# What would you do?



## Asian Blade (Nov 18, 2007)

He is the situation. My buddy who is a web designer is charging me $2000 to create a website with a online shopping cart with paypal. This rate is cheap because we are friends but also because I'm a graphic artist doing some of the designs. But the past couple of days I've been hearing about an eBay store and how effective it is. I believe its less than $20 dollars a month to have a stor with them. Which route should I go?

1. Should I create a eBay store to start with and if it goes well than pay the $2000 for a real website.

2. Are eBay store customized to look like a real website? Does anyone have a link to an eBay store I can look at and see an example

3. What are the pro's and cons of both?

4. Do people who see eBay store expecting to pay pennies for my product. 

Thanks for you advise in advance.


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## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

$2000 for a paypal website... Ouch.. and he is a friend? how many pages? How many items? I hope you got other quotes. That seems high for me.


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## mothertongues (Aug 8, 2005)

Go for the real website. You cannot really customize the eBay store, it will always look like eBay. And yes, people expect to get cheap t-shirts - I'd say less than $10, or $15 at the most. It is not only the $20 a month, or whatever it is nowadays, that you pay, but you pay to list stuff, you pay fees when it sells, you pay for everything. So it ends up being a LOT of money. Rather build your own, and spend the money on marketing it. Just my 2c.


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

Is that extra zero a typo? Cheap? Maybe you meant $200.

Now there's nothing wrong with paying $2,000 for a site, but you need to know what you're getting.

You're contemplating a $2,000 site or an ebay store. Opposite ends of the spectrum. There's LOTS of room between the 2. And if you are talking about either ebay or $2,000, it doesn't seem like you really know what you're getting for your $2,000.

I suggest you read through this thread:

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t20354.html

There's quality sites to be had for much less than 2k. Do some looking around. Ask your friend what 2k gets you. No need to pay 2k, even to a friend, if you can get what you want for MUCH cheaper.


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

Comin'OutSwingin said:


> Is that extra zero a typo? Cheap? Maybe you meant $200.
> 
> Now there's nothing wrong with paying $2,000 for a site, but you need to know what you're getting.
> 
> ...


Definitely would be less than 2k in my area. For 2k I would expect him to take my orders and ship them for me too.


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## Asian Blade (Nov 18, 2007)

Actually his rate is $50/ hour and I was just estimating the total cost. Hopefully its only half that with myself suppying him the jps files. He's pretty good and the last thing I want is to pay someone and the whole ONLINE PURCHASING part of my site doesn't work right. I'll look around as well.


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## jlcanterbury (Jul 26, 2007)

$2,000 seems like a LOT... it depends on what you are getting for that, but there are lots of cheaper alternatives.

If you want your own store, and don't want to go the ebay route, I would suggect using bigcartel.com.

go to their site and check out their service. they host a fully customizable secure paypal and credit card store for dollars a month (depending on which plan you get). They even offer a free plan, but the free plan has limitations on number of items, pics, and customization.

It's very easy to use, they don't take a percentage cut, just a monthly fee, and they handle all your transactions for you...


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

I'm not sure that I would pay anyone per hour to build a website. There needs to be an agreement upfront, with a contract that states exactly what the price will be.


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## prograffiti (Dec 7, 2007)

I built my own with yahoo sitebuilder. It costs me about 11 bux a month. It was just to show examples of murals and signs I've done over the years. I bought a business in May where I had been working since last January that has catapulted me into screen printing shirts as well as signs. I got an old heat press in the deal and an inventory of flock vinyl. I'm just now really focussing on the garment industry. I now have to add to/update my website to reflect our screen printing.


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## PornRockGear.com (Jul 21, 2006)

build an audience before you build a $2000 website.
you can buy a template for $50-$100 and have someone customize it for you.
you could use a service like t-shirt shopping cart service like bigcartel.com (for free, with 5 images of you product - you can upgrade to allow more features - i.e., more shirt designs).
you could use zencart, which is a free shopping cart system, integrates with paypal too.
and you could hire someone inexpensively to do customize the cart as your store.

if you have yet to test the market on your product, a 2k investment in a website is a poor idea, imo. 
start with a beginner type website, small scale, and as you grow your business, then go back and look at designing a new more expensive site,
and i agree with everyone else's comment...2k is a lot to spend to build a website.

search forums, you could find someone to build you a site at 1/4 of that price.

ebay is a good solution, as well. i can't hurt to utilize both a website and ebay.


hope my advice helps!


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

$2,000 for a well designed, professional website is a good price - but as Lou said anyone who charges that to implement a _paypal shopping cart_ is no friend.

Half that is still way too much. It'd be like ordering (and paying for!) a $60 steak with a $100 wine only to be served SPAM® and red cordial.


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## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

Ok, want to save a lot of money and this is for the rest of you as well.
1. Go to godaddy.com.
Buy your domain name for under $10.00
Buy thier deluxe hosting package for less then $70.00 per year. This will allow you to have unlimited domains. I know run 5 on mine. Plenty of space with package.
2. Then go yo Open Web Design - Download Free Web Design Templates and download any of they hundreds of FREE templates. You can reformat them if you have a program for editing html. 
Like frontpage or dreamweaver. Even coffeecup.com has an HTML editor.
I use frontpage 2003 ($125.00) There are even editors you can download for free. Another place is Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates. for free templates. You can buy templates at places like www.monstertemplates.com don't sell yourself short on doing your own stuff. You can best put your funds to work in equipment.


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## Asian Blade (Nov 18, 2007)

Solmu said:


> $2,000 for a well designed, professional website is a good price - but as Lou said anyone who charges that to implement a _paypal shopping cart_ is no friend.
> 
> Half that is still way too much. It'd be like ordering (and paying for!) a $60 steak with a $100 wine only to be served SPAM® and red cordial.


Is Paypal a bad thing? He told me its the inexpensive way to create a shopping cart with the least fees. He said other credit card on your site cost more money in fees. He said for a higher paypal fee the shopping can all be in your site without ever leaving your website


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## mystysue (Aug 27, 2006)

We have done alot of web sites with pay pal.. alot of people like it.. they can also use charge cards at the site if they dont have a pay pal account..
as to the price of the web site.. I dont think that is out of line for a good site.. the last site we built for someone that is what we charged.. (and they were friends).... I know of some site that cost much more than that to build..... But that being said.. that price should be a really good looking site.. that works well and is seo friendly.. so as to if thats a good price from your friend.. It depends on the site. (we actually got a qoute once from a web designer that wanted 15,000 to design a site lol..)


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Asian Blade said:


> Is Paypal a bad thing?


It's cheap and a bit unprofessional. It can be useful, but it's not great. I'm certainly not saying don't ever use it though - just don't ever pay someone $2000 to set it up. I have/do/will use it for some things.



Asian Blade said:


> He told me its the inexpensive way to create a shopping cart with the least fees.


Yes. So inexpensive (and easy) that paying someone else to set it up is not such a great idea.



Asian Blade said:


> He said for a higher paypal fee the shopping can all be in your site without ever leaving your website


That's not a PayPal shopping cart, that's a shopping cart that utilises PayPal as a payment processor. *Huge* difference. If he's doing the latter, it might be worthwhile. For one thing in that case it's easy to swap PayPal out for another merchant gateway at a later date if you want, without affecting your site design.

I may have misread what he intended by "online shopping cart with paypal".


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## AustinJeff (May 12, 2007)

eBay stores can be customized, but to make them look half-way decent actually requires more skill (so more $) than building your own site from scratch. It is also VERY difficult to get good search engine placement with an eBay store. And they take 10% off the top.

Personally, I think an eBay store can be a good to run _in addition_ to a regular website, for some business models. You can use the eBay store primarily as a marketing tool to bring people into your independent website.

I would recommend checking out Big Cartel. You design your site online. It uses Paypal to process payments. I run a few free sites there, and I think it's really nice. They also have inexpensive pay services that allow you to carry more products and customize the site more. It's a great way to get started, at the least.


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## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

Here is a test site that my friend Dan did to show one forum member what he can do for him:

quicktees.x10hosting.com/store/index.php

I think this would be under $1000. Dan does great work.


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