Website - Waitrose not Lidl

[Billy Old Goat]

Sorry, a bit "how long is a piece of string" but.........could I ask what I should expect to pay for website design, build and hosting.
The main feature is a search through about 1000 products (affiliate links), plus other interest and information pages (in time a directory ).
It needs more depth than some affiliate sites (like Pebble - to mention just one ) which seem about cramming items in a shop window. Possibly a secondary page for each product with more photos, description.
I guess I will need to pay for artwork, and the search needs to be something closer to that on AutoTrader (in terms of being able to narrow down items to a handful) than just things like "price high to low," or "male/ female."
Thank you.

 

[fisicx]

Do you want to a pretty looking site or do you want to sell stuff?

Focus on conversions and you will end up with the site your customers enjoy using.

As to cost, you could set up a simple site for a few hundreds pounds, spend month importing the products, promote like mad and make a lot of money. Or you could do the same with a site costing £10,000 but not sell any more than the cheap site. It's almost impossible to put a price on the project until the product range and target customer is clearer.

 

[Billy Old Goat]

Thank fisicx.

There is a stong theme (the visitors could be classed as a community) and I think some artwork would help with the experience but I agree, coversions = success, and that will be down to product choice and price.

 

[fisicx]

Some artwork may help but I stripped everything from one of my money sites as a test and it made no difference to conversions at all.

Look at ebay. There is a logo and promotional banners on the caregory pages but there is virtually no site imagery on the product listings. Same on Amazon.

All the imagery is focused on incresing conversions. There is no bling.

 

[Page]

K.I.S.S

Start with something - any old thing - and then add as you learn and go along

People can get obsessed with tiny details but customers tend to want ease of item knowledge and ease of purchase

They do not want a site that does not inspire confidence or looks dated etc

But those button shapes and colours etcndo not matter that much

Unless ...

You are getting millions of visitors and thousands of sales
Then even small changes are worth split testing

But I am assuming that you would not be here if that was the case

So save your money and get going for as low a cost as possible and if it works get cleverer in stages to match your business

You are not John Lewis yet - or are you ??

 

[Alan]

could I ask what I should expect to pay for website design, build and hosting.

Hmm ... £500 ... £1,000 ... £5,000 .... £10,000 ... £50,000 ... £500,000 ... £10million

Although the majority of decent sites lie in the range of £5,000 to £50,000

 

[Billy Old Goat]

Functional over fancy I guess, and something simple to start with. All good advice I'm sure.

I can also see a point to not overcrowding with extras such as a directory, which may generate revenue, but dilute the main raison d'etre.

That leaves on site - about 1000 products (links) available, and a detailed search ticker facility to narrow results down.

I can live with 10k for a pretty decent site but can I also ask - as I am green and don't want to miss something obvious - about the ongoing costs to host/run the site (assuming I can learn most of the donkey work myself such as adding new prodcuts) I don't mean marketing/SEO which I know is another important point to consider.

 

[justinaldridge]

10K is actually quite a lot for what is essentially not an overly complex site, from what you are saying. Seems like just an ecomerce site. You can start with a simple set up to test the concept before going down the route of creating the best possible site it could be from the get go.

 

[fisicx]

I agree with Justin. You could get a simple ecommerce site set up for next to nothing to test the waters. A nice theme would cost well under £100. So all you would need is a developer to help set everything up and someone to import all the product information.

 

[boring-friday]

+1 on just get a nice theme customized, should cost anything from £2-1000. My main ecommerce site had a fairly big turnover and its still on a wordpress+woocommerce theme.

 

[TODonnell]

The '1000 products' will probably be the fun part. As in expensive. You can get a cheap site if you put up a site similar to others e.g. you're selling shoes and a limited range.

Anything bespoke costs time and money and curses.

 

[Billy Old Goat]

Seems the thing to be is sensible, not throw too much at the site. More money then could be allocated to marketing.
Thanks All.

 

[Nat Jackson]

For now i'd use Wordpress and Woocommerce, can build a nice looking site for cheap using a premium theme that is Woocommerce enabled and they have a stack of addons to enhance your site and users shopping experience.

 

[Mike Wilford]

Anything lower than £400 would ring alarm bells for me - why so cheap?

Anything over this I would expect a quality site, and the more you pay the more you can request from the site.

You can always pay in milestones so if you are unhappy with the site you still have most of your money.

 

[fisicx]

Why £400? It seems a very arbitrary figure. Paying more won't necessarily get you more features in the same way paying less may not deliver a naff site.

 

[Mike Wilford]

I do understand what you are saying - sometimes people charge more but don't actually do anything! Sometimes a simple site is all thats needed. It's difficult to say and there are so many variables but that's why I like to work with referrals where possible so I know spend is being used effectively.

I was talking hypothetically in that the person making the website should always upsell where possible (do they need more webpages building in at later dates?/ New features) and not oversell the website (charge less but do the same amount of work).

So yes in the real world it's different - but hypothetically let's say you get what you pay for.

£400 is completely finger in the air, just throwing in my two cents - I have seen some websites made for similar costs that turned out well. But for the polished finish I think it's often more than that. All depends on the person !

That was also for an informational site and blog, perhaps 10-15 pages (so no product or checkout). Having a product and a checkout will inflate the cost further.

If the person is to be consistently updating products it might be beneficial to negotiate around this as you could be tied down to big bills further down the line for any changes.

 

[fisicx]

£400 is completely finger in the air, just throwing in my two cents - I have seen some websites made for similar costs that turned out well.

So less that £400 doesn't need to ring alarm bells then...

 

[Paul Norman]

Anyone worth their salt is going to be charging at least £400 per day for their time.

If I was serious about my business, I would be looking for more work than that going into my site.

However, the answer to the question really is that the investor can spend as much or as little on the site - you will find someone to nail you a good one together for not a huge amount of money.

But what budget do you have in mind for marketing thereafter?