How hard can it be to get a website made

richard734

I would head over to http://www.freelancers.net/ I used them a few years ago for my now defunct website, and a few others on here have as well.
Prices are very good, expertise is high, and if you don't get what you want, you don't pay.
To get the best from it though, you have to be VERY clear on what you expect as the end product, and be able to communicate it to the freelancer.
Don't be afraid to take on a new freelancer with little or no feedback, they are often a lot cheaper than established guys, but they need to raise their feedback to up their prices. George, the guy who did mine used to charge $5 an hour, now charges $50 but he was brand new when I used him first, but as he has been there a while, with plenty of great feedback, his prices have justifiably gone up.

carrot-cake_2

The website I have now on webeden is fine in terms of how it looks its pretty simple however if I decided to go down this route instead of paying a webdesigner where do I go from here? I have set up a business paypal account and connected it to my webpage. How do I now add Sagepay or credit card payments?

How do I make sure people are seeing my webpage when they search for certain words?

I am restricted to 10 products to my website, when I try to add more it takes me through to the upgrade options and I have to pay up to £25 per month to add more products etc. Is this what I should do?

How can I be safe in the knowledge that my webpage is going to do its job and enable customers to buy with no problems? I have heard alot of complaints and bad reviews against webeden for rubbish functionality.

How do I access a part of my website where I can see how many sales I have ahd and my customers details?

Its so confusing

terra_ferma

carrot-cake wrote: »

I have contacted lots and lots of webpage designers for prices and they have either promised to email me some examples with prices and haven't or given me a price of thousands of pounds for a basic website.

I have tried making one myself but because its ecommerce it really doesn't have all of the functions I need and its way to complicated and time consuming to be doing this when I don't know much about it.

This is the only thing stopping me from starting my business now I have the money waiting for the website and all of my stock ready to sell.

Its so frustrating!

it's worth taking a look at hosted carts like Big Commerce, EKM, etc. Some people I know use EKM and are happy with it, you can be up and running very quickly.

Atidi

carrot-cake wrote: »

I was hoping the website would cost in the region of £1000 to £2000 however I have sent the webpage designers a link to the basic website I have made on webeden and asked them how much it would be to recreate this but with better functions such as customer log in, payment options etc and some have quoted around £3000 and one said £7000!!!

Get some more quotes.
Eventually you should get a quotes that will indicate the ball-park figure you should be considering paying.

carrot-cake wrote: »

I am unable to sell via ebay, amazon and facebook due to a clause with my supplier. If I wanted to sell via these websites I would need to sign a contract and pay a large fee so the website is my only option. Until then I am pretty much stuck and its so frustrating when I have the money waiting! I just don't want to be ripped off x

Get another supplier

I thought you already had the stock ready to sell. I can't see how they can now stop you selling that stock where and where you want.

GolfBravo

carrot-cake wrote: »

...however if I decided to go down this route instead of paying a webdesigner where do I go from here?

Do you really expect someone on this forum to explain the whole ecommerce website setup process step by step?

carrot-cake wrote: »

How do I now add Sagepay or credit card payments?

Already explained to you in your other thread. You need a merchant bank account or Authorize.net account. Paypal accepts c/c as well.

carrot-cake wrote: »

How do I make sure people are seeing my webpage when they search for certain words?

SEO marketing. It can be either free or you can spend hundreds of pounds a month.

carrot-cake wrote: »

Its so confusing

IMHO, you need to either use a "proper" ecommerce service (eg. Shopify) or pay someone to set it up for you.

Step 1: what functionality do you need from the website? Shop only? Blog? Forum? Reviews?
Step 2: how many products?
Step 3: can you sell these products at a healthy profit? Why isn't your supplier selling them already if it's online only? Who are your competitors? Can you make a profit from selling products from only 1 supplier?
Step 4: business bank account? What payment gateway is your bank using?
Step 5: how are you going to drive traffic to your website?

As already mentioned above: before you start any work on the website you need to have a very good idea of what features and functionality you need.

carrot-cake_2

GolfBravo wrote: »

Do you really expect someone on this forum to explain the whole ecommerce website setup process step by step? Did I say that?


Already explained to you in your other thread. You need a merchant bank account or Authorize.net account. Paypal accepts c/c as well.


SEO marketing. It can be either free or you can spend hundreds of pounds a month.


IMHO, you need to either use a "proper" ecommerce service (eg. Shopify) or pay someone to set it up for you. Tell me something I don't know?

Step 1: what functionality do you need from the website? Shop only? Blog? Forum? Reviews? Pretty much everything an ecommerce website should have yes
Step 2: how many products? 100 to begin with
Step 3: can you sell these products at a healthy profit? Why isn't your supplier selling them already if it's online only? Who are your competitors? Can you make a profit from selling products from only 1 supplier? This isn't what I am discussing and is off topic
Step 4: business bank account? What payment gateway is your bank using?
Step 5: how are you going to drive traffic to your website? As I am not an experienced and qualified webpage designer I have no idea which is why I am asking for advice

As already mentioned above: before you start any work on the website you need to have a very good idea of what features and functionality you need.

Customer log in, discounts, access to a part of my website that shows sales and customer details to be able to send the products, email and newsletter sign up etc

terra_ferma

carrot-cake wrote: »

Customer log in, discounts, access to a part of my website that shows sales and customer details to be able to send the products, email and newsletter sign up etc

carrot, you'll get a variety of point of views here, but I'm a fellow ecommerce retailer, and I know how it feels when you are starting out.

Personally I started with a very simple website, no need to spend thousand of pounds to start with. I even know a couple of small retailers who use free websites, (freewebstore) and it works for them, which I would have never imagined until I met them through an e-commerce group. I think you'd have to pay though, with 100 products.

If you are asking all these questions it sounds like you are using the wrong product, because a hosted shopping cart should come with some kind of support. With £25 a month you can get a decent shopping cart, like EKM, I've never used it myself but I heard good things about it, but not suitable for me.
Any decent shopping cart will have a free trial, so you can see how it works before committing yourself. I started free trials with 4 of them before choosing one.
Here's a good place to get some ideas (choose self-service filter for the ones for small businesses).
https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/shopping-carts

All you need to do is to pick a couple of shopping carts, sign up for free trials, play with them for a couple of days, and you could be online with paypal very quickly, while you find a merchant account/payment gateway.

(you'll also need to learn about SEO, but the shopping cart will have some instructions to start with, and you can learn as you go along, getting some help later if you need it)

GolfBravo

carrot-cake wrote: »

Do you really expect someone on this forum to explain the whole ecommerce website setup process step by step? Did I say that?
...
IMHO, you need to either use a "proper" ecommerce service (eg. Shopify) or pay someone to set it up for you. Tell me something I don't know?

But you're still asking questions about somebody helping you setup your Webeden website. Webeden is not a proper ecommerce platform - you need to pay them extra for more than 10 products? What else? Pixels?

You need something like Shopify (as already advised in your other forum topic), with full support and guidance, instructions and forums, integrated payments, shipping calculator, traffic and sales reporting, etc.

Or you need to outsource the whole website design and technical stuff (£££) and concentrate on building your business. This would cost ≈£1K upfront (Wordpress, Magento, Opencart) - harder to setup at first, but then you're in full control. And they would definitely not use Webeden.

In your case (no merchant account, etc.) the first option is probably better, with much lower upfront cost. Try their free trial and see if it suits you.

carrot-cake wrote: »

Step 1: what functionality do you need from the website? Shop only? Blog? Forum? Reviews? Pretty much everything an ecommerce website should have yes ..... Customer log in, discounts, access to a part of my website that shows sales and customer details to be able to send the products, email and newsletter sign up etc

Any ecommerce platform offers this, even free wordpress/woocommerce. See what Shopify offer, the only downside IMHO is that you need to pay for their nicer templates (they also offer some free templates). But all the functionality you need is there. Apart from Shopify there are Sellr, Volusion, etc.

carrot-cake wrote: »

Step 2: how many products? 100 to begin with

Try to setup a trial store with only 10-20 products, then launch it, and keep adding products. Use their user forum to find out how to setup SEO, etc. Make sure you have good product images.

carrot-cake wrote: »

Step 3: can you sell these products at a healthy profit? Why isn't your supplier selling them already if it's online only? Who are your competitors? Can you make a profit from selling products from only 1 supplier? This isn't what I am discussing and is off topic

This isn't off topic. Your SEO and marketing strategy will depend on this - you don't want to put in all the effort to setup your website only to find out that someone else is selling the same product for less £. You also need to find the cost of selling (payment processing fees, setup shipping fees, etc.). How and where are you going to advertise? How are you going to stand out from the crowd?

carrot-cake wrote: »

Step 5: how are you going to drive traffic to your website? As I am not an experienced and qualified webpage designer I have no idea which is why I am asking for advice

Web designers don't drive web traffic to your website - you need to market it yourself. Good SEO is not enough to guarantee web traffic.

Checklist:
supplier ✓
products ✓
price list?
shipping prices?
VAT?
web domain?
merchant account?
quality product images?
SEO optimised text?
UK only/worldwide?
advertising?
affiliate marketing?

carrot-cake_2

I am getting so frustrated with shopify. I am trying to edit my theme and all it has is a list of things like background, text etc with a colour chart to choose from. And that seems to be it! How do I move things around my website? How do I write text in? In the dashboard it won't even let me click on edit my theme now I'm clicking but its not taking me to a different page rrrr.

At least with webeden it was easy to use and figure out but webeden seems to take you so far like letting you add 10 products then you have to pay for everything.

mojod

Not going to promote myself here at all, no links or anything and I won't help out by PM either as the forum isn't meant for advertising.

I ran a very successful webdesign business with my ex and son, before I had to pack it in through health problems.

In the process of getting things back together to start up again and have come to the conclusion that nothing has really changed in that you either get quoted a stupid amount for something that might or might not be half decent, or pay peanuts for rubbish.

I used to full featured e-commerce sites for £299 which gave all the main features, but all fully customised to the needs of the client (including logo design, original themes/looks etc). If they wanted to add extra later, then no problem - just a reasonable extra fee. Unlimited 1 to 1 support was included and an ongoing relationship was built up with the clients, who although hadn't spent a fortune, did eventually spend more when their needs changed and pockets allowed.

Looking at doing similar again - just a bit of rework to suit changes in the marketplace and probably a small increase in the basic package price to reflect inflation etc.

In other words, have a look at service more than anything. Ask lots of questions, monitor how quickly you get replies and make sure you are aware of any "hidden" extras - hosting, domain names etc.

eBay is a good place to look in the £250-£500 range, but just make sure you build up a working relationship with whoever BEFORE agreeing to go ahead.

Lots will say that's too cheap - I disagree. Perfectly sustainable long term and both the design business and clients business grow together over time.

Just to reiterate - not a plug for me. Not started yet!