Tenders for small-medium website jobs

khublaikhan

Hi

Sorry for the somewhat confusing title as I am not sure how phrase my request for help. But I'll give it a go:

I want an e-commerce website done professionally but the quotes around here (in the UK) are somewhat prohibitive.

I am looking for a site where I can outline my requirements for the work I need doing and people from around the world give me an estimate as to how much they will charge for the job. I have been on such a site where previous work done by these contractors were rated by those paying for their service. But I have completely forgot the name.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I am hoping the costs for the work I need doing will be considerably less.

Thanks in advance

danmanchester

http://www.elance.com/

googler

www.sliversoftime.com ???

buglawton

Google rentacoder and getafreelancer they are functionally the same

I have gone off them - after a good initial experience when these sites were young, the scammers got in and have not departed. I would estimate that most offers to do work are from people who have mastered scamming the 'feedback' systems that you are supposed to rely on. But these systems are nothing like as effective as Ebay's and are scammed through and through. The favourite tactic is to take your offer and upfront deposit then go completely and utterly incommunicado.

You cannot give feedback until a project has been completed and paid for!

the182guy

So basically you want a professional job, but to get it done on the cheap. I can tell you that getting a cheap foreigner to do you an ecommerce site is going to end in tears.

Would you employ a cheap unskilled labourer to fit your brand new kitchen? No. Would you get cheap labour in to plumb your house? No. So why would you trust cheap foreigners that will work for 10p an hour, barely understand English let alone comprehend their clients functional requirements, to build you a successful and secure ebusiness.

What happens when there is a correlation between your customer base, and people that are having their credit cards duplicated? Are you going to fly to Nigeria to find your bargain web developer to ask them why your database is being sold on the Internet?

RobTang

scams aside freelance coders are perfectly ok... as long as you know how to use the correctly, and franky next to no one uses them correctly from small businesses to multi-nationals and govenments.

Make sure you really understand what your paying for at the end of the day.

Mr_Oink

I hear a great many 'think they are pro' folk saying 'you get what you pay for' and it is a source of amusement to me. I make a good living correcting the gaffs and security holes that these expensive experts bake into their PHP cakes and I can say the amount of money paid cannot reliably be used as a metric or test of the so called 'expertise' of anyone. There are plenty of folk out there having nothing more than the ability to talk a good job.

There are plenty of good, skilled freelancers out there along with lots of small firms that don't charge the earth for what you are looking for. But do bear in mind, if you want something entirely custom written from scratch - that will cost money. If you are happy to have one of the numerous free/open source products like Zencart/OSCommerce/Joomla/Drupal et al modified for you then the cost will obviously be lower.

Take a look at this forum: http://www.codingforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=47 and you'll find plenty of respected people who can help without ripping you off. You'll also find lots of those expensive 'experts' asking simple questions that they are clueless about......

JumboFlamingo

I'd avoid going to freelancers as they don't have the built in flexibility, or range of skills that you would get from a team at an agency. Freelancers are good for small projects, but if you want a top performing e-commerce site it will cost you a significant sum. You cant buy Prada at Primark prices. If you want a cheap site you might as well use Big Cartel or set up on eBay instead of getting a small fry coder to make it for you. Painful, but true.