[HIJ.Clothing]

Hey guys I was just curious to about how much it costs to get a website done. Im starting a clothing line and I have a guy who can charge me about 150 for a simple website with links to all my social networking sites and my web store. He is also saying he can charge under 500 for a website with
-Some good attention to design and branding
- blog you can edit
-nicely done static (non dynamic meaning if u want to change them you just call me ) pages
-And a basic webstore that works but isn't like urbanoutfitters.com detail and individual look.

What do you guys think? I think those prices are pretty good but I dont know much about website making the guy is an amateur with experience by the way.

 

[smclean06]

$100-500 is CHEAP. I wouldn't trust anyone offering those prices at all.

Unless you've seen his work (and have proof it really is his work) I wouldn't bother. Not something you want done cheaply.

However, if you have the $100 to "waste" that's not a huge investment, so if the website is a mess you won't have spent much. Whatever you do, GET A CONTRACT!!! When you say it's "if u want to change them you just call me" find out how much he's planning on charging you per change. A professional will include a content management system (CMS) which allows you to change all content on your own. He may have such low prices because he's basically trapping you into his services and having to pay him every time you want any little thing changed...

 

[jpat]

Hey guys I was just curious to about how much it costs to get a website done. Im starting a clothing line and I have a guy who can charge me about 150 for a simple website with links to all my social networking sites and my web store. He is also saying he can charge under 500 for a website with
-Some good attention to design and branding
- blog you can edit
-nicely done static (non dynamic meaning if u want to change them you just call me ) pages
-And a basic webstore that works but isn't like urbanoutfitters.com detail and individual look.

What do you guys think? I think those prices are pretty good but I dont know much about website making the guy is an amateur with experience by the way.

$500 with a webstore is very cheap. Look at his work. Verify that he actually did that site and ask for references. If his work is good, and he is willing to put it in writing then go for it.

 

[selanac]

If you don't have a website and need to get one up that's fine. I charge $250 for a basic site, and $499 for unlimited space (within reason of course).

If you're a screen printer, or a t-shirt designer, offer him a trade. You make a screen print his t-shirts for a free website.

You can build your business one step at a time, or all at once. If you have the time to take, wait til you have enough to make it right, or if you don't get one started now, and change it to the way you want later.

Just so you know, I don't need t-shirts. Designs maybe. If you're having a money issue, stop eating out for a month and you'll probably have enough for the $150 site.

Everytime I buy something with that anology, I keep going out to lunch, lol.

 

[HIJ.Clothing]

Thank you everyone for the advice!!

 

[mads]

For $500, expect the design to be mediocre at best. Really good web designers would charge you around $2000 for an ecommerce site with about/contact pages. You could also be lucky and know someone talented, who hasn't discovered what he's worth yet.

 

[OriginalShortees]

Usually you get what you pay for. In this case I agree with everyone who says be careful. You are not talking about a web page to show off pictures of your puppies to friends. You need one that will integrate well with your shopping cart solution which in turns need to work with your shipping and accounting solution. Many people start with the plug and play options that some of the big web companies offer and while I can not comment on how well they work, many people seem to use them. If you are going to expect to have any level of success you may want to plan for it. Don't spend 10K on a site but do expect to spend $1500-2500 on something good from a strong developer. Pay special attention to your shopping cart choice and its integration.

 

[LODclothing]

Great info. Any specific recommendations for designers/companies?

 

[playera]

For starting up I wouldn't spend $1000's building a website. Even $500 sounds a lot for start up unless you got tons of cash and a solid business plan. What if your business flops? Your stuck with an investment you didn't see a return from. You should be good with a hostgator account, wordpress, wordpress theme, wordpress e-commerce plugin all under $100 bucks. I can show you my site I just made a couple days ago using the same stuff well I'm still kinda working on it and I'm a noob at web design and it actually looks legit for a first timer that used to host at bigcartel and my site actually looks better than bigcartel theme and more functionality. PM me if you want to check it out.

 

[DavidRobison]

Its not how much it cost, its not how much time it takes, its about wether someone can find the website.

Before you pay anyone to make you a website ask them to tell you the name and subject of a website the've created. Then go to google, Yahoo and Alta vista and search for the site. If these engines don't find the site your web designer is not a good one, period. I've seen some AWESOME looking web sites out there but most were by accidental discoveries. If you sell t-shirts and you expect to sell them on the web then people HAVE to be able to find you. A lot of people now know the basics of making a good looking web site, but few of them can get it properly listed and the amount of time its up on the web only matters if your getting visitors to go there. Without search optimization your wasting your money. Take a look at my site, then do a web search for me. Mine comes up in the top 10% of every relevant search. Having a web site, even an awesome looking one without the proper search word backup is like a rainbow in the dark.

Thats what you should consider most when deciding to do a web site. Trust me I have 6 or 7 web sites and none had optimization and its the only one people find me by. Put your money into someone who can deliver that as well as the bling.

 

[mugmate]

Hi, you could always bulid it yourself try www.1&1.com an eshop is about £30 a month.
Robert.

 

[vadan]

To be entirely honest e-commerce sites have a split market. He low end no frills can be done for $500-1000, mid range with a half decent cms and probably template design $1000-4000, a fully custom site will easily be $4k+ anything up to $20k. It all depends on ur market, competition and the company brand u want to create.

Ppl often forget the importance and effect of a well made site. SEO, management, reports, data processing, site structure, code structure... All these things play a huge part on what search engines see. U wont get this with a basic site, especially using "off the shelf" setup.

A site is ur equivalent of a shop. U wudnt buy a shop and kit it out cheap wud u? Same principal applies.

 

[vadan]

Forgot to add!

Find a good dev team with a designer, not 1 guy who does it all, bad choice. Tell him ur plan. Get a simple foundation up with expansion possibility. Put ur plan on paper so they can confirm it can be done.

From experience I highly recommend Magento. An incredible platform.

 

[cryptkeeper]

I do not touch sites under 1200CDN. 95% of my ecommerce sites start in the 3k range.

 

[LODclothing]

So, let's say the budget was 3k+, can someone recommend a good design firm with solid SEO Skills???

 

[Rodney]

So, let's say the budget was 3k+, can someone recommend a good design firm with solid SEO Skills???

You need to start a new thread in the Referrals and Recommendations area to get a referral for someone offering that service.

 

[mrhotdice]

I don't care if they charge 100 or 10,000 dollars. You ask 2 question. Have you ever done a chothing e-commerce before and can you give me a few examples of your work that are up and running on the net. Don't just ask for eamples because a lot of these guys will work for days to make a nice example and then what you get is crap. After you get the examples, call the company and asked how good a job and easy the web designer was to work with on the site. Just

 

[smclean06]

Its not how much it cost, its not how much time it takes, its about wether someone can find the website.

Before you pay anyone to make you a website ask them to tell you the name and subject of a website the've created. Then go to google, Yahoo and Alta vista and search for the site. If these engines don't find the site your web designer is not a good one, period. I've seen some AWESOME looking web sites out there but most were by accidental discoveries. If you sell t-shirts and you expect to sell them on the web then people HAVE to be able to find you. A lot of people now know the basics of making a good looking web site, but few of them can get it properly listed and the amount of time its up on the web only matters if your getting visitors to go there. Without search optimization your wasting your money. Take a look at my site, then do a web search for me. Mine comes up in the top 10% of every relevant search. Having a web site, even an awesome looking one without the proper search word backup is like a rainbow in the dark.

Thats what you should consider most when deciding to do a web site. Trust me I have 6 or 7 web sites and none had optimization and its the only one people find me by. Put your money into someone who can deliver that as well as the bling.

This is not entirely true.

I am a web designer. And that's what I do. I design (and code) websites.

If a customer wants their website MARKETED (which is what SEO is), they need to find a marketing firm. Which I am not.

I can design and code a beautiful, practical, fast, user-friendly, SEO capable website. Optimization? Not in my job description.

Also, whether you'll find a particular website in search results is mostly dependent on the name of the company. "T-shirts" has 195,000,000 results. No amount of SEO will put you at the top of that mess. Marketing will bring people to your page.

 

[DavidJohnHashman]

Sarah, would love to get info from you about your web site building but I am way new on computers and dont know how. Thank You, David John.

 

[websitestudio]

i can do it for under $300.