Should a website cost $2,000 to build?

[Kim]

I want to sell several products. According to this website it'll cost me a lot of money.

http://www.designquote.net/html/dq_estimate_wizard.cfm

I have checked:

Basic Word Press type website
No unique graphics
Contact forms
Simple cart shopping
Credit Card Processing
Paypal
Database reports
Traffic Statistic Reports
Search Engine submissions
Press release submissions
Twitter Integration
Facebook page

Here's what I'd like for my website. I'd like it to sell 5-10 different products. I'm going to have on-going contests/sweepstakes promotions to promote sales. Those are the two main goals of the website, every thing else on it would be used to support them. The contests require that I have the option for contact forms to inform people who win, and some basic control of other means to enter the contest on the website. I figure this means I will need some kind of database reports.

Is there any expenses that I have forgotten to add, or that are unnecessary?

This will apparently cost $1700-$2300. Is this accurate?
I'd like to include a lot of other functions, but it gets too expensive.

Also, are these one-time costs? I'm assuming I'll pay this once, plus maybe $100 a month tops to maintain it, and a percentage of sales to paypal/credit transactions that depend on what my sales are.

Is this accurate?
Isn't the 2k for labour...? 0.o

[Franco]

Hello

The 2 K is for labour, but not, for ongoing labour. To make updates on a website, someone should continue to work with your website. If you don't know how to maintain websites, then I suggest you pay someone to maintain your website on an ongoing basis. After you pay your 2k, the website should become yours, so you can do whatever you want with it.

It depends. Some people might give you the quote you received because it's fair, but you might find someone who will charge you less than $1700-$2300.

I think your assumption is decent. Some people might accept a one time cost, for the entire project. Give the $100.00 to a web hosting company, and give some money to a domain name registrar. You also would give money to the person who will be maintaining your website. If you are planning to use a credit card, you should make sure you can pay the credit card company back on time.

"Also, are these one-time costs? I'm assuming I'll pay this once, plus maybe $100 a month tops to maintain it, and a percentage of sales to paypal/credit transactions that depend on what my sales are."

[Fred]

Take a look at OS Commerce. You can use it free as it is open source. And you can do all the design yourself. Or get any frien with some skill to do so. Thne clever selection of keywords will get you good Google ratings.

[david w]

Sounds like you need a simple pre-built, turn-key site...you shouldn't be paying a custom rate for this type of site....places like Yahoo, etc have these premade...just plug in your products. Now, for a custom site, that's actually too cheap...I would charge more.

[Chris]

The cost calculator assumes that most of the stuff you checked must be manually implemented by a web developer.
Since it looks like you'd be fine with a WordPress site, you should take a look at WooCommerce, a free webshop plugin.

A friend of mine uses it and it handles everything from product variations to credit card processing/paypal.

So at this point, the total cost of your website is the monthly fee for the domain and hosting.

WordPress offers tons of other plugins, for instance an SEO plugin, contact form plugins, etc.

A web developer familiar with WordPress and WooCommerce should be able to implement the rest for a quote of much less than $2000.

WordPress also has built-in user registration, which means people who buy stuff can sign up for an account on your website which will store their delivery address and payment method, etc.
It should be simply to set up basic sweepstakes based on that.
(A contact form is only used to allow people who visit your page to send an email to you.)

[eddie]

Be warned, you get what you pay for. Cheap can cost you more in the long run. If you want people to buy from your shop, you need to convince them that they will get good value products and service from you. If your site looks cheap and nasty, then that might be interpreted as the type of goods/services they can expect from you.
Think about it from your own experience - would you buy a burger from a take away that looks like it would fail a health inspection? Or a car from a dodgy looking dealership?

[Mary]

I would also recommend http://www.handzon.com, they have everything that you need as part of their builder, including interfacing to PayPal. They charge by the month, reasonable prices. They also have a affiliate in Vancouver B.C, so that should help with taxes, etc.

Your can check them out, they give a 15-day free trial, and a free personal consultation as well.

Good luck,

Mary Carmichael

[bryce.adams]

You can do it a lot cheaper using WooCommerce (http://woocommerce.com/).

You then build its features using extensions. You can buy these on http://gplme.com which is an extensions / plugin site and club. You could create a great website for under $50 if you wanted to.