What would you charge for this job?

I would say why not try this in Joomla..( as I am also new to this) x-cart is also awesome Maybe you charge at least $2000 or more, and you can also hire a good logo designer. that will ease you up with few hours or days of work.. Good luck and we hope to see your final design when it is completed.
 


Use Magento. The community edition is free and is immensely powerful - it's the defacto standard ecommerce platform for many retailers.

Alternatively use Shopify. Great platform, but hosted and charges monthly fee + % transaction fee.

Do not charge per hour, this will only end in tears. The project will take much longer than you think it will and you will either end up not finishing the project (client runs out of money and gets pissed that its gone way over budget) or finishing it but barely breaking even for a large amount of work (and being bitter as a result).

Charge per project (based on an hourly rate X estimate of time it will take) BUT SPEC THE PROJECT OUT IN DETAIL.

Spend a lot of time initially building a list of every single page on the website and every single feature that the website will have (right down to the copyright page, privacy policy page, etc). Get the client to sign off on the final list of pages and functionality.

Be clear as to how many design revisions and initial concepts the client gets. Not doing this will mean the client could keep changing and tweaking the design. Get the client to sign off the design.

Get the client to agree to provide a signed off list of all content for the site (content for pages, a full list of all products, product images, etc). They won't want to do this as it's boring and takes time but they have to as you can't do it. Make sure they are aware this is their job.

Calculate how long it will take you to create the design concepts, revisions, install and setup ecommerce platform, populate site with all the content, product, images, etc, and deploy the site to the live server. Multiply this figure by your hourly/daily/whatever rate to come up with a price.

Take this number and double it (Projects *always* seem easier when speccing them out). BUT aim to come in under budget. If you've estimated correctly, your client will be ecstatic. If you havent and the project takes twice as long as you thought, you're covered financially and the client doesnt get a nasty surprise when the project goes overbudget.

Oh and make it clear to the client that if the project deviates from the signed off spec, the costs will change accordingly. Also lay down your hour/day rate at the start and let the client know that once completed this is the rate for any additional support or functionality. They're happy as they know what to expect (no surprises) and you're happy because you don't end up supporting the website for the rest of your life for free!! (Very important). Alternatively set them up with a maintenance contract (i.e. $x month contract gives you x days you will work on the website, improve it, handle support, etc).

Hope that helps!
 
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Kyle said:
Use Magento. The community edition is free and is immensely powerful - it's the defacto standard ecommerce platform for many retailers.

Alternatively use Shopify. Great platform, but hosted and charges monthly fee + % transaction fee.

Do not charge per hour, this will only end in tears. The project will take much longer than you think it will and you will either end up not finishing the project (client runs out of money and gets pissed that its gone way over budget) or finishing it but barely breaking even for a large amount of work (and being bitter as a result).

Charge per project (based on an hourly rate X estimate of time it will take) BUT SPEC THE PROJECT OUT IN DETAIL.

Spend a lot of time initially building a list of every single page on the website and every single feature that the website will have (right down to the copyright page, privacy policy page, etc). Get the client to sign off on the final list of pages and functionality.

Be clear as to how many design revisions and initial concepts the client gets. Not doing this will mean the client could keep changing and tweaking the design. Get the client to sign off the design.

Get the client to agree to provide a signed off list of all content for the site (content for pages, a full list of all products, product images, etc). They won't want to do this as it's boring and takes time but they have to as you can't do it. Make sure they are aware this is their job.

Calculate how long it will take you to create the design concepts, revisions, install and setup ecommerce platform, populate site with all the content, product, images, etc, and deploy the site to the live server. Multiply this figure by your hourly/daily/whatever rate to come up with a price.

Take this number and double it (Projects *always* seem easier when speccing them out). BUT aim to come in under budget. If you've estimated correctly, your client will be ecstatic. If you havent and the project takes twice as long as you thought, you're covered financially and the client doesnt get a nasty surprise when the project goes overbudget.

Oh and make it clear to the client that if the project deviates from the signed off spec, the costs will change accordingly. Also lay down your hour/day rate at the start and let the client know that once completed this is the rate for any additional support or functionality. They're happy as they know what to expect (no surprises) and you're happy because you don't end up supporting the website for the rest of your life for free!! (Very important). Alternatively set them up with a maintenance contract (i.e. $x month contract gives you x days you will work on the website, improve it, handle support, etc).

Hope that helps!
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This = Gold!

The initial list of pages + features is a necessity! I have previously worked on eCommerce platforms and as previously mentioned, customers will listen to talks here and there and/or google some information and then come up with the "It'd be great if we could have this in our website" thing!

As much as you try to give your 100% onto the project, if you're not able to go that extra mile that the customer demands, you'd be left with an unhappy customer.

It's vital that
- You make a list of all the pages of the website (enquire as to who's going to write the content, if it's on you - then include the pricing in your quotation)

- You make a list of all the features in the website
Now Magento (which I really recommend) comes preloaded with a huge list of features, however, there are always going to be certain extra demands from the customer's end - so be prepared and quote accordingly.

- Cosmetic web features (Slideshows - Cu3er - Web Fonts etc.)
Explain the importance of these to your clients. He may want a Slideshow (which he must've seen on some other site)! All this is reasonable when it comes to working with templates, however if it's a custom design - these features need to be charged.

I know there are a lot of experienced people that would prefer the per hour pricing model, however, I'd still stick to project based budgeting.

If it's a well calculated budget, you've no reason to worry even if the client asks for a little more (as long as it's reasonable). You get to keep your profits.

Also, as previously mentioned, get all of the above signed by your client and have them listed under the "Deliverable" column of your contract. Make it clear that anything more than this is chargeable.
 
I quote my clients this way:
Magento Platform (Unlimited items with customizable categories) + Unique Theme (my own high quality drop down menu) + SEO/SEM optimization + Source Code (PSD - PHP - CSS - JavaScript)
At least $3.000

Every project has its own prices, based on client budgets and goals

With WP I charge at least $1.500 (for little stores WP is a good choice in my experience)
 
If the project has serious potential, and it looks like a decent product line and the sales can be lucrative, why not JV it? Take a few grand up front to cover a flop, and write an agreement for a piece of the action in perpetuity- say 10% of gross sales, with buyout clauses, etc.

You stay involved and do adds and tweaks to the site (cap the hours committed monthly in the agreement), and keep making monies forever.

That's how I roll- I almost NEVER work hourly. That's a "Job", mate.

Bad JuJu.

PS - Jamula/Xcart -OR- Magento if you want open source freebies, no question... But I would consider a paid CRM/Cart like Infusionsoft, which is what we've switched to. They've come a Loooong way since their launch, and have a pretty smick set up and much more reasonable cost too. Hard to beat imho.
 
Not sure why people are recommending platforms without knowing the site requirements/client budget.

If he has a smaller budget and just needs something cheap and easy, go with something like Shopify.

If he has a larger budget and needs something more robust, go with Magento. Just be warned that a lot of customization may need to be done, and I would be hesitant to run a large Magento site on shared hosting.

Like people are saying, it is important that you try to make a full list of features that the person wants. However, as someone who has been through hundreds of these projects, there will ALWAYS be scope creep, no matter how well you define the requirements.

The answer to your problems is to define an hourly rate. Provide an initial estimate (with some hours baked in for scope creep). Tell him what your hourly rate is, and MAKE IT CLEAR that anything beyond this scope of work defined in the agreement will cost incremental hours. As long as you set expectations that any additional work outside of scope will cost money, you don't need to worry about getting every last possible detail in your requirements.
 
From what I can tell, this is a smaller scale project. The client works for a large surf clothing company, but he has his own line of clothes on the side. Like I said before, mainly t-shirts, sweat shirts, hats, that type of stuff. He's more or less a one man show, but he has a loyal following of people here who always buy his gear when he has new stuff. I don't think he has a huge budget for this project, but I also don't anticipate that he is going to have hundreds of items and variations. If he has 50 different products I would say that is probably max.

Obviously I still have to get more details from him, but this is what I've gathered from my friend who is referring the client.

Honestly, I'm more concerned with the upkeep and work I'm probably going to have to do when he gets new product or wants to change pricing etc. I highly doubt I can teach him to do this stuff on his own, so I'll probably be the one doing this and I need to figure that into my pricing.
 
efeezy said:
Honestly, I'm more concerned with the upkeep and work I'm probably going to have to do when he gets new product or wants to change pricing etc. I highly doubt I can teach him to do this stuff on his own, so I'll probably be the one doing this and I need to figure that into my pricing.
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Offer a monthly maintenance fee with and without monthly SEO (link building) work.
 
Magic Hat said:
Offer a monthly maintenance fee with and without monthly SEO (link building) work.
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Yes. Bring up the point that the greatest website in the world will do him little good if no one sees it. An eCommerce site will live or die by the traffic. I would offer a couple of different monthly seo options and include up to x hours per month for ongoing maintenance built into that fee.
 
You could pay someone $2.50 per hour to add products. 100 products would be about 8 hours. So assuming the guy has 1000 products you're looking at about $200. To setup Magento on a server with a template to his specifications would be around $250-$300 + the cost of the template.

The end product would be something very professional and would be around $750. From there you can tack on your hourly rate for the managing the project and seeing it through for him, I think $500 is fair, but you could easily quote $2500 for a professional e-commerce solution.

- Do not go with wordpress, Joomla, or any other non-ecommerce platform.
- Do not charge an hourly rate. If you quote something like 25 hours and then the revisions and back and forth etc end up taking another 15 hours, he will blame you for going over budget. He won't thank you for billing hourly.
- Outsource as much as possible. Paying someone $2.50 per hour to add products is well worth it when you have stated in this thread you consider your time to be worth $50 per hour.

Good luck brah
 
Just charge an assload. Whatever you were thinking, double it. It's a win-win, cause either he will no longer be interested (then you don't have to do it), or you will be compensated fairly. In my experience, doing work for friends of friends, they always underestimate the time it takes to create something like this and expect you to be a magician.

Maybe this guy will be a diff story...I hope so for your sake.
 
kingofsp said:
Just charge an assload. Whatever you were thinking, double it. It's a win-win, cause either he will no longer be interested (then you don't have to do it), or you will be compensated fairly. In my experience, doing work for friends of friends, they always underestimate the time it takes to create something like this and expect you to be a magician.

Maybe this guy will be a diff story...I hope so for your sake.
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That's kind of what I'm thinking. I didn't want to flat out turn down the job mainly because my good friend who referred him was just trying to get me some business. The funny thing is that I've done a couple of sites for my friend and only charged him a couple hundred bucks. I'm sure he's told the client that he could get something really cheap...so when he gets an estimate of $5k, he's probably going to piss himself, but at least I won't have to mess with the hassles.
 
Use magento, bid it 5 figures, outsource it to competent magento developer, keep on making money doing what you do. I've done a handful of these type projects, never again. Become friends with your clients, not make clients out of your friends.
 
Berto said:
What E-Commerce plugin for WP are you using?
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I have coded a WP theme/plugin from the scratch and sell it to my customers.
I integrate the following third party plugins:

  • XML Sitemps
  • SEO Smart Links
  • Robots Meta
  • HTML extension on pages
  • WP to Twitter plugin
  • W3 Cache
  • All in one SEO
 
InfusionSoft is a big beast. For something simpler try Span6. It's what we switched to recently and it's much more affordable and stress free, so far.
 
efeezy said:
That's kind of what I'm thinking. I didn't want to flat out turn down the job mainly because my good friend who referred him was just trying to get me some business. The funny thing is that I've done a couple of sites for my friend and only charged him a couple hundred bucks. I'm sure he's told the client that he could get something really cheap...so when he gets an estimate of $5k, he's probably going to piss himself, but at least I won't have to mess with the hassles.
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Always be wary of referrals that come from friends and people you've done favors for. They will absolutely be looking for some sort of discount.

In my experience, the best way to handle it would be:

  1. Figure out what he needs and how much you're going to charge.
  2. Take 10% of that and add it to the price.
  3. Tell him that you really like his idea, and you think it's going to be an excellent venture, and you'll knock off 10% of the charges because he was referred by a friend.

Also, if you're going to disclose your hourly rate with him, make sure it's not a round number like 50. Tell him it's 47 or 48, and that's the lowest you can go. It sounds more calculated.

Just an opinion. Good luck!
 
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