What have you paid for your E-Commerce site?

dingbat · Jan 23, 2009

Hello folks,

I've been struggling with making my own webpages for years and eventhough I did eventually get a semi-decent one designed by purchasing some ecommerce software I really wanted more features.

So, I decided to use a web design company. Their online examples of work seemed impressive and for £1000+ vat they could get me a start up ecommerce site. I got the site and after ironing out many problems with them the result, albeit with a fancyish look, is very dissapointing and even worse than the site I made myself when it comes to actually selling. The ecommerce configuration online is also very limited and a PITA if you're a customer checking out.

Now, I know many of you will say £1000 + VAT isn't much and you get what you pay for but at the same time I hear others telling me I paid too much. I also supplied my own logo graphic etc so they didn't need to design it.

So, I just wanted to ask, what did you guys pay for your site? Were you happy and how much trouble did you have working with the designers?

gamer1810 · Jan 23, 2009

Hi

I believe the old adage of "you get what you pay for" applies here..

£1,000 IMO for an ecommerce site is peanuts.. And Im not sure if any professional agency or developer could do a really good job for this..I might be wrong..

We have a fully bespoke site and while Im not going to divulge the cost, its a multiple of 10 times what you have paid..

Hope that helps!

GC001 · Jan 23, 2009

Hi

At spotlighttv.tv we have been asked to build front end broadcasts for a few retail outlets recently. In essence our presenters discuss the products QVC style and then link through to the e-commerce side of things.

I have been staggared at the prices being banded about, £1000 does not seem to scrape the surfice unfortunately.

Good luck hope it works out for you.

Deleted member 27344 · Jan 23, 2009

Who's the company?
Sounds like the same old "we can do it (but don't know how)" brigade that I have to clear up after on regular occasions.

dingbat · Jan 23, 2009

Well, I don't want to bad mouth the company (yet) on a public forum, especially since I'm still at their mercy.

Looking at their other work, I'm sure they could 'do it' but I just felt I was getting a second rate service to their other clients.

Poppy Design · Jan 23, 2009

Hi

It depends what software they used and what was offered to you in the quotation? Did they list functionality that you did not get?

For anyone considering setting up an ecommerce site you really need to make a list of your requirements and then when you get your quotes you can tick off your requirements.
If you have additional requirements not included in the shop software then you need to state them and get costs for them.

£1000 should get you a decent standard shopping cart with design customisation. However if you wanted extra functionality not included in the standard software then you need to list it and get quoted for it.

Deleted member 27344 · Jan 23, 2009

This is not a 'you should get us to do it' reply but we always insist on contracts suitable to both parties. The contract outlines exactly what you're getting for your money, by when, what'll happen if we miss the deadline, what happens if you are not happy etc etc etc.

What I am saying is that I can never understand why other companies don't do the same or why clients don't insist on this type of contract.

dingbat · Jan 23, 2009

I contacted them and said I was looking for x, y & z in my website. I was told all this could be catered for in the package price.

I gave a design brief and the result was a semi working ecommerce website with programming errors. Various graphics were not showing up properly or being repeated. Now, if I could see these problems - how could they not have seen them their end?

Also, when I told them of the problems they were not exactly quick to reply, normally taking 2 or 3 emails to get a response. And also getting 'very busy at the moment' apologies.

Deleted member 27344 · Jan 23, 2009

Have you got a contract with them or not?
I'm assuming not, which will then bring you to the next question - have you paid them. if not then I'd look around for a better company. Believe me, there are plenty of other companies around that would gladly do a brilliant job for you.

edit : oh, and next time, ask for client testimonials and proof of similar projects.

dingbat · Jan 23, 2009

My memory is so bad I can't even remember how I initiated things with them. I'll have to go back and check about any contracts. Certainly no contracts by post. I think it was just an agreement via email effectively.

Yes, they have been paid. This was the early part of 2008.

Deleted member 27344 · Jan 23, 2009

We get so many calls from people with similar cases like yours it's getting silly.

Best of luck with it. Let us know how you get on.

baitboats · Jan 23, 2009

I have used storebuilders.co.uk for all my ecommerce sites since seeing their ads on eBay in 2006. Excellent customer service, and you can view their feedback for proof. Prices start from £30 to £1000 depending on the style you are looking for...

maria102 · Jan 23, 2009

dingbat said:
Well, I don't want to bad mouth the company (yet) on a public forum, especially since I'm still at their mercy.

Looking at their other work, I'm sure they could 'do it' but I just felt I was getting a second rate service to their other clients.

Why do you think you are getting a second rate service compared to their other clients, why would they treat you differently? :|

DesignsOnline · Jan 24, 2009

We have quoted anything from £1500 upwards of £20'000 for an ecommerce website depending on the functionality required and the design involved and the amount of work required to produce the quality of website the client needs.

We always put a contract in place for each job that clearly states what the website needs to do and how much it will cost and how long it will take.

If you have been dealing with a company that doent give you anything in writing then sadly im not supprised that you are disatisfied with the result. You may still be able to get the additional functionality that you require programmed in by another company.

cycloneuk · Jan 24, 2009

I have invested around 2k in software and mods. I have installed, configured and customized everything myself, otherwise i would of been looking at around 5k+ i reckon with many of the experts for my platform charging £60 an hour.

dingbat · Jan 24, 2009

maria102 said:
Why do you think you are getting a second rate service compared to their other clients, why would they treat you differently? :|

Not saying I'm the only one. Possibly because at that price bracket they give scant regard to the customer while showcasing their more expensive websites as examples. Maybe I didn't show myself to be discerning enough or I just caught them at a busy time. Take your pick.

Jonesy · Jan 24, 2009

£1000 for an off the shelf eCommerce site maybe, but it really is peanuts.

movietub · Jan 24, 2009

We are in the process of a huge overhaul to our online shops, our retail outlet and a shared EPOS/inventory/ordering/CMS backend.

Because we identified we could do better than our competitors by employing some advanced and quite unique features we had two options.

The first was to find a program dev that had a basic CMS/EPOS/ECCOMERCE solution that he could modify to our needs and sell to us as one final package. The final expense would have been huge. There is no way you can agree a fixed price and get the best result, the realit is you need to develop it together closely, play with it, modify it. Half of what we would end up with we wouldnt know we wanted until were half way through. So a complete custom job requires a budget big enough to bring in a professional and keep him 'effectively' on the payroll until you are happy enough to launch.

My GF's father just finished managing a project for Barclay UK. They set prices for certain tasks to be completed etc so in that sense a fixed price was set. However as always the project grew as it developed. Can't say their final bill on here but it was many many millions. The true price of the perfect bespoke CMS system that speaks to all the other systems you may have!

The second option (the one we took) was to find a hosted solution that allowed us complete control of the frontend of the website and was comprehensive and tunable enough to provide everything we could possibly want. In the same way that MS word can format a letter in any way you could imagine the system we chose is flexible enough to handle and project data on/off the website in any way we could need it too. As a result we pay £120 to use the system (web based) whearas a typical, basic, EKM type system is around £20-30 per month. Another benefit is the system is updated frequently and their track record shows they respond to new technologies very rapidly.

On top of that the front end of the website (currently being designed by me) including SEO for 3000 products and general content will take around 2 months of my time.

The final result will look exactly as we wish it to and work exactly as we require it to.

£1000 does buy a 'custom' eccomerce site. But the backend CMS will be a standard system. So for most shops who want to enter eccomerce then £1000 is a decent budget to get a site that continues their branding and works smoothley.

For custom CMS the skies the limit! And done cheaply it will be less effective than what you could get as part of a basic eccomerce hosted package.

bcmedia · Jan 24, 2009

Hi Guys,

Just my 2 cents....We charge around the £1000 mark for an Ecommerce shop with ProtX integration for payment, Image Rotator, Gallery Viewer, SEO friendly URL's & dynamic site map generator. So far the SEO stuff is proving successful with Google.

Both tonks4x4.com & pop-up-tent.co.uk were done in house (Pop Up Tent is not live yet as it is getting SEO'd).

To be honest, for the amount of work that it entails I feel the end user is getting a bargain as for that price they actually get a professional designer working on the graphics as opposed to a bedroom coder who may have looked at Photoshop and learned how to fill a box in!

Additional work obviously costs more, such as adding new modules & then there is the time involved for adding content to the site but for a company wanting to gain a ecommerce store I think they get a bargain, as by the time they purchased Actinic & learned how to configure it, I think my costs will have more than been absorbed!

Regards
Craig

chocolaterolo · Jan 24, 2009

I've just been asked to do a website for somebody and they asked me to base it on how many hours it would take. I added it all up in MS Project using Actinic Designer and Business Client. The cost was over £1500 for basic, as was going to take me at least a week to configure all the software for their company, do some basic customisation and train one of the company's staff how to pull the orders down and process them. So you can at least expect a functional site for what you paid, although most time is spent on the designing in my opinion, which is where it gets expensive.
Good luck.

4little1s · Jan 25, 2009

I think somone on the thread hit the nail on the head, you get what you pay for in most markets, this isnt any different.

J-Wholesale · Jan 25, 2009

dingbat said:
Well, I don't want to bad mouth the company (yet) on a public forum, especially since I'm still at their mercy.

If the domain is in your name, and you have the passwords for your site's hosting company, then you're not at their mercy at all. This is all you need to move to another web development company or individual. Based on what you're saying, it sounds like the work was done about a year ago, in which case, you've already wasted too much time dealing with these people.

My Advice: Move on. Find somebody else to do the immediate work for you, and then find a company you're happy having an ongoing relationship with. Any competent web developer should be able to correct the problems in the initial company's work quickly. For any sort of bespoke design, there's going to be an ongoing relationship, month by month, and you need to be working with someone you trust.

And, of course, £1000? Gets you 3 days work from a good developer, and nothing more.

edman · Jan 26, 2009

dingbat said:
Hello folks,

I've been struggling with making my own web pages for years and even though I did eventually get a semi-decent one designed by purchasing some ecommerce software I really wanted more features.

So, I decided to use a web design company. Their online examples of work seemed impressive and for £1000+ vat they could get me a start up ecommerce site. I got the site and after ironing out many problems with them the result, albeit with a fancyish look, is very dissapointing and even worse than the site I made myself when it comes to actually selling. The ecommerce configuration online is also very limited and a PITA if you're a customer checking out.

Now, I know many of you will say £1000 + VAT isn't much and you get what you pay for but at the same time I hear others telling me I paid too much. I also supplied my own logo graphic etc so they didn't need to design it.

So, I just wanted to ask, what did you guys pay for your site? Were you happy and how much trouble did you have working with the designers?

I pay zero for mine

when there is Jooomla, drupal and other opensource scripts and also not to talk of wordpress all these have a lot of plugins and addons that are free.

For th design side, you can always find free designs, although already made pro themes exist at a very affordable price like £30 or so.

Usually these sites can do almost anything you want, need if you need a custom plugin or something that doesn't exist for free, then you can find specialist who can always do it at an affordable rate.

So £1000 for ecommerce website is not that high either depending on what you are looking for. But in most cases free can always do it, and only when you have some specialized needs that you venture into this area of paying and you can run up the bill if you want really specialized features.

The truth is that a website is never finished, one you've started operating it then you'll see the need to constantly upgrade

strikingedge · Jan 26, 2009

You should always keep them to their promises.

We paid £500 for an ecommerce site with Sitewizard....although they charge around £2K now.

They certainly didn't make any money on our job, because we absolutely held them to their promises.

For instance, they delivered the site....and we said...hold on - if you are on a Mac the page elements are distributed randomly around the site. They said: oh...you didn't specify that the site should be viewable from a Mac. We told them not to be ridiculous and they fixed it.

We had dozens of issues like that, but we had a comprehensive brief and didn't pay them until sign off.

I expect if you paid your agency nearly a year ago now, you should just give up and move on. They have no interest in rebuilding a site for no money.

And on their side....if you weren't sure what you needed or wanted until the site was already designed, then it makes delivering it difficult.

You can still get a decent development done for £1K.....although unlikely with a UK agency. You could try recruiting a company on Elance - I'd recommend staying away from the Indian companies and going with an Eastern European one - they tend to be more reliable.

I am working with one fashion brand that got an agency to build their website. They paid £15K. And the site is absolutely atrocious. They can't justify going back and starting from scratch...so they are making do. And if you think that's an extreme example....I met the Head of Internet at Conran Store who told me that they had spend £40K on a new updated site (before his time)...but they had to junk the vast majority of the (already paid for) work.

edman · Jan 26, 2009

WhiskyFive said:
You can still get a decent development done for £1K.....although unlikely with a UK agency. You could try recruiting a company on Elance - I'd recommend staying away from the Indian companies and going with an Eastern European one - they tend to be more reliable.

Good point about the indians

hahaha

strikingedge · Jan 26, 2009

edman said:
Good point about the indians hahaha

Unfortunately this view is from bitter personal experience. We found it impossible to keep them to their original quotes and deliver what they said they would.

And 1 week jobs became 6 month affairs.

I've had pretty good results with Estonian, Ukranian, Romanian and even Egyptian freelancers and companies.

edman · Jan 26, 2009

WhiskyFive said:
Unfortunately this view is from bitter personal experience. We found it impossible to keep them to their original quotes and deliver what they said they would.

And 1 week jobs became 6 month affairs.

I've had pretty good results with Estonian, Ukranian, Romanian and even Egyptian freelancers and companies.

Yes I get you the problem with the indians is not that they are not good it's their approach to things.

They say yes to eerything before the project is awarded, and after you award it then you find yourself roped in with someone who has taken lot of projects he can't complete so they begin to stall and charge and twist till you are sick

dingbat · Jan 27, 2009

Cheers to all for their input.

I should have demanded more answers from the company I used. I've also noticed some more glaringly obvious faults with the site. Plus the graphics dont line up correctly when viewed in Firefox. I've now worked out that the guy just sub-contracts to freelance designers.

And I know some companies pay some ridiculous amounts of money for websites but I think many of those are just sold on the old perception of more money equals better quality.

Regards using designers from abroad, from what I've heard it's no different to using ones at home. All pretty much a mixed bag.

matt.chatterley · Jan 27, 2009

dingbat said:
Cheers to all for their input.

I should have demanded more answers from the company I used. I've also noticed some more glaringly obvious faults with the site. Plus the graphics dont line up correctly when viewed in Firefox. I've now worked out that the guy just sub-contracts to freelance designers.

And I know some companies pay some ridiculous amounts of money for websites but I think many of those are just sold on the old perception of more money equals better quality.

Regards using designers from abroad, from what I've heard it's no different to using ones at home. All pretty much a mixed bag.

Quality speaks for itself, really.

It's more about value for money.

I've seen some cheap sites which didn't look great, but worked well - good value for money.

Have also seen some expensive ones which were pants - poor value for money.

Can you escape from your current company?

edman · Jan 27, 2009

I've been doing web design for years before getting involved into marketing and copywriting, I basically do all my websites myself, plus content and strategies.

In the past I used to have a team of 30 web guys I outsourced work too, while I got the jobs but I quickly found that cheaper is not always better

specially when dealing with guys from India.

I have all my programming staff in Europe now and on a monthly retainer, whether there is work or not. Can be quite costly but it gives you peace of mind that you have someone close who understand where you are going.

However when it comes to design, I'm cursed to do all designs myself

... well a good curse, and I do for my clients as well if they need it as well it's second nature now.

dingbat · Jan 27, 2009

matt.chatterley said:
Can you escape from your current company?

Yes, no problems about that. I already had the domain and webspace etc.

I haven't contacted them in ages anyway as I had a lot of personal stuff to deal with in 2008.

I'm going to email them detailing everything I'm not happy with and see what they do. If I get nowhere then I'll move on.

I'll investigate the DIY route once more with some of the tips/contacts given in this thread but if that takes too long I'll just put my faith in a new web designer. Time is money...and all that.

Gavin-Design-Right · Jan 27, 2009

Well we charge around £4000 For a E-Site. Think that is fair.

If anyone needs a quote drop me an email and I will see what I can do for you

. hate people that do not get back to you , We always try and reply to emails within 30 Minutes of getting them. Ding Bat threaten them saying you will find someone knew and see if that works ?

MarkMHInteriors · Jan 27, 2009

Hi,

I paid around the same figure as you, I also have people telling me I paid to much. A friend of mine paid just $80.00 to have an e-commerce business set up, what a disaster that was. I think you paid the going rate.

Regards,

mark

matt.chatterley · Jan 27, 2009

MarkMHInteriors said:
Hi,

I paid around the same figure as you, I also have people telling me I paid to much. A friend of mine paid just $80.00 to have an e-commerce business set up, what a disaster that was. I think you paid the going rate.

Regards,

mark

It varies wildly depending on what you want - but value-for-money is the thing to think about.

If you pay £80 - expect to get £80s worth of work (not a lot). If you pay £4000 - make darned well sure you /do get/ £4k's worth of work (quite a bit)..!

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