Nice people thread 2 - now even nicer

carolt

The bloke next door to me in our new house is a website/SEO person - sounds much like PN, really (except he's much unfriendlier :eek:). It's earned him enough to buy the house next door to ours within the last few years - he's younger than me (mid 30's) and single, but has bought a 4 bed house with garage out of what he does.

So yes, clearly people do get away with charging 15K for basic internet advice/help - if you know how to shmooze potential clients properly, you can make big money.

I suspect PN is under-earning for her skills. In fact, I'm sure of it.

Your internet bloke sounds a nightmare, fc.

fc123

tomterm8 wrote: »

OK, there is a weird question I have. I have a friend in the United States who produces fabulous jewelry from drift wood and oil paints. It's also very cheap, because of the location she lives in the US. I think there is a market over in my area for this type of stuff, but I have no idea what the regulations on importing goods into the UK are.

It does seem to be a potential money spinner because similar jewelry sells for five to ten times the price in my area of the UK.

Does anyone know anything about this?

I am sending parcels over to the states every day to customers. I don't charge postage (1 dress costs about £6.80 international signed for , 2 = £7) but that's because I have a high margin.....we mark up X 6 min from cost)

As far as I am aware there is no duty payable on goods over $200....but don't quote me. I tick ''Gift'' on customs and put value at a lower cost to me if it went lost (I put half the RRP).

www.etsy.com is kicking a$$ for craftsters and has a big customer base over here.

tomterm8

That's interesting stuff. My idea was to go for a more traditional approach... that is, get her work into local boutique shops in the area. I think it would probably sell quite well. The internet is OK, but I think it can be hard to stand out in this kind of market, until you've built your brand.

sorry didn't see:

fc123 wrote: »

He won't do it........I have messaged him the 2 pics and asked for a quote to upload and zilch..been 6 days so far.

The shopping part doesn't have the features on it I need (and asked for in the beginning as part of the quote) but he wouldn't let the site go live until I paid the remaining 50% in full.....so we didn't know until it was live. Since then...not interested in doing anything else. I actaully think he does it as an addon and has a F/T PAYE job elswhere as he has an answer service and postdrop address....and has no concept of how to deal with customers whatsoever. He has a programming mate who does the techy stuff but I am not 'allowed' to contact him.

He did try to sell me rip off overpriced photogtraphy which I turned down...I use the same company that Big Corp I sell in use now at a fraction of the price he quoted.

TBH It's all a massive PITA and I need help.

Sounds really pants, to be honest. Do you have the source code for the site? If so, maybe you can take someone else on to complete the job?

To be honest, these things are a learning curve... and there are a lot of sharks in the water. I think it is very important to make sure any contracts contain the stipulation they have to provide source code and assign copyright to yourself. I have a friend whose $750,000 a year business was almost destroyed by their web developer going bust.

PasturesNew

I know if you're importing there'll be duty to pay. I think as a rule of thumb for the US you can imagine it to be about 20%.

It's all complex though

I once looked into importing stuff and there are lots of websites out there that have a lot of pages and information that don't actually tell you anything. e.g. Govt ones.

You have to look at all these tables, then decide what your item/s are - and then you can work out, item by item how much import duty would be payable.

So, for example, a bit of wood (if that particular wood is allowed to be exported/imported) might be at one rate, but a wooden finished item might be at another. Reams of lists of products and things that seem to bear no relation to what you're actually looking for.

PasturesNew

I can say it now ... I saw fc's old website and it wasn't a functional sales machine, it was something "designed". The design was more important than usability and accessibility of the products for browsing.

I do love Wordpress. I'd be tempted to say: use a Wordpress framework, get a company that develops on that and get them to bung in a straight forward open source good cart. I've never understood "reinventing the wheel" that seems to go on so often. Wordpress has millions of installations and won an award in 2009 for the best open source CMS.

Shop code will just slot straight into a page.

Job's a good 'un.

All a website consists of is:
- a domain name
- hosting, that's like a HD in the Internet for your files
- a way to hold and manage the content
- a design

It's when people start doing one-off stuff that the price goes silly and then the issue is that you need them to do anything for you.

One thing to check if you do get anybody to do it is: Who owns the code? Take these scenarios:

A] You fall out with the bloke and won't pay his bill, he takes down your website and refuses to hand anything over to you .... did you ever 'own' it, or were you simply paying him for his time to develop it, but with him keeping the copyright.
B] Your bloke goes AWOL, hosting bill isn't paid for by him, how the heck do you get your site back up and running?

You really need to:
- own the domain name yourself, with all the logins yourself
- own and pay for the hosting yourself.

You can give the bloke logins to work on it, but you need to retain control of the domain name and hosting at least. Which just leaves "who OWNS the design and the code".

Wordpress is just a framework. There are others of course. But here's a site that's built around that existing framework: http://www.champagnewarehouse.com/

A lot of blue-chips use it too. It's rapid, robust development. Ford used it on their microsite http://www.ford.com/vehicles/auto-shows

Not trying to "sell it to you", it's just I think a lot of people don't realise that it's a real contestant these days.

tomterm8

PasturesNew wrote: »

Not trying to "sell it to you", it's just I think a lot of people don't realise that it's a real contestant these days.

If I were setting up a web business, I think a content management system is certainly the way to go, rather than bespoke. With a little tweeking you can have a business up and running very quickly and cheaply.

There are other CMS than wordpress, but wordpress is good. It is designed to be quite SEO friendly, too.

Really, setting up the web site should be the easiest part of the deal. Advertising your web site, and getting people to buy, is more difficult.

PasturesNew

I just googled for clothes shops themes, as a starting point. First one to come up was this:

http://themeforest.net/item/the-clothes-shop-wordpress-ecommerce/64132

Ignore what it looks like, this is just showing you how Wordpress as a CMS can be used to power an e-commerce store for a clothing supplier. So we're talking here of:

- Wordpress as the CMS
- some other basic functionalities, as required
- an e-commerce solution
- a theme (design)

Reading the blurb:
- optional blog alongside the shop
- flexible product display with videos and images
- customer wishlist

The e-commerce spec: http://www.sarah-neuber.de/NWS_shopping_cart.pdf
The theme spec: http://www.sarah-neuber.de/TF/TheClothesShop_features.pdf

Not saying "get this", just showing you an example.

The price there is for the theme, Wordpress is free. Not sure what other costs would be involved (SSL?). Domain name you'd need and hosting.

Shouldn't be more than a few days and a fistful of fivers.

vivatifosi

PN the last couple of days I've been totally in awe of you. Seriously. May you earn that big money soon, you really deserve it.

misskool

tomterm8 wrote: »

OK, there is a weird question I have. I have a friend in the United States who produces fabulous jewelry from drift wood and oil paints. It's also very cheap, because of the location she lives in the US. I think there is a market over in my area for this type of stuff, but I have no idea what the regulations on importing goods into the UK are.

It does seem to be a potential money spinner because similar jewelry sells for five to ten times the price in my area of the UK.

Does anyone know anything about this?

How are you planning to shift the goods? First thing is to check you have an actual way of selling whatever you want to bring in.

Business link has a good website
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1074186242

The main thing that pops up for me is that it's driftwood, something to do with plants and means maybe something to do with defra?

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

PN the last couple of days I've been totally in awe of you. Seriously. May you earn that big money soon, you really deserve it.

This stuff, finding the building blocks, outlining the ideas ... is what I love. Brainstorming systems, systems analysis, marketing and ideas.

I recently did a Uni level e-commerce course... hated it. What I found out was: I never ever want to create/build an e-commerce site

It was hideously dull.

Maybe if I did one I'd feel differently, but I am not really interested in getting involved in 'the build', just looking at the possibilities and how things can be achieved.

That's why I enjoyed my project management work mostly - I wasn't actually 'doing' any of the work, just steering and advising and consulting ... and making sure the thing worked and was delivered on time to budget.