etc etc.
Then any developer/project manager worth their salt can sit down and show you the options available, Opensource with mods or a custom development (and so on....)

[los_design]

First question to me would be how much can I budget for.

Loads to be considered, but there is no point in finding a tip top designer for your site if you cannot afford it.

On the other hand, there is a huge danger in paying peanuts for a project like that.

There is no 'one size fits all' scenario in this instance. It all depends on what you want, the functions your store will be able to carry out, the hosting provisions you require etc, etc...

This is not an apsect to take lightly (or cheaply). On many forums you will be inundated with offers of "we can do this for £100.00 etc so proceed with caution.

Decide what you want in detail and then do your homework on design companies etc and if possible contact their previous clients for referals. Look at it as a long term investment and work from there. JMTC

(ps I do not design but if I did...it would cost in excess of £5k as a starting point)

Regards
Daren

[Rictina]

Thanks for the advice both. I do realise that its not easy to set a price on something like this, but I had no idea if it would cost £1.00, or like you say up to £100K.

I must admit that in my mind I did generally think in the region of £1,000.00 per web site.

Thanks again guys, your brill !! :)

[Rictina]

First question to me would be how much can I budget for.

Loads to be considered, but there is no point in finding a tip top designer for your site if you cannot afford it.

On the other hand, there is a huge danger in paying peanuts for a project like that.

There is no 'one size fits all' scenario in this instance. It all depends on what you want, the functions your store will be able to carry out, the hosting provisions you require etc, etc...

This is not an apsect to take lightly (or cheaply). On many forums you will be inundated with offers of "we can do this for £100.00 etc so proceed with caution.

Decide what you want in detail and then do your homework on design companies etc and if possible contact their previous clients for referals. Look at it as a long term investment and work from there. JMTC

(ps I do not design but if I did...it would cost in excess of £5k as a starting point)

Regards
Daren

Hi Darren, thanks for the reply & your honesty.

This is why I was wondering about the cost, whether I should have several websites selling differents lines, or just concentrate on one.

My budget is probably going to be in the region of £4 -£5 k.

Cheers.

[los_design]

Hi Darren, thanks for the reply & your honesty.

This is why I was wondering about the cost, whether I should have several websites selling differents lines, or just concentrate on one.

My budget is probably going to be in the region of £4 -£5 k.

Cheers.

No worries Rictina

IMHO as an ecommerce developer, as long as the products are all related then I would strongly suggest one site.

Mainly for the management and development aspect.

On top of this, I am certain if you (or whoever) manages your site going forward would be able to maintain and market 1 site much more effectively than several little sites.

But again, this is always down to you and your direction.

HTH

Regards
Daren.

[webhostuk]

If you are planing or a budget of 1000GBP ..I am sure you will get a fantastic site with good SEO optimization design and great site map that will be much easy to use and work around.

[oliver3487]

hey,
i got my two websites done by a self employed guy i heard about who did it for £200 each, i know people on blogs say they can do it for cheap etc but i took a bit of a risk with this guy i guess and he turned out to be really good, have a look at my two www universalsolar co uk and www universalfuels co uk there alright i thought

[los_design]

hey,
i got my two websites done by a self employed guy i heard about who did it for £200 each, i know people on blogs say they can do it for cheap etc but i took a bit of a risk with this guy i guess and he turned out to be really good, have a look at my two www universalsolar co uk and www universalfuels co uk there alright i thought

You are not wrong. Both look worth £200.

Good luck with them ;)

[J-Wholesale]

If you are planing or a budget of 1000GBP ..I am sure you will get a fantastic site with good SEO optimization design and great site map that will be much easy to use and work around.

I think you're living on Mars. £1000, from anyone who values themselves or their work, gets you a maximum or 3-4 days work, and that would include all the meetings, phone conversations, hand holding, etc. The possibility of getting a great designer, programmer, and SEO expert all rolled into one for that price is almost non-existent.

It's been said before, and it answers the OP's question perfectly: A website costs about as much as a car.

[bdw]

there alright i thought
The problem with this is that people who get cheap websites get something that is acceptable to them and they are more impressed by the price than the product. The websites referenced have several errors in them and there has been no search engine optimisation applied and many of the basic SEO rules have been broken. that is why they are PR zero.

They have many other problems that lay people do not notice including grammatical and spelling mistakes like "Managering Director", etc.

This is what makes it difficult for real web designers to compete. There are so many people churning out third rate stuff that uninformed people think is OK ... and many of our competitors work part time and don't pay tax like I do!

[Place of design]

The price depends on te effort the designer/developer needs to put in

To put this in perspective. Any decent designer can install and drop a template on a store and have it up and running, ready to add products and take money in a hour

That is the bricks and mortar equivelent of renting a shop, and buying some clothes racks and a till

What you are really being charged for is what happens next - the developer/designer then turns the bare shell of a store into a commercially acceptable product. Depending on your needs, it could be a few days work, to several months worth of hard work

This is the bricks and mortar equivelent of getting the shop fitters in

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will also secure the store, and train you to make backups an the like

This is the bricks and mortar equivelent of getting the locksmiths and alarm guys in, and employing a security gaurd

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will also sort the SEO and internet marketing framework out, and work with you to outline the long term marketing plan

This is the bricks and mortar equivelent of getting all the sinage, window dressing sorted

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will also install and sort out and bring you up to speed on analytics, webstats etc. This is your toolbox that helps you understand traffic and conversion

As I mentioned at the begining, you can rent a shop, and buying some clothes racks and a till open the doors, and make a few sales. Or you can rent a shop, get the shop fitters, locksmiths, alarm guys, signmakers and window dressers in and make lots of sales in a secure and beautiful environment

[bestforsextoys]

Hello

It does not cost that much i would try www.pomdesign.co.uk brill please let me know how you get on

Austin

[Rictina]

The price depends on te effort the designer/developer needs to put in

To put this in perspective. Any decent designer can install and drop a template on a store and have it up and running, ready to add products and take money in a hour

That is the bricks and mortar equivelent of renting a shop, and buying some clothes racks and a till

What you are really being charged for is what happens next - the developer/designer then turns the bare shell of a store into a commercially acceptable product. Depending on your needs, it could be a few days work, to several months worth of hard work

This is the bricks and mortar equivelent of getting the shop fitters in

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will also secure the store, and train you to make backups an the like

This is the bricks and mortar equivelent of getting the locksmiths and alarm guys in, and employing a security gaurd

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will also sort the SEO and internet marketing framework out, and work with you to outline the long term marketing plan

This is the bricks and mortar equivelent of getting all the sinage, window dressing sorted

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will also install and sort out and bring you up to speed on analytics, webstats etc. This is your toolbox that helps you understand traffic and conversion

As I mentioned at the begining, you can rent a shop, and buying some clothes racks and a till open the doors, and make a few sales. Or you can rent a shop, get the shop fitters, locksmiths, alarm guys, signmakers and window dressers in and make lots of sales in a secure and beautiful environment


Elizabeth, great post, thanks.

Rictina.

[bdw]

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will also ...

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will only do these things if contracted to do them. The client must understand and appreciate that there is a requirement for these services. If a client asks us to build them a website they only get SEO, etc. if they pay for it. We offer it but cannot force clients to take it.

[nagehiro]

Hello All,

I'm a newbie here and this is my first post and I find the site very educational and informative. Since I can not find any thread for new members to introduce themselves I just post here to contribute something to rictina post.

I suggest you try to outsource it via odesk dot com there are many qualified developers, designers and seo who charge low in that site, However you need to negotiate very well since some charge too high by the hour until the project is completed. I also suggest if you know someone personally from other oursourcing potential countries like india, china and the philippines they can offer cheaper alternatives to your satisfaction.

[bdw]

I also suggest if you know someone personally from other oursourcing potential countries like india, china and the philippines they can offer cheaper alternatives to your satisfaction.
And perhaps disappear, leaving you shafted at the first sign of any trouble.

[nagehiro]

And perhaps disappear, leaving you shafted at the first sign of any trouble.

Well I said personally :) also I've tried odesk and the majority of people there are from india china and the philippines and they work just fine.

[Place of design]

Any "GOOD" designer/developer will only do these things if contracted to do them. The client must understand and appreciate that there is a requirement for these services. If a client asks us to build them a website they only get SEO, etc. if they pay for it. We offer it but cannot force clients to take it.
This really boils down to communication. For virtually all the jobs where we have picked up the pieces from somone else, the underlying problems are communication & assumptions

There are 2 reasons for this - The first reason lays with the prospective store owner/store owner - I think anyone going down the route of getting an e-commerce store needs to spend time to really understand the issues. It's odd that people dont. In the more tangiable bricks and mortar world, they research harder, and they really consider decisions. In the online world, they are more prepared to be lead, or just blinker themselves to the detials

The second reason lays with the design/developer community. Many are too quick to assume what they are offering is what is needed, and is the "right fit" for the business. Some assume clinets will then go and outsourse SEO'ing a store. Some dont care a stuff, because they are making thier money doing what they are comfy with. Others spend the time to educate the clinet and "get them on he right path"

It maybee that the "incredibly easy" method of entry into the sector is the problem - you can set up a framework for selling in seconds, and with little or no understanding (that applies to both store owners and the web community)

[bdw]

I think that the problem is that people look at bottom lines. To the layperson a list of added stuff like SEO, marketing and stats often looks like expensive flannel because they do not appreciate how important it is. Educating them is a possibility when they are prepared to listen. Some of them are not interested or perhaps not smart enough to understand their own requirements.