£500-£800 for e-commerce site to be designed?

[Personalised Place Cards]

Hello, we have had a few quotes for a e-commerce website to be designed.

We have had quotes from £2000 down to £800.

This is from a local company and we wondered if this would be a good or bad quote for a e-commerce site?

Thanks

 

[Cameron Ziafat]

Just design, or development as well? I'd say £800 is quite cheap for design & development - but it really depends on the scope of the project!

 

[fisicx]

If you want a personalised theme and lots of funky features then £800 is cheap. If you just want a site (with an off the shelf theme tailored to your business) that people can order cards from then it can be a lot cheaper.

Consider this. A week's work at £40/hour is £1600. £800 is getting you a couple of days. That's not a lot of time for a bespoke site.

 

[ryedale]

So much depends on the specification as said above. If you want to detail the specifications a bit more, we'll have more of an idea as to the pricing range you'd be looking at .

 

[BartJr]

Create it yourself, it's very easy. SEO is the difficult part. There is a great tutorial on youtube which covers everything in detail (how to start a website from scratch). Just type in: How to make a wordpress Website- 2015.

Ps. I wouldn't go with the cheapest option if you are looking forward to find someone to create it for you. There are many great people here on forum, have you approached them?

 

[Personalised Place Cards]

Just design, or development as well? I'd say £800 is quite cheap for design & development - but it really depends on the scope of the project!

Well i the company who are offering this is a local company to us called chameleon web services. They offer bespoke design,graphics and branding,cms and more.

It's hard to say if it is good as we have never had one designed before

 

[jamesosix]

ask them for examples of sites they did in that price bracket.

 

[antp__]

ask them for examples of sites they did in that price bracket.

Still a risky one as you can never actually prove whether the case studies shown are in fact £800 or £8000. Saying that though, I have just had a site revamped (ecommerce) for £576 (£480 + VAT). I already had the cart installed and they used a template purchased online. However, by the time they had finished with it, it looked nothing like the one purchased. Styled it to suit my needs and looks fantastic! It was done on a budget but couldn't be happier. I could have done it myself but just dont have the time at the moment.

 

[fisicx]

....chameleon web services. They offer bespoke design,graphics and branding,cms and more.

They appear to be a marketing company more than web development. So I suspect there will pressure on you to pay for SEO and other services so the £800 could end up being a lot more.

 

[Food From Cyprus]

What does the £800 cover? Did you get an analytical quote that describes in details what you are getting for your £800?

 

[Tom Millson]

Quotes are very subjective and depend on so many variables, such as:

• Experience level of the team working on it
• Number of people working on the website
• UK-based company or international (generally UK companies with in-house teams tend to charge more than UK companies that outsource internationally, or outright international companies)
• How bespoke the solution is, where off-the-shelf is generally cheaper but not customised to your needs

For £800 (or in that region) it would suggest to me the company is either quite small or outsources the work, based on my personal experience. As some of the others have suggested, ask Chameleon for some references and sample websites with similar scope and budget, then give those businesses a call. Only then will you know if the quote is good or not.

Also, a breakdown of how much time they spend on each task and the cost for that time goes a long way to helping you understand the value of their time and work.

Lastly, there is no bad quote if their proposal is one that solves your needs! Just because one may be more expensive than the other does not make it a bad quote, because it may do more for your business.

 

[ganah-allan]

It is a reasonable budget range if the solution is a combination of open source software and not much custom programming is needed. The most probable solution will be a WordPress theme customized to fit your design needs plus a WooCommerce plug-in. Development would take around 2-3 weeks. Hence, the budget is fine.

 

[boring-friday]

I think they'll just customize a theme and tell you its bespoke. You don't need a bespoke site in my opinion with you being a local business trying to get online. Go on the freelancer sites and say you want a premium theme customized, should be able to get it done for £2-300

 

[AT700]

I got an e commerce site designed and built for £350 including hosting and personalised email addresses.
It was built on Wordpress with and had some great features.

This price didn't inlcude any SEO, but then again I didn't request any.

This site only had one product, how many would yours have?

 

[Displaycentreuk]

I have just been through the same process as the OP and am sympathetic to the question.

The problem is that the price for an ecommerce website depends on two things; namely the functional specification and the charge-out rate of the person doing the work. As regards the functional specification, if you don't spell out exactly what you want then anything will do and thus you end up with a wide range of quotes. Charge-out rates vary widely and are not, necessarily, an indication of competence. In my view it is the credibility of the person/company quoting that needs to be considered and this includes portfolio of work and feedback from existing customers - ask to speak to someone for whom they have done a similar job and check that they are staisfied.

Coming back to the OP's question, I would be very wary of an ecommerce website for £800. As said by someone else above you are likely to be looking at 2 to 3 weeks of work and I would be expecting to pay nearer £2500. Maybe invite each of the quotes to list their scope of work and share with you the amount of resorce allocated to each task?

 

[antropy]

In a nutshell - you might get a decent site for that, you might not.

Contact some of the company's previous customers who have sites that are similar to what you're after.

 

[Paul Norman]

This is a perenial topic.

Depending on the specification, this is a bottom end range of prices for an ecommerce site done well.

If you have many, many hours to spare, and are able to do so, you can, of course, build your own. Personally, I would not go that route, neither, if I was attempting to build an ecommerce business that was my livelihood, would I skimp on the most important asset I might have - my website, and, as is correctly mentioned above, the ongoing promotion of it. Expect to spend up to £3k a month marketing it.

Unless, of course, your business is a hobby/sideline thing, which is absolutely fine. In that case, build your own site.

 

[benecklary]

eCommerce Website Development is one time activity for that you have to choose based on technical support and flexibility with the developer. cost is depends quality and service.

 

[Robert Jones]

Try to find a designer in less developed countries, they can quote you a lot cheaper prices i can assure.

 

[Paul Norman]

Try to find a designer in less developed countries, they can quote you a lot cheaper prices i can assure.

This, of all the advice you have received in this thread, is the poorest. It is up to you, of course.

 

[Will_Authentic_Style]

£800 is very cheap. £2000 is pretty cheap too for something totally bespoke.

Say the company's rate is £50 per hour, that's 40 hours for the £2000 option, and for something totally bespoke, you can't do it in a week.

Choosing the right company for you really depends what you want to achieve and where you are at with your business. If you want to get up and running quickly and test the water selling your product, you're probably best off going the template route, so that would be quotes of£800 and under most likely.

The companies who have quoted you should be explaining their process to you as well, so you should have a very good understanding of all the steps the project will go through. If they haven't - ask them to do so.

 

[leshka_uk]

when i needed to do my site I got design done by designcrowd co uk and found freelancer peopleperhour com to configure simpleservers co uk/magento-hosting

you can also check understandinge com

 

[Audrey Wright]

Be very VERY weary of designers and developers who offer you work on the cheap.

Most of the times it's beginners like me, who're not yet experienced and confident to ask the real price for their labour. Often times they will make mistakes, which will lead to big problems later on.

The other type is people who know how to make something fast and make it look like it's working great, but it wont. They will get the money and leave you a barely functioning site which might explode the next time you change a font size or resize an element.

 

[Will_Authentic_Style]

Fair points above ^^^

Lots of business owners just see the upfront cost (e.g. £800 or £3000), not what's being offered after everything is complete as well.

 

[fisicx]

There is nothing wrong with a cheap low cost website. It could be a toe in the water experiment so see if an idea works or a niche product that sells itself.

Many people leap in a spend a lot of dosh on a site without doing the necessary market research (using a cheap wordpress site and Woo for for example). One chap I know spent £3000 on a site that looked stunning but didn't sell a single product because he had no money for marketing.

 

[Alan]

Of the few ecommerce sites I think are good I have asked the owners what they paid and generally it has been in the range of £20,000 to £30,000

So whilst you can get ecommerce sites from £350 upwards, and if youre serious thinking of only spending £800, I'd ask why wouldn't you just use Shopify or Bluepark and buy 26 months of a decent site for your £800 whilst you learn about e-commerce.

When you have a viable business, the spend £30k.

 

[webstore]

There is nothing wrong with a cheap low cost website. It could be a toe in the water experiment so see if an idea works or a niche product that sells itself.

I fully agree with fisicx. For example a Magento online shop (as with other OpenSource solutions) can be built in a couple of hours using a suitable off-the-shelf graphic template of which there are hundreds available from various suppliers.

However, where the time & cost clock up (client side or developer side) is adding product data/images & info pages. Even when product data is imported there's still a lot of work getting that product data upload-ready and lots of configurable, grouped, bundled products can create even more time & costs preparing that data.

 

[Alan]

few quotes for a e-commerce website to be designed

Devil is in the detail. OP said they had quotes for design, but is that what they mean, or do they mean designed, developed, populated with bespoke photography / words appropriately SEO'd, integrated with their other business systems such as accounting / POS / stock control and implemented including training in use.

Does the OP already have a brand / style and is the designer just having to follow that, or is the designer expected to create a brand / colour pallet / logo / typography to be used across both print and online media?

 

[Aaron Yates]

Make sure you have a watertight contract as any liability is going to be your own once the website is handed over (Data Protection Act, PCI-DSS, and all other legal responsibilities). Not to mention keeping the site secure/up-to-date with patches.

 

[Alan]

Make sure you have a watertight contract as any liability is going to be your own once the website is handed over

Your post doesn't make much sense.

No developer (in their right mind) will give you a contract that protects you from you future business liabilities caused by your legal responsibilities in operating a business.

All developers should actually get a project release signed off on deliver that basically says you have tested and accepted the website and anything you discover in the future is your problem.

Mind you, at £800 level I doubt any contracts change hands at all. Its just done on a quote / versus payment.

 

[Brad Houston]

I'd say that's a very good price, it's around what I charge for a bespoke WooComnerce website.

 

[RedEvo]

Using low-cost freelancers can work (£800 type stuff) but the adage buy cheap, buy twice is very likely to be the reality. Services like Shopify and squarespace allow anyone to create a very nice template based ecom site for thirty bob and a fried fish with all the tricky stuff taken care of. However, making the site work and getting it to deliver value is almost never cheap and it's never easy.

IMHO e-commerce success requires money and at least some luck

d

 

[Aaron Yates]

Llocally - If you read my post you'll see that's exactly what I said.

If you are having an agency build your website you should contractually expect it to be legally compliant and secure on delivery/transfer of ownership, because after that the liability and responsibility is yours.

A business buying from an agency is highly unlikely to be an expert in the minefield of risk related to website ownership. You are paying the agency for their expertise, and to do the job correctly.

How does a small business owner know how to test a website for security vulnerabilities, legal compliance, etc. at handover? If you were buying a BBQ gas canister from B&Q, wouldn't you expect the seal on the canister to be tested when you buy it? If you buy a new house, wouldn't you expect it to comply with building regs?

From my experience of the digital marketing industry at large there are many service providers/agencies that themselves have no understanding of these risks, so are (without even realising!) selling their clients a liability. The product simply isn't legally compliant or secure when it leaves the door, so the client unknowingly pays potentially good money to adopt a significant risk.

This said, many smaller agencies often don't have/offer a contract, which can often make things a little interesting when a dispute arises.

--- Edit:
My apologies if this came over as aggressive. Aspects of how the digital marketing industry operates is a particular bug bear of mine.

 

[fisicx]

If you are having an agency build your website you should contractually expect it to be legally compliant...

I disagree. Compliance is the responsiblity of the owner not the developer. If they ask me to install a widget or an image it's not my job to check up on the legality of doing so. If they want a specific plugin installed I'm not going to spend my time checking up on vunerabilites.

I will point out potential pitfalls but there is no way I'm going to accept responsibility for a security issue or non-compliance.

 

[Aaron Yates]

I disagree. Compliance is the responsiblity of the owner not the developer. If they ask me to install a widget or an image it's not my job to check up on the legality of doing so. If they want a specific plugin installed I'm not going to spend my time checking up on vunerabilites.

I will point out potential pitfalls but there is no way I'm going to accept responsibility for a security issue or non-compliance.

As long as you point out the pitfalls you've done your bit. If you're responsible for choosing the image then naturally you should investigate the copyright/licencing obligations. Legal compliance (Companies Act, PECR, Equalities Act, Data Protection Act, etc.) for published acts is definitely on the agency at launch.

---Edit:
That said, compliance to the CAP Code/ASA is always on the site owner, as they will have to provide you with the copy for the site. Doesn't hurt to point this out to the client.

 

[fisicx]

Legal compliance (Companies Act, PECR, Equalities Act, Data Protection Act, etc.) for published acts is definitely on the agency at launch.

Nope. Not at all. If you ask me to put your VAT number in the footer I will do so but I'm not going to be responsible for ensuring YOUR Equalities Act compliance. It's YOUR content, all I'm doing is providing the container for that content.

 

[Aaron Yates]

Nope. Not at all. If you ask me to put your VAT number in the footer I will do so but I'm not going to be responsible for ensuring YOUR Equalities Act compliance. It's YOUR content, all I'm doing is providing the container for that content.

Ok, just to check here, I assume you are aware of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG from the W3C). Either that or the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

If you're building web services for the UK Government this is a mandatory requirement. Search Google for "UK WCAG" and hit the first link for more info.

These are the guidelines that ensure websites are accessible to the visually impaired? The container you build for the content your client supplies (alt tags on images), etc., is important. As such, there's nothing your client can do about it. Failure to ensure a website is accessible is technically a breach of the Equalities Act.

Couple of quick and easy questions:
-- Were you aware of WCAG?
-- Are you putting clients in breach of the Equalities Act?

 

[fisicx]

Yes I am aware of the initiatives but if the client wants a site all in shades of pink with tiny 8pt fonts then that's what I will build for them. It will fail the accessibility tests but I cannot be held responsible to failure to meet any legislation.

 

[Aaron Yates]

And do you prominently advise your clients that you're not building them a legally compliant website? This has nothing to do with aesthetics, it's about how the site is fundamentally built. If it fails WCAG do you make this and the potential risks clear at handover?

I'll provide a comparison. If you went out tomorrow and bought a brand new car, would you expect it to be completely road legal at time of purchase? Let's say you're pulled over by the police after 5 minutes of driving and it turns out the tyres are bald. You might have heard in passing that this will attract 3 points and a penalty, but you expected the vehicle to be road legal, right? Surely, it's brand new! You might demand the dealer provide you with a bright pink car with cream leather interior, but you still expected it to be road legal, regardless of aesthetics, yes?

 

[fisicx]

But this isn't a car. And the accessibility guildelines are just that. They are not legally binding. I can't think if any legislation that obliges me to ensure compliance. I can point to a whole loads of government sites that aren't compliant - even gov.uk fails some of the tests.