Website + Merchant Services, Need Rough Costs + Advice

[DannyLewis]

Hello,

I am looking to set up my website by the end of the year, selling designer clothes. Eventually I will also sell video games. I have a few questions regarding expenses and the like for a business selling online through its own website.

1. Obviously I have to take hosting and domain name costs into consideration. Domain name will cost me what? £20-50 per year (£1.67 - 4.17 pcm). What will I be looking at paying for hosting as a small business with hopefully a decent amount of traffic? Is £20-40 pcm a reasonable price to expect or should I be looking at more? I think that with a Natwest business account that a website creation package is at least included, although not sure about if hosting is included, probably not. That package is £24 pcm and is something I will definitely be using due to other benefits. So that part of my expenses will be £45.67 - £68.17 pcm.

2. Merchant services.. I haven't looked into these much as yet. I have a paypal account which is linked to my secondary personal account at the moment (I'm using it for business until I get a business bank account). What sort of cart or the like would I have to use to be able to sell my goods via my site and take card/paypal payments? One that is very customisable and versatile (I want to be able to offer things like Loyalty/Rewards points, discount coupons etc). How much would I be looking at per month for this, and would it charge me percentage of sales at all? Preferably not.

3. I am going to be spending as much as I can afford from my wages over the next few months to invest into my business including; stock, website+online presence, advertising. I am wondering how much I may have to spend in advertising and the best online methods? I will be getting some professional leaflets printed at some point to be distributed locally. I may also pay people to distribute leaflets for me, although people I can trust.

I realise I may be making a loss for the first few months, but that is something I am willing to deal with for now, the risk is something I can handle. Any advice will be greatly appreciated as this will help me gain a possible understanding of the sort of figures I'm looking to pay out for these kind of things per month.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Designer clothing is a competitive marketplace, where is your traffic going to come from?

 

[DannyLewis]

Designer clothing is a competitive marketplace, where is your traffic going to come from?

Well I have currently been advertising on Facebook + Blackberry messenger, a few sales that way. I will be making a Facebook page for the business soon, and as my sales increase on eBay, hopefully I will receive positive feedback from that. I will be selling goods at well below the RRP, and will be making between 25-55% profit per item and the customer will still be making a decent saving. I am willing to invest around £300 in offline advertising and up to £500 in online advertising (for now). Possibly more if it requires. That's one of my questions; where is best to advertise this sort of thing? I see featured or sponsored pages on google sometimes, that sort of thing might be nice although I imagine it could be very costly.

 

[finleydesign]

Good luck on your venture!! Sound interesting

Not sure if initially adwords would be a huge benefit vs cost but could be worth a go on improving branding, I have heard some good things about facebooks advert for a branding exercise

On the hosting it all depends how your budget is, when you say a ""website with a decent amount of traffic" is this an assumption or do you have a plan up your sleeve!

Do you have to opt for a monthly web service?? often you get very locked in and not easy to transfer out, so you do all the hard work and shackled to someone else

For the kind of features you are looking for your looking at the higher end of the ecommerce packages in order to have real impact, or you could even start off small package and add modules as thing get better etc

 

[DannyLewis]

Currently it is an assumption, although as well as the financial side of things, I will be putting a lot of hours into advertising my site. I am still undecided on company name, although at some point this weekend when I have time I will sit down and brainstorm for a few hours, attempt to come up with the name. I am currently trading under my own name at the moment.

The plan is to get somewhere in the region of 10,000 leaflets printed (at least initially) and distribute some myself, and some through a family member who I will be paying. He doesn't want a huge amount though so its not too much. I will aslo look into getting the leaflet put into some of the local papers (a family member of mine delivers 600 papers per week, so that's 600 extra distributed and he only wants a tenner for it!) The web address will be provided on the leaflet as well as some of the prices, which I for one would definitely find attractive (from a customers point of view).

I am not sure how adwords works, I have never used it before? Also you mentioned the monthly package thing for web hosting - what other options are available? Also when you say higher end what sort of prices am I looking at?

Sorry for the large amount of questions.

 

[finleydesign]

Tricky to say on cost across the board as there are so many options on the market, ours start at £900 and go up to £2k

 

[DannyLewis]

Tricky to say on cost across the board as there are so many options on the market, ours start at £900 and go up to £2k

Does your company sell these products? & help with installation/integration and setup? Are they one off payments and do they charge per transaction, monthly costs or not at all?

 

[finleydesign]

Yes we can do the lot, don't do monthly but have a look at the ecommerce link in our footer and ping me an email or pm if you want to chat about options

 

[Faevilangel]

As OWG stated above, you will be putting up against big players, so you need a definite USP (unique selling point) and a plan to market the business.

IMHO the leaflets won't cut it, as it's an online business, don't waste your cash on them, spend the cash on researching your market with a marketer, find a niche to target and get a plan for the online marketing going.

Cost wise, for an ecom store ranges from £20 a month to hundreds of thousands depending on your needs from the website.

The merchant fees will be the less of the money killers, around £20-£50 a month (depending on providers) plus a percentage of each sale.

Because of the market, I wouldn't try and skimp on this, look at competitor sites, find sites you like and features you would like, then contact developers for a quote.

Planning everything will save you money in the long run