What to do

[Simon_M]

Hi all, new to the forum so go easy ;)

I will try to keep this as short as possible.

I have being running my business on eBay since 2003, with the current changes they have made the site is becoming less feasible to sell on, I still make a profit but that is getting less each year.

I am looking to get a new website but have no experience with building websites, and even with the likes of EKM I am struggling to get my head around it. I had a website "made" around three years ago and all i got was a disc with a load of files and folders on it, the company offered no support at all, this little lot cost me £350!

I was thinking of maybe contacting a few web design companies and offering a deal based on a percentage of profits from the website. So basicaly they build it and look after it and I pay a pre agreed percentage of the profits from the site monthly. As this area is new to me I have no idea how long it would take for it to start turning a profit or indeed if it would make a profit as I guess this is down to how well the site is marketed etc.

To give you an idea of my eBay profits these vary from week to week, and now day to day due to the new search problems, for example one day last week my profit was in excess of £600 and the total for the week was nearly £2k, however this is offset by weeks that I end up paying more to eBay than I have earned.

The products I sell are custom built PC's, looking at my omniture stats I get a lot of hits from web forums, the general consensus is the same, my prices are excellent as are the systems but people won't buy because they don't trust eBay, this even though my feedback is 100%

Does anyone think my suggestion regarding contacting web builders is worth persuing, or does anyone have any other suggestions on where to go from here?

Thanks in advance

Simon

[gibby]

Its a big gamble for the web designers and if you cant pull a few hundred quid together then I would class you as a bit of a risk
you also need to think on promoting the site to get your business, as just having a great site wont give you an income

There are quite a few places that only charge £30 a month for a basic site.
This may be a good option until you have some funds behind you

the other option is to use a cheap host - like www.pcs-net.com as you can enough webspace for £25 a year, get a domain & build an easy to website with cubecart. they do a free version I think & a paid for at around £100

otherwise find £500 - £1000 and get someone to do it all for you

HTH

G

[websnail]

Much as the "share of the profit" idea might seem sensible try putting yourself in the other guys shoes and consider what they're going to want in return to feel "safe". Also, look around at what other folks on both sides have experienced in the long term of deals like this. I suspect it won't be all good..

Having considered ideas like this myself and recently found myself in a similar situation where capital is going to be required I've realised the smart move is to write up the business plan in detail. That way you gain a carefully analysed report of how your business is working, changes, possible factors and your longer term prospects.

If it's a good plan you could then approach a bank and look at a business loan or you'd at least have a proposition that an alternate investor would be able to examine carefully. It certainly can't hurt..

[mke]

Simon, you're in a pretty well saturated market place, no matter how good your offering is. In my experience, those web builders/hosts/designers who are most likely to go for such a deal as you suggest are new businesses and there is no guarantee they will be around for long. Anyone more established having to resort to such methods to get clients is unlikely to be much good. Sorry, but that's my honest opinion, based on experience.

Your best bet is to take a look at an Open Source ecommerce package, preferably a free one such as Zen Cart, OSCommerce, there are several more but they are the most popular, have the biggest development teams and you can rest assured they will be around for the next five, ten, whatever years and more. Then find a good hosting company who can provide PHP and MySQL facilities and support, because most such systems are built on PHP and MySQL.

We could certainly do a deal for you, but we are not in the market to starve so it won't be free.

[Simon_M]

Hi, thanks for the replies, the cash is not the main issue. I am after a complete package and looking around at what is on offer I seem to be hitting a brick wall. My knowledge of HTML ends at designing my listings in Frontpage and uploading them to eBay. If there was a similar system that I could use for a website this would be a great start.

I had a web company visit me and when I asked them a simple question "will your website generate me an income" the answer was "this cannot be guaranteed", yet in the same breath they wanted me to sign a contract with them for two years at £199 per month.

My product range is very small, a maximum of 20 items, however margins are very good. The website would not need much attention as the product specs may only change once a month or so.

I guess what I am after is somone to hold my hand and the vast majority of companies I have approached seem unwilling to do this.

I currently pay around £12000 a year to eBay and would happily spend this elsewhere. I have become so dependant on eBay that moving to a website is a big deal and I want to get it right.

Thanks for your advice.

Simon

[Simon_M]

Simon, you're in a pretty well saturated market place, no matter how good your offering is. In my experience, those web builders/hosts/designers who are most likely to go for such a deal as you suggest are new businesses and there is no guarantee they will be around for long. Anyone more established having to resort to such methods to get clients is unlikely to be much good. Sorry, but that's my honest opinion, based on experience.

Your best bet is to take a look at an Open Source ecommerce package, preferably a free one such as Zen Cart, OSCommerce, there are several more but they are the most popular, have the biggest development teams and you can rest assured they will be around for the next five, ten, whatever years and more. Then find a good hosting company who can provide PHP and MySQL facilities and support, because most such systems are built on PHP and MySQL.

We could certainly do a deal for you, but we are not in the market to starve so it won't be free.

Thanks for the reply Mike. The PC market is saturated I agree. However my customer service skills are second to none, I am also very good at selling my systems, I get a lot of sales from people calling me from my eBay listings, and due to the way the calls are handled I invariably will do the deal. A lot of PC sellers have a poor reputation and this is where I can and do set myself apart. eBay fees are ever growing and with all the changes they have made I need to look elsewhere to move forward with my business.

[mke]

Wow! I know I said we won't starve, but £200/month=£2,400paa for a 20 product web site is an awful lot to ask.

[davidjohnfarmer]

Hi Simon M,

I've just been referred to this thread by PhilDPho - I'm a web designer based in the midlands (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire).

I've been looking for potential companies to partner up with - what you suggest as a profit-sharing scheme is exactly what i'm after.

I've been designing websites for 7 years, I graduated in 2003 and since then have work for several small web design firms but now work at a leading provider - in my spare time I still chip away at my own projects.

Ive built everything from small websites to large scale corporate stuff and this month, I had a website (that i designed/developed whilst working in my employment) published in Web Designer Magazine as an eccommerce case study (page 89).

Where are you based? Are the PC's high-end gaming machines or just run-of-the mill stuff?

Thanks!

[mke]

I guessed you must be very good if you're keeping headway in that market. I've sent you a PM - must have been typing that and my last post while you were typing yours. From what you've added, you have various options open which we can talk through.

[Simon_M]

Hi Simon M,

I've just been referred to this thread by PhilDPho - I'm a web designer based in the midlands (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire).

I've been looking for potential companies to partner up with - what you suggest as a profit-sharing scheme is exactly what i'm after.

I've been designing websites for 7 years, I graduated in 2003 and since then have work for several small web design firms but now work at a leading provider - in my spare time I still chip away at my own projects.

Ive built everything from small websites to large scale corporate stuff and this month, I had a website (that i designed/developed whilst working in my employment) published in Web Designer Magazine as an eccommerce case study (page 89).

Where are you based? Are the PC's high-end gaming machines or just run-of-the mill stuff?

Thanks!


Hi, I am based in North Wales. My business has shifted towards gaming machines, basically if you do this right the profits are excellent. To give you an idea one system I sell retails at £549, gross margin is £142, and bear in mind this is selling on eBay where the vultures hang out!

I am very pro active when it comes to customer service and people will pay extra for this, so my reasoning is that if I can get away from the stigma of eBay and have a slick website my profits will increase further.

BTW I was born and bred in Burslem :D

[Lisette]

I think that you should find the money to buy a site. If you use a decent web developer you will be able to easily get some minor ongoing support to change products etc if you do not want to invest in a content management system. You can look round the forum to get a feel for the web developers who have a good reputation. I would recommend Creospace who have done a lot of sites for me (but I have a vested interest in their success these days so want to be upfront about this - I liked what they did so much that I very recently have become a shareholder). CS New Media is your best bet for hosting. I think that your real challenge is going to get found on a website rather than e-bay where you are more visible - you therefore will need to factor in the cost of some SEO.

You might also want to consider selling via other PC build sites - you will have to share margin but it could be less than the website and/or ebay.

I really would not go with a monthly pay site - they are expensive mid term.

I looked at some 'at risk' deals and found that as a minimum developers will want 25% up front which is fair enough but given your proposal it could be higher. Also if you go with one of these I strongly recommend that you place a cap on their earnings - so something like - 50% of the profits up to 2x price of developing the site - so they take some risk and delay getting their money and get, say, twice what they might otherwise earn but you are not stuck with giving away your profits forever. Or you ensure that this is done as a partnership and include them doing the SEO and site marketing side in which case this can be more of a long term partnership. You need to also be clear that the site, domain, content etc all belong to you so that you do not lose your business if you decide to do something different. You do not want to change sites or domains once established since your search engine placings will be tied up with this.

Lisette

[davidjohnfarmer]

Hi, I am based in North Wales. My business has shifted towards gaming machines, basically if you do this right the profits are excellent. To give you an idea one system I sell retails at £549, gross margin is £142, and bear in mind this is selling on eBay where the vultures hang out!

I am very pro active when it comes to customer service and people will pay extra for this, so my reasoning is that if I can get away from the stigma of eBay and have a slick website my profits will increase further.

BTW I was born and bred in Burslem :D

Hi Simon,

PM me your details - discuss further on skype or msn?

[davidjohnfarmer]

What lisette makes perfect sense - however, you should ALWAYS host with your web design company to avoid any complications with maintenace and monitoring.

Its also essential that your website is on a UK server, which has an uptime guarantee. 3 days downtime can effect search engine placements (and of course, you wouldnt be making any sales).

Of course, this does depend on who you go with - small web design companies use cheap servers or resell other companies servers. "Proper" web design companies have their own servers, 4 hour replacement plans with the manufacturers (protection plans) and have them managed in datacenters by specialists.

[Lisette]

Interesting thought djf re hosting. I have a managed dedicated server so host all my sites on this. My web developer has access. I would be worried about recommending hosting with ones web developer since if you decided to change developers you are somewhat at their mercy. I did host with my first site developer for about 3 years and they were great when I decided to move it - really helpful - worked with CS New Media to transfer it and stuff like that but you do see a lot of posts where the developer is somewhat less professional and the unhooking a real mess (especially for the less technically gifted).

Agree re UK based server and also checking the support levels and stuff like that

[davidjohnfarmer]

Oo dedicated servers are a different ball game - no need for an SME to spend so much mind =)

[Lisette]

lol - this is becoming a chat - the one where I moved from my web developer is just standard shared hosting (windows) - the others are multiple and on a dedicated server - I do white label sites for people as well and the hosting is included - so a different ball game. I was talking more generally about this when I was saying 'careful about losing control of your site to your developer unless you are confident of the long term relationship and/or have a really strong contract in place and a decide back up of your site.'

[davidjohnfarmer]

interesting... so what is it you do lisette? =)
(pm me - save scewing up this thread!)

[Carl-CSNM]

What lisette makes perfect sense - however, you should ALWAYS host with your web design company to avoid any complications with maintenace and monitoring.

Its also essential that your website is on a UK server, which has an uptime guarantee. 3 days downtime can effect search engine placements (and of course, you wouldnt be making any sales).

Of course, this does depend on who you go with - small web design companies use cheap servers or resell other companies servers. "Proper" web design companies have their own servers, 4 hour replacement plans with the manufacturers (protection plans) and have them managed in datacenters by specialists.

Do not agree with this at all, a large number of our clients previously used to host their websites with their web developers and quickly found out their web developers could not offer a high level of hosting technical support, when they needed it and when problems did occur (especially on weekends) there was no one around to speak too.

[mke]

I'm with Carl-CSNM again. Quite right. Added to which, for a start up, is it sensible to have something developed from scratch or on a small company proprietary system anyway?

A widely used application, source code available, means another developer/designer/team can pick it up and run with it if all goes wrong at the original supplier's place, for whatever reason and no matter how good they are. Design on such a system is not a problem, they do tend to be very flexible.

I make no apologies for the fact that I am always against lock-ins, even when accidentally created. At least, not until all parties concerned know each other well enough to walk into it with their eyes wide open.

[davidjohnfarmer]

Do not agree with this at all, a large number of our clients previously used to host their websites with their web developers and quickly found out their web developers could not offer a high level of hosting technical support, when they needed it and when problems did occur (especially on weekends) there was no one around to speak too.

hmmm it seems you missed this bit: ""Proper" web design companies have their own servers, 4 hour replacement plans with the manufacturers (protection plans) and have them managed in datacenters by specialists."

I agree with what you're saying though - never host with a freelancer/single developer/small firm.

[Carl-CSNM]

hmmm it seems you missed this bit: ""Proper" web design companies have their own servers, 4 hour replacement plans with the manufacturers (protection plans) and have them managed in datacenters by specialists."

I agree with what you're saying though - never host with a freelancer/single developer/small firm.

I didn't miss it. ;)

There aren't many "proper" web design companies out there, even if the server is managed, you won't find any member of staff at a "proper" web design company communicating with clients about the problems at 3am on a Sunday morning. Not in my experience anyway.

*Some* web design firms usually charge over the odds for hosting too.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Carl is correct many web dev's charge more for the hosting to make the money back on the design they charge next to nothing for the design but lock client's into a 12 month, £25 per month deal.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket unless you do your research on the company everything from history, how long they have been established if its an Ltd you can check to see when they last filed accounts and how long they have been registered. Also do a google search on the company’s name and URL, helpful info usually appears. Sole traders are harder to find info on but if you know where to look you can verify they are registered and are submitting accounts etc

[stugster]

Sole traders are harder to find info on

I disagree with that point. A genuine sole trader will make his details known when it comes to parting with your cash. If he doesn't, then you should look elsewhere.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

I disagree with that point. A genuine sole trader will make his details known when it comes to parting with your cash. If he doesn't, then you should look elsewhere.

Thats my point "if they give the correct details", don't get me wrong most sole traders are very decent companies, long standing etc but you do get the odd few that don't provide the correct info and unlike ltd companies you can't do a search easily to find out if a sole trader actually exists.

[rpetrie]

Hi ,
my company animalwebdesign can create a website for you at a more cost effective rate than you think. We also look at getting your site to rank well with google.

Richard Petrie

[mke]

Why on earth would anyone go to all that trouble to check out a company's credentials? Are you suggesting you wouldn't do business with a newly registered business? How would you know their previous track record? My company is less than three years old but we have well over 100 years of programming experience across a large number of platforms between the six of us.

In my - longer than most of you's because I'm older than most of you - experience, you get a lot more out of a short telephone discussion with a supplier than going through a ton of statutory but not necessarily relevant information.

Sorry guys, but far from offering good advice, you're actually saying "if you are new in business don't come here because we will be delighted to take your money but will never give you any of ours".

I have no doubt that's not what you intended to do, but that's how it came across to me.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Why on earth would anyone go to all that trouble to check out a company's credentials? Are you suggesting you wouldn't do business with a newly registered business? How would you know their previous track record? My company is less than three years old but we have well over 100 years of programming experience across a large number of platforms between the six of us.

In my - longer than most of you's because I'm older than most of you - experience, you get a lot more out of a short telephone discussion with a supplier than going through a ton of statutory but not necessarily relevant information.

Sorry guys, but far from offering good advice, you're actually saying "if you are new in business don't come here because we will be delighted to take your money but will never give you any of ours".

I have no doubt that's not what you intended to do, but that's how it came across to me.

Its not about that if your going to spend a decent amount of money your going to ask questions, try and get to speak to a previous client you don't want a company running off with your money. A small business spending £300 - £500 on a site can't afford for the money to vanish.

There are issues with hosting directly with a developer you might not have direct access to the website code so if you fall out you can't take the site you have paid for elsewhere unless naturally they are a decent company and let you go where you want.

Web design / webhosting there are too many dodgy companies out there that provide an awful service to their customers.

[mke]

I understand your reasoning, but it's a very simple matter to find out what access you're going to get.

Also, on a forum such as this one, it's a simple matter to follow a few of the contributions the supplier you are considering has made to threads to ensure they know what they are talking about and are not here purely to make sales pitches. If they've posted several times, in a generally helpful manner or genuinely looking for information, that is not the behaviour of a cheat or a thief. Thieves tend not to hang about in the certain knowledge their infamy will spread like wildfire if they do.

Your point about dodgy web companies out there includes many with excellent accounts - I wonder why? - and long track records of swindling, so several years of returns. The swindling does not show up at Companies House nor at the Inland Revenue (HMRC as it is now). Why they're allowed by the authorities to carry on is beyond me. But that doesn't validate your checks, I'm afraid.

Even the speaking to a previous client, if someone is determined to cheat, holds little weight. That can be and often is faked.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

I understand your reasoning, but it's a very simple matter to find out what access you're going to get.

Also, on a forum such as this one, it's a simple matter to follow a few of the contributions the supplier you are considering has made to threads to ensure they know what they are talking about and are not here purely to make sales pitches. If they've posted several times, in a generally helpful manner or genuinely looking for information, that is not the behaviour of a cheat or a thief. Thieves tend not to hang about in the certain knowledge their infamy will spread like wildfire if they do.

Your point about dodgy web companies out there includes many with excellent accounts - I wonder why? - and long track records of swindling, so several years of returns. The swindling does not show up at Companies House nor at the Inland Revenue (HMRC as it is now). Why they're allowed by the authorities to carry on is beyond me. But that doesn't validate your checks, I'm afraid.

Even the speaking to a previous client, if someone is determined to cheat, holds little weight. That can be and often is faked.

Forums to a certain extent as with speaking to a previous clients if someone really wants to cheat they will make the information good!

Excellent accounts, thats true but if a company is showing accounts overdue stuff like that it all helps but you can't just do one check i agree :)

We've been stung by some of our suppliers in the past those lovely postal addresses that are forwarders are excellent for hiding sole traders again we have been caught out on that one, google the postal address shows how many companies are using it! Also experienced 3 Ltd's go tits-up over night everything looked good then they vanished.

[mke]

Sorry, Chris, but your arguments are fundamentally flawed.

If it were a large company with administrative personnel, late accounts would be a worry. For a small company, it's usually forgetfulness in the early days and a £100 fine. But that's not a hanging offence and it bears absolutely no reflection on how it deals with customers/clients. I know. I've done it and the clients from that time are still with me.

As for the self-employed, I use them as sub contractors when we get busy periods. Often. many are excellent. Others do a passable job and get us through what would otherwise be difficult patches. Others are suppliers such as the print shop up the road and the designers I have used on occasion. There is absolutely nothing wrong with self-employment and I wouldn't even consider whether I were dealing with a company or a self employed individual when choosing a supplier for most things. I have spent the last 25 years either self employed or as co-shareholder or sole shareholder in very small companies. I am not a cheat and I treat my clients with respect and excellent service. Or so they tell me.

Yes, I've been stung before. But that doesn't make me want to turn my back on and not deal with the whole human race. Business is about at least some element of risk. For my part, that's the enjoyable bit, it's when you find very good people when you were expecting mediocrity. That happens a lot more often than getting ripped off, even though it's the rip-offs which make the news and sell the papers.

[oliv897]

appee.com try it!!!