Ecommerce solution prices...confused!...

Hi guys,
I just came across a web design company’s website and they are offering really cheap ecommerce web design. I contacted their sales team and they seem to be a professional company.

My issue however, is that their price for an ecommerce website is a great deal less than other quotes which I have recieved. And although I am tempted to go with them, I’m affraid that something may be missing from their ecommerce package.

I own a sattelite equipment store and know very little about ecommerce websites. Can anyone here either have a look at their ecommerce web design package for me to see if it’s value for money. They are called webpact and details of thier Ecommerce solution are here http://www.webpactwebdesign.co.uk/web-design/ecommerce-web-design/ecommerce-solutions.aspx.

Also, any ideas on why there is such a price difference in ecommerce solutions; the quotes I have recieved range from £5000 to £699!

Many thanks guys,

Sef

Re : Ecommerce solution prices...confused!

Hi,
As a business owner who's company builds a lot of E-commerce sites for large and small companies be very careful with who you choose. We only build custom sites not out of the box solutions. It is templated formatted stuff. These sites are unpredictable and limiting. More importantly the skill of the developer is very important. A lot of companies sub contract and outsource the web build to India/Phillipines etc. Do not buy on price, you will get burnt. Web companies are not regulated by any governing body. Websites should be fully DDA compliant or W3C validated, but the build quality of websites has no standard. Thouroughly check out all companies and look for reputation and quality first and price second. You get what you pay for.

We are a medium size digital agency of 15 staff and consider ourselves to be average pricing amongst other good web companies. Depending on the ecommerce solution an average decent Content Managed E-site should be around £5-10k from a reputable web company with in-house staff.

Beware of companies who do not put addresses or contact numbers on their own sites. That generally means they are small time freelancers or thy may do a runner in time. Don't buy a website - buy a reputable company with a reputation. I see too many of these 'companies' spring up and disappear, or produce dire stuff. There is no such thing as a bargain. You get what you pay for. An average E-commerce web build can be anything from 10-25 days, at around £500 per day for a decent web agency, you can see £600 is a non runner, unless it's a rapid skin of a template.

Have a look at some of our free information and article on our blog that discusses E-Commerce, SEO, websites etc. It may help you understand a few things about online before you commit to anyone.

http://www.armadillo-creative.com/blog

Good luck. But do some homework on reputable companies.
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www.armadillo-creative.com

Re : Ecommerce solution prices...confused!

Yes you will certainly find a huge range of prices for ecommerce sites and much more variance in this than even web design.

If you go to a major agency they won't get out of bed for less than £5,000 for the simplest of sites, whilst if you go to eastern europe or a company that is in india or outsources to that part of the world then you can be quoted something as little as a few hundred pounds.

Not only the labour and the quality of that labour, but also the quality of the site you are going to be sold is what causes such a variance in price.

Many sites will run off free templates rather than be developed in a bespoke manner, and many companies of course already have an entire ecommerce system developed and can plug it in, others will have to write bespoke modules.

Customer service will also vary massively as will conditions such as how many updates you can have without paying extra, what is considered a reasonable request, turn around times, how well or badly they respond to your messages and how quickly, whether images are included, upload of products to the database, flexibility of the solution, scope for upgrades at the backend, functionality of the backend, the payment taking solution, whether it uses a secure server or not, whether there is customer login, whether you can add new products and categories and manage stock etc through a backend interface or not...

There are so many variables that if you have anything but the most basic ecommerce site and it is important for your business there is no substitute for at least talking over the phone to a developer and ideally meeting someone. The hardest thing when trying to quote for such a project is understanding what the customer needs - do they have 1 product or 10,000, what information needs to be captured on each project and what sort of logic is required - shipping rates by size / weight, currency conversions - etc etc etc

Good luck As a final hint I would suggest it is often best to go for a mid-price quote; the cheapest are the cheapest for a reason but the most expensive aren't always the most expensive because they will be the best. As often a happy middle is often the way to go.

Re : Ecommerce solution prices...confused!

Online businesses are different,and can require different start-up costs and have different needs. There are so many options out there, you just need to try out the demo's and see if you like what they have to offer. I happen to know one ecommerce solution that looks promising it's the Avactis Shopping Cart, the price is right and with responsive technical support. Looking at their features, they have powerful marketing tools,integration with Quickbooks,a Facebook storefront, and mobile skins.