School me on web site design & hosting

Currently looking to get a e-commerce store website made
I am going be selling about 15 different products
5 to 10 pages

i was looking to spend around a thousand bucks give or take 2 or 3 hundred ???

I've got a couple of people that are around $4500

I've got a couple of people around 700 to 1000 dollars
1/ Web Design Melbourne, Berwick, Narre Warren, Dandenong and Cranbourne - Affordable Website Packages | graceWEB

2/ Home

but the cheaper guys
* sound like a call centre
* don't have very good English
* push for quick sales promise backup ??

Who's done something like this ?
what should I be taking into consideration ?
I probably will need help with marketing , email and social media
I don't want to design it myself - I don't have one creative cell in my whole body
I don't want a facebook store ! and I already sell on ebay

Spill your guts , tell your story , help me out

Thanks

 

Seems quite expensive. I am a web developer (didn't join here for that purpose!) and for a rather static store, it could be done for a couple of grand which could include either a custom design or something taken and modified to suit your needs as well as hosting and setup costs (this depends, of course on what else needs to be done).

Other thing to consider is the platform: Are you happy with something like Magento or WooCommerce (on Wordpress) or looking for something more involved?

My other advice: be very careful with the mass advertised developers!

 

Thanks Codexer

yes just something simple - Magento , shopify , woo commerce ect

web design, seems to be a bit of a mine field . looking for experiences , advise and recommendations

 

It could be doable for around your budget on Woo or Magento, perhaps slightly higher unless you end up with one of the slap and dash firms. So long as nothing really customised is required, of course.

Whoever you decide on, make sure they don't control your domain upfront (I'd recommend registering it yourself, actually). I've seen a lot of people struggle to claim it back without having it cost them more money.

 

Put the request up on Airtasker and see what you get. I got a very nicely designed Wordpress site done for $150 and he made many adjustments for free even after the job was done. Lots of pro guys on there looking for easy cash and this would be a pretty straight forward one to do.

Have you looked at Shopify as a possible option?

 

I suggest you don't go with the cheaper guys. Not me personally, but associates have gone with cheap quotes, got promised the world but the company could not deliver.

My business partner does web design and hosting so I can check if your budget is realistic.

 

Yeh a price guide would be good

Basic site , shopify , 7pages , shopping and checkout

Thanks mate

 

Shopify really is the way to go, especially when starting out. It’s so easy and low cost. Feel free to PM if you want any help, I currently run two small Shopify stores.

 

PM sent = LifesGood , maybe I'm overthinking it

I Noticed shopify has referrals on their web site for shopify experts in Australia
that airtasker idea sounds good to , plenty of reviews

 

Sounds like shopify might be a good start especially when starting out with a limited number of products, pretty user friendly too

 

Realistically you don't need to be creative or good at design to build an online store given all the templates / add-ins that are around. WYSIWYG site editors like Wix or Weebly may suit, are dead easy to setup (if you have a reasonable level of technology prowess), come with templates ready to go (Online Store Website Templates | Wix) or you can do something yourself with Shopify (Ecommerce Website Templates - Free and Premium Themes for Your Online Store.). The benefit of learning a few new skills to do it yourself is that when any changes are made you don't need to engage the developer every time and if you pick someone on Airtasker (over a company, which would have more continuity) you can't guarantee the same person will always be available. I would only look to outsource the development if you are doing something out of the ordinary. You might be better off spending the $1,000 on some marketing copy for your emails.

 

@CowPat When I started our business 18 months ago I knocked up a quick and dirty website on one of the free web hosting & design places, SiteGround I think it was? It was mediocre at best but we needed some sort of online presence even though I didn't think many people would look at it.

Fast forward 18 months and I was surprised how many new clients we were picking up and how many of them said "yeah, we looked over your website" and I'd cringe as it was very basic.

I needed a new one that just shows who we are what we do but probably most importantly was easy to regularly update so I can keep adding projects quickly as we knock them over and also going back and adding old projects as a portfolio.

Long story short, I jumped onto Wix.

Now, let me preface this by saying I am NOT a designer by any stretch and I have a basic/working knowledge of computers but not to any advanced degree.

I had the bones of the site up and running in 4 hours on a Friday afternoon and the first couple of the project blogs knocked out in 4 hours the Saturday morning. Another couple of hours over the next few days just tweaking layouts slightly and I had our new website done in around 10 hours and under $150 (Wix is free but you pay to upgrade to take off the little "Wix" logo.

I found Wix very intuitive to use once you've played around a little.

Most of the time I spend on it now is just the time it takes to get my screenshots of the projects together and write the blurbs, the actual blog update is very quick and simple and can share direct to Facebook and LinkedIn when you hit Publish.

They also have a shop plugin, I can't comment on that as we don't need it.

I'd say grab a free Wix account first and just have a play, there's nothing to lose. I really enjoyed building ours.

Not sure if it's allowed as it promotes my business (mods please remove if inappropriate), but here's my website as an example - all 10 hours worth....

www.beaufield.com.au

 

How did clients find you? Were they just typing in keywords on Google?

 

@Lacrim word of mouth from other clients, then they'd check our website before making contact with us.

I haven't looked at how to promote it on Google searches etc. Got too much work as it is!

 

I have used Rapid Websites for three of my pages - and every happy with all of them. Two have bookings (accommodation) and the other has woo-commerce linked to a shop page.

Around $1,000 for 5 pages - based in Sydney and speak the Queen's English

Google them and have a look

 

I've just finished building one with Wix. Super easy and with a bit of work can look quite sophisticated. Check out how the opposition lay out theirs. I'm very pleased with mine.