# I need a website! Go to a firm or hire a freelancer?



## dfalk

I have been recently speaking with multiple website designers at established graphic design studios to get a professional website done. A website similar to Johnny Cupcakes Clothing — Home or even Seibei's website at SEIBEI - Put A Monster In Your Closet! and I have been quoted anywhere from $5,000 - $12,000. What I kind of want to know is, is it cheaper and safe to hire a graphic designer that freelances or should I stick to interviewing people that work at firms? I actually was working with the guy that did Johnny Cupcakes site and he is very good but he is very busy. What do you guys think. Thanks.


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## Rodney

*Re: I need a website!*



dfalk said:


> I have been recently speaking with multiple website designers at established graphic design studios to get a professional website done. A website similar to Johnny Cupcakes Clothing — Home or even Seibei's website at SEIBEI - Put A Monster In Your Closet! and I have been quoted anywhere from $5,000 - $12,000. What I kind of want to know is, is it cheaper and safe to hire a graphic designer that freelances or should I stick to interviewing people that work at firms? I actually was working with the guy that did Johnny Cupcakes site and he is very good but he is very busy. What do you guys think. Thanks.


Yes, it can generally be cheaper to higher a freelance designer.

You could probably get the same functionality and similar "feel" by paying much less through sites like guru.com, elance.com, rentacoder.com, designoutpost.com


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## theratt

YEOWWWW!!! I've been a Graphic Artist for 20 some odd years...and i have never seen a price tag like that for a Web Site;.....where are you getting these quotes from.."Beverly Hills?" there are plenty of very good designers out there that will do a very good job for you at minimal cost. Freelancers are definitely the way to go!


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## farennikov

Company is expensive. Freelancer is hard to control and communicate with. Better hire an offshore company who have full time designers and programmers, they are much more reliable then freelancers, and price tag is very very competitive. That's what I always do these days, because I had not so good experience with individuals or small firms. I go to Eastern Europe and hire a company. Very good rates and great quality.


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## andromat

theratt said:


> i have never seen a price tag like that for a Web Site


That's, most likely, for a complete web site: design and all included. Kinda stiff, but not anywhere near the top of the price list, I would think.

How much are you willing to pay for this and how fast do you need to have it done, Derek? I am onto a good freelance resource and could put out a word on your behalf.


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## Rodney

Since many of our members are designers (or have "friends") who are designers, please refrain from specific designer recommendations or requests for Private Messages that could be mistaken as self promotion.

Remember, you can always send more information via Private Message by clicking on the member's username instead of posting a message asking for a PM


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## dfalk

I think I will check out guru.com and some of the others Rodney recommended. Maybe the price is higher because I know nothing about websites and I need someone to put the whole thing together. Main thing is quality. It has to be a site that could stand up next to Johnnycupcakes.com, Seibei. com or oddica. Even though I am a smaller line, you have to make yourself kind of look like a giant.


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## Titere

I would recommend to do it yourself. Yeah, I know, it is hard to be the t-shirt artist, the printer, the seller, the secretary and also over that the web designer, but it is not impossible. I do it myself. Get yourself a web designing program. learn the basics and do it yourself. There will be no cost, and you can have as many customizations as you wish. Web designing is not that hard. Mine aint great, but I sell trough it and I did it myself. Good luck!


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## farennikov

Very bad idea. It will take a few months only to master HTML and CSS. Then for a an e-commerce you're talking about a dynamic website which involves programming, i.e. PHP, .NET etc. It will take six more months to get well familiar with that. And making a website without programming experience is a really bad idea too. It will at least be very vulnerable to hacks. And I am not even talking about code quality. It will be a mess. Even for $5k you can make a decent e-commerce website. Not a great one. A custom e-commerce website even if you outsource it will cost you about $10k or more. And it's just the cost of design and coding. Plus, it's not that easy to manage outsourced work or a freelancer. The idea to do it yourself is doomed. Find an individual or a company who can manage it from A to Z and give you result - it will be worth the money. And let professionals do the work. I didn't have money for my website so I did it myself - but when I was making it I already had almost 2 years experience in HTML/CSS and PHP/MySQL. Now if the topicstarter wants a qiality result, I recommend spending as much as it takes to make a good, not crappy, website. It might cost over $10k but it will be worth it and will spare you some headache.


Titere Wear said:


> I would recommend to do it yourself. Yeah, I know, it is hard to be the t-shirt artist, the printer, the seller, the secretary and also over that the web designer, but it is not impossible. I do it myself. Get yourself a web designing program. learn the basics and do it yourself. There will be no cost, and you can have as many customizations as you wish. Web designing is not that hard. Mine aint great, but I sell trough it and I did it myself. Good luck!


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## Titere

farennikov said:


> Very bad idea. It will take a few months only to master HTML and CSS. Then for a an e-commerce you're talking about a dynamic website which involves programming, i.e. PHP, .NET etc. It will take six more months to get well familiar with that. And making a website without programming experience is a really bad idea too. It will at least be very vulnerable to hacks. And I am not even talking about code quality. It will be a mess. Even for $5k you can make a decent e-commerce website. Not a great one. A custom e-commerce website even if you outsource it will cost you about $10k or more. And it's just the cost of design and coding. Plus, it's not that easy to manage outsourced work or a freelancer. The idea to do it yourself is doomed. Find an individual or a company who can manage it from A to Z and give you result - it will be worth the money. And let professionals do the work. I didn't have money for my website so I did it myself - but when I was making it I already had almost 2 years experience in HTML/CSS and PHP/MySQL. Now if the topicstarter wants a qiality result, I recommend spending as much as it takes to make a good, not crappy, website. It might cost over $10k but it will be worth it and will spare you some headache.


In order to pay that much you have to be sure you are going to be greater than Billabong and Volcom, $10K just for the website! Thats big league! It just took me a 3 month class to learn dreamweaver and flash, it can be done.
I can buy at least 6,711 white hanes t-shirts for the price of that website!!! There are also carts that you can add, so you dont have to make it hacker free yourself, the cart companies will do that. Well Good luck.


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## dfalk

Titere Wear said:


> In order to pay that much you have to be sure you are going to be greater than Billabong and Volcom, $10K just for the website! Thats big league! It just took me a 3 month class to learn dreamweaver and flash, it can be done.
> I can buy at least 6,711 white hanes t-shirts for the price of that website!!! There are also carts that you can add, so you dont have to make it hacker free yourself, the cart companies will do that. Well Good luck.


Personally I wouldn't mind spending the money on a great looking website. When I go onto a site especially to purchase something, I get an immediate feeling if I am going to purchase or not based just on how the website looks. If Oddica Threadless, Johnny Cupcakes, Life is Good or any of these other companies had poor looking websites, would they be doing as many sales? Sure market demographics, marketing and products play a huge part as well but if you went on their site and it looked home made, I don't know if I would feel so comfortable dealing with them online. I have heard of restaurants that are supposed to have great food but I will not step foot in the place just because of how it looks, and not being up to date on my tetnus. A website is our storefront and I believe it needs to look great. $10,000 for a storefront that you own outright isn't bad. I could open a brick and mortar and pay out $10,000 just fixing up the place, not including everything else that goes into opening up a brick and mortar, ie. lease, utilities, etc.. Since I am in this to establish myself as a reputable business, a professionally done website is a relativily small investment.


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## farennikov

You have to realize that making a website is not just knowing Dreamweaver. If you want to make a webiste on your own, here's an incomplete set of skills and knowledge you have to have:
1) Web site navigation and usability
2) Site and data architecture
3) Design skills incl. Photoshop and possibly Illustrator / CorelDraw
4) HTML/CSS (not just Dreamweaver)
5) PHP/MySQL or ASP/MS SQL or Coldfusion or whatever other programming language and database
6) Programming skills (not just knowing programming language but being able to use it most effectively)
7) Security issues (your site data security, credit card processing security) etc.
8) Basics of SEO so you can optimize your site for search engines from the very beginning
3 months? You're joking.


Titere Wear said:


> In order to pay that much you have to be sure you are going to be greater than Billabong and Volcom, $10K just for the website! Thats big league! It just took me a 3 month class to learn dreamweaver and flash, it can be done.
> I can buy at least 6,711 white hanes t-shirts for the price of that website!!! There are also carts that you can add, so you dont have to make it hacker free yourself, the cart companies will do that. Well Good luck.


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## Rodney

farennikov said:


> Very bad idea. It will take a few months only to master HTML and CSS. Then for a an e-commerce you're talking about a dynamic website which involves programming, i.e. PHP, .NET etc. It will take six more months to get well familiar with that. And making a website without programming experience is a really bad idea too. It will at least be very vulnerable to hacks. And I am not even talking about code quality. It will be a mess. Even for $5k you can make a decent e-commerce website. Not a great one. A custom e-commerce website even if you outsource it will cost you about $10k or more. And it's just the cost of design and coding. Plus, it's not that easy to manage outsourced work or a freelancer. The idea to do it yourself is doomed. Find an individual or a company who can manage it from A to Z and give you result - it will be worth the money. And let professionals do the work. I didn't have money for my website so I did it myself - but when I was making it I already had almost 2 years experience in HTML/CSS and PHP/MySQL. Now if the topicstarter wants a qiality result, I recommend spending as much as it takes to make a good, not crappy, website. It might cost over $10k but it will be worth it and will spare you some headache.


You can get a GREAT website for much less than $5000

If you take the time to learn HTML and design yourself, it can be a great savings in the cost to setup your site. 

It doesn't have to be insecure or a mess at all. If you have the drive and a knack for learning, you CAN do it yourself. After all, the people you hire learned it themselves. It's just a matter if you have the time and technical knowledge to pick up HTML and design skills.

You don't have to have programming knowledge at ALL to build a quality site. There are people who have already done the programming and put up their scripts for free (cubecart, zencart, oscommerce, etc). 

It's not doomed at all to do it yourself or hiring a freelancer. You can go to designoutpost.com and get the design done for about $300. You can go to rentacoder.com or the cubecart/zencart forums and get the install done for about $200. You can get someone to customize your skin for about $200 and it's easy to manage your shop after it's all installed and looking the way you want. Adding products is just point and click.

I'm not a programming expert at all, but I'm resourceful and I had a desire to learn how to do things right. HTML is not complicated stuff. The hardest part is learning "design" which makes your site useable and easy to navigate. Learning what "not" to put in your website.

I'm all for doing it yourself if you have the time. But if you don't have time, desire or ability to learn how to do it right, I highly suggest outsourcing to a freelancer. Let them focus on their expertise (building websites) while you focus on yours (designing t-shirts and selling).

A website doesn't *have* to cost $5k or $10k to get it looking like Johnny Cupcakes or bustedtees. The companies that pay that much have the money to spend to hire a full time team (design firm) to work on their site.

If you are just starting out, you have to learn out to be resourceful and get the same tasks done, but only cheaper. Outsourcing sites like eLance, rentacoder.com are a great way to get big work done on a smaller budget.

Check out how Digg and other companies started out using elance:
Kevin Rose Diggs Elance | Elance
Handyman On Demand | Elance
Elancer | Elance


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## dfalk

Thanks Rodney for your advice once again. I wish I had the time and drive to learn how to develop a website but unfortunately I don't. I will be posting on guru.com and I am eager to see how that goes. Being a start up company, I am always counting my pennies and trying to figure out the best way to utilize every one of those pennies. That led me to starting this thread, to see how to best utilize my money in developing a website. Thanks for your help.


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## farennikov

Rodney, with all the respect, I disagree. You have to focus on your core strengths. If your strength is business, art, management, then that's what you have to do, and not try to learn everything. You'll spend more time and possibly money. And as a result you WILL get a mediocre out-of-date product. Better pay a couple thousands a month for 3-4 months and get a good website then spending a year learning and thinking that by doing it you're saving something. Trust me, I have a few years of IT experience, building websites and outsourcing web development projects, so I do know what I am talking about.


Rodney said:


> You can get a GREAT website for much less than $5000
> 
> If you take the time to learn HTML and design yourself, it can be a great savings in the cost to setup your site.


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## farennikov

It seems like you're all thinking that knowing HTML equals being able to make websites. In fact, at least 3 people work on making a fairly simple website: Designer, who gives you a photoshop file with how website will look like, an HTML/CSS coder who takes this photoshop file and creates a template out of it, and a programmer, who builds the "engine" of the website. Now it's a huge misconception that HTML will do the thing. Knowing HTML is probably only 10% of what it takes. Especially people who think that knowing Dreamweaver is same as being able to make a website. Knowing Dreamweaver isn't same as knowing HTML, because Dreamweaver is only a WYSIWYG editor.

Anyway, seriously, it's such a naive thing to think that if you learn HTML you can make a site. You can make a page, but not a dynamic database driven e-commerce site. So better hire someone.


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## seibei

hey wow, I didn't even know I was being mentioned on here - I'm glad you like our new website! 

I won't say how much, but our current website cost considerably less than $5000. A couple of things that knocked down the cost, though:

1. The designer that did it is a freelancer, albeit an expensive one.
2. The designer is a friend of mine, so I get a decent price, but I'm still giving him a pretty good lump of scratch (I will say that it's a four digit number). 

I'd recommend looking into freelancers - you don't need the exact group that did the Johnny Cupcakes site to get that feel or quality. Also, be sure of what you want in a site, and maybe give them examples and a color palette to work with. I'll be honest, I told my designer that I wanted a shop page similar to the Johnny Cupcakes site, because I like their use of model shots on the shop page rather than graphical representations (like you would have found on my old site, and many other sites like BustedTees, Snorg, T-Shirt Hell, etc). 

Anyway, pardon me for rambling. Thanks again for the kind words.


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## normsbrand

I just got finished with a site that I hired a free-lance person to develop and it was a lot less than $5k. Like SEIBEI I won't go into exact prices, but it too was four digits. 

I didn't pay for any design cost since we came up with the design of the entire site, and provided all graphic contents. The nice thing about the developer, is she had a lot of experience with building web sites, and was able to offer a tremendous amount of information. The information was mainly about trying to build a trust between the user and the store, flow of using the store, and several other little - but important tidbits.

The free-lancer that I ended up using wanted 1/3 of the money up front, 1/3 after the mock up, 1/3 when the site was complete. 

hope this helps.


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## Titere

farennikov said:


> It seems like you're all thinking that knowing HTML equals being able to make websites.
> 
> Anyway, seriously, it's such a naive thing to think that if you learn HTML you can make a site. You can make a page, but not a dynamic database driven e-commerce site. So better hire someone.


Alexander, relax a little bit. It seems you are really mad about us suggesting people to do their own websites. This is an open forum and thats our opinion. You dont have to get so serious on that. Ok thats your job, maybe you are having a hard time into making websites, but chill a little bit.


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## farennikov

Well what, we're all just joking around here just because it's a forum? I am pretty serious about it, especially that I work in IT. So please, don't take it as if I was mad - only that I was serious.


Titere Wear said:


> Alexander, relax a little bit. It seems you are really mad about us suggesting people to do their own websites. This is an open forum and thats our opinion. You dont have to get so serious on that. Ok thats your job, maybe you are having a hard time into making websites, but chill a little bit.


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## Titere

farennikov said:


> Well what, we're all just joking around here just because it's a forum? I am pretty serious about it, especially that I work in IT. So please, don't take it as if I was mad - only that I was serious.


Ok Alexander, I got you point. Peace!


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## oddhuman

> It seems like you're all thinking that knowing HTML equals being able to make websites.


"*HTML*, short for _Hypertext Markup Language_, is the predominant markup language for the creation of web pages"


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## Rodney

> Rodney, with all the respect, I disagree. You have to focus on your core strengths. If your strength is business, art, management, then that's what you have to do, and not try to learn everything.


Actually, I'm in complete agreement there. 

Focusing on your strengths is a great idea.



> Better pay a couple thousands a month for 3-4 months and get a good website then spending a year learning and thinking that by doing it you're saving something.


That's where we disagree. I can say for a FACT that it doesn't have to cost that much to get a quality website done. Even if you outsource it.

The savings are real, they aren't imagined or exaggerated. 



> Trust me, I have a few years of IT experience, building websites and outsourcing web development projects, so I do know what I am talking about.


I don't doubt your IT experience. 

All I'm saying is that your experience that it costs $5,000 - $10,000 to build a quality website is different from mine.

I have 11 years experience building websites myself and outsourcing parts of projects. Everything from ecommerce to flash game websites.

I've done it all myself and I've learned the beauty of outsourcing when I find that my time would be better spent at my core strengths.

I still think it can help small business owners if they learn the basics of HTML. I'm not saying HTML = making beautiful websites. I've never even hinted towards that in this thread or in my posts. That's only half the picture. As I've said before, if you're doing it yourself, you have to learn the _design_ aspect of website building as well as the technical.

I gave specifics above on how you could get a quality website for under $5000. The fact is, it doesn't have to take $5000+ to have a quality ecommerce website if you outsource it. 

That doesn't mean that it "can't" cost $5000+. I know there are companies that pay many times that much without blinking an eye.

I'm saying *it doesn't have to cost that much*. That's not an opinion, that's a fact based on actual fees found on website designer freelance sites, coder freelance sites, graphics freelance sites, web hosting sites, etc.


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## Rodney

> It seems like you're all thinking that knowing HTML equals being able to make websites.


I don't think anybody was thinking that at all?



> In fact, at least 3 people work on making a fairly simple website: Designer, who gives you a photoshop file with how website will look like, an HTML/CSS coder who takes this photoshop file and creates a template out of it, and a programmer, who builds the "engine" of the website.


Again, my point is that it doesn't *have* to take 3 people to do that and it doesn't have to cost thousands.

*Concrete examples:* http://www.designoutpost.com/pricelist.htm

You can get a website designed (PSD file) and coded by the same person for $500. That's just one freelance website. With some searching, you could get it done for less.

You don't need to hire a programmer to do the backend of a site. There are backends that have been pre-written by experienced coders. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

*Concrete example:* CubeCart.com - a *free* shopping cart that has a ton of features already built into it and a strong support community.

There are backends pre-programmed for almost any task you would need done. All can be found at hotscripts.com (or similar sites).



> Now it's a huge misconception that HTML will do the thing. Knowing HTML is probably only 10% of what it takes. Especially people who think that knowing Dreamweaver is same as being able to make a website. Knowing Dreamweaver isn't same as knowing HTML, because Dreamweaver is only a WYSIWYG editor.


That's incorrect as well. Dreamweaver is both a WYSIWYG editor and a code editor. It can be used as a straight text editor, a php code editor, OR a what you see is what you get website editor.

Knowing HTML is a very good start to building your own website. In general, I think if a person can learn that on their own, they can learn the design end on the their own. Places like webdesignfromscratch.com are a great way for people to learn the design side of building websites.


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## farennikov

Geez, you're being just funny.


oddhuman said:


> "*HTML*, short for _Hypertext Markup Language_, is the predominant markup language for the creation of web pages"


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## farennikov

$500 for a full e-commerce website? - Maybe, but show me the quality for $500. Seriously, show me examples of awesome e-commerce websites for $500.

About Dreamweaver - the fact that a person knows WYSIWYG part of it DOES NOT mean that this person actually knows HTML - that was my point.


Rodney said:


> I don't think anybody was thinking that at all? That's incorrect as well. Dreamweaver is both a WYSIWYG editor and a code editor. It can be used as a straight text editor, a php code editor, OR a what you see is what you get website editor.
> 
> Knowing HTML is a very good start to building your own website. In general, I think if a person can learn that on their own, they can learn the design end on the their own. Places like webdesignfromscratch.com are a great way for people to learn the design side of building websites.


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## Rodney

> $500 for a full e-commerce website? - Maybe, but show me the quality for $500. Seriously, show me examples of awesome e-commerce websites for $500.


Where did you see that posted?


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## farennikov

You said: *You can get a website designed (PSD file) and coded by the same person for $500. *


Rodney said:


> Where did you see that posted?


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## Rodney

farennikov said:


> You said: *You can get a website designed (PSD file) and coded by the same person for $500. *


Yes, that was in a specific response to your post that I quoted:



> In fact, at least 3 people work on making a fairly simple website: Designer, who gives you a photoshop file with how website will look like, an HTML/CSS coder who takes this photoshop file and creates a template out of it, and a programmer, who builds the "engine" of the website.


So I was responding to the fact that it doesn't *have* to take 3 separate people and that it doesn't have to cost thousands.

If you'll check what I wrote above, that line was specifically referencing the actual site design and HTML coding (the numbers are also on the pricelist page I linked to).

The shopping cart was the ecommerce part. That part is free. You could pay someone to take that custom design and integrate it into your shopping cart for probably $100-$300 by looking at the cubecart.com/cubecart.org and related forums.


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## farennikov

Rodney, I see now about $500. 

But someone before was talking about Custom website. When they say "custom" I assume they mean custom design AND custom programming. Because just "custom design" kinda goes without saying, IMO.

And so talking about open source isn't quite applicable. Yes, I agree that if you use a free template for site design (or even a $500 design) and free open source e-commerce engine, you can make a site for $1k. But no, not a custom site.



Rodney said:


> Yes, that was in a specific response to your post that I quoted:
> 
> So I was responding to the fact that it doesn't *have* to take 3 separate people and that it doesn't have to cost thousands.
> 
> If you'll check what I wrote above, that line was specifically referencing the actual site design and HTML coding (the numbers are also on the pricelist page I linked to).
> 
> The shopping cart was the ecommerce part. That part is free. You could pay someone to take that custom design and integrate it into your shopping cart for probably $100-$300 by looking at the cubecart.com/cubecart.org and related forums.


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## Rodney

> But someone before was talking about Custom website. When they say "custom" I assume they mean custom design AND custom programming. Because just "custom design" kinda goes without saying, IMO.


That's probably where we are differing then  I can see how that would make a difference.

I didn't make the same assumption as you.

When someone says "custom website" to me, that just means "a website designed to their specifications."

I don't think "how" it's done matters to most people, as long as it has the functionality they need and looks they way they want it to.

I agree, having a custom shopping cart coded from scratch would cost $5K+.

But I don't think it's necessary to have a shopping cart coded from scratch with all the free (and even paid) pre-written shopping cart solutions that are out there.

It goes along the same lines of the earlier discussion. Outsourcing.

By letting others (the cubecart,zencart,oscommere programmers) focus on their strengths, you don't have to reinvent the wheel and get something made from scratch that dozens of high quality programs already do.

Why pay for a custom shopping cart to be built if the free ones (or even the paid ones that already exist) do the same thing?


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## oddhuman

farennikov said:


> Geez, you're being just funny.


sorry...I could not contain myself.


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## farennikov

Rodney said:


> Why pay for a custom shopping cart to be built if the free ones (or even the paid ones that already exist) do the same thing?


It depends. When I was starting one e-commerce site, none of the existing open source engines would work. I needed custom features - so many of them that modifying an open source code would be as difficult as making a custom site.


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## Calibrated

After reading _most _of the posts , I would like state a few things.

1) The "johnnycupcakes" site is really not all that great, in fact its fairly basic with a few cool gadgets. Looks more like a blog than an e-commerce site. I would at least have some products on the home page.

2) If that site was a "base model" to go by on what a person desires in a custom site, there is not a single reason why any developer who started with an open source solution could not make a comparable site for about _*$1500-$2000 TOPS!!...cart loaded!!*_

3) Even as a learning developer I could create a site like that in under a week if all the images were provided, and textual content as well. The eye candy flash stuff is very easy with some of the new Flash gallery scripts out there.

I too was told that my screen printing supply site would cost about _*$6500-$9500*_ when I told several developers what I desired, needless to say I taught myself in under a year how to do it all... Now I have a huge site that is growing by leaps and bounds and if your at least decent at using computers, its really not all that hard. It just takes a person who is attentive to details and can find the right tools to help with the code part.

I would be lost without a few great tools like HTML Validater and Eclipse. Sure it can take some time, but in the end its well worth it to be your own site manager and make changes without having to pay someone every time to drop in a picture or text article. Its not always about the initial costs, but the ongoing costs to keep a site fresh and expand it as well.

just my 2 cents.


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## oddica

how much to clone a site?

GetAFreelancer.com - clone site needed

the above post led to an actual site that rhymes with dirtstain dot com.


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## dfalk

oddica said:


> how much to clone a site?
> 
> GetAFreelancer.com - clone site needed
> 
> the above post led to an actual site that rhymes with dirtstain dot com.


That is crazy. $100 - $ 300 for a completed site! The guys site seems to work but it seems pretty basic and I wonder if he has had many problems with it. In the website development world, does the term you get what you pay for come into play or is the market so saturated with quality web designers that they will work for so little?


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## Solmu

farennikov said:


> But someone before was talking about Custom website. When they say "custom" I assume they mean custom design AND custom programming. Because just "custom design" kinda goes without saying, IMO.


Sadly it doesn't (go without saying), and I think you assume too much. Plenty of sites are just straight up templates. Realistically "custom" simply means "looks different" - what does it matter if the backend is custom or not? If you can take a pre-built cart and make it look new, that's custom. Besides, you wouldn't run a cart straight out of the box, so even then it's going to be _customised_.


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## CyVaquero

Reality check - I work as Lead Web Developer/System Administrator for the Business College of a major University (We are . . .). Last fall we paid in excess of 35k for just a design - that's 5 wireframe layout .psd's and color pallettes. My team did all of the implementation.

My standard rate for a small business site implemented in an object-oriented database backed CMS is 3k. I am not advertising my services as I currently have more than enough work, just giving you some benchmarks.

The difference between a professionally designed and implemented site and a homebrew one usually isn't seen so much on the front end. The are plenty of people calling themselves "web designers" when all they do is buy a tabled eyecandy intensive Dreamweaver or flash template (around $150) and change a few elements. Yes these look great but before you go with one of them make sure you ask for a portfolio and try to search for those sites using Google and Yahoo!. Note where and how often they return in the results. Remember next to direct referrals from your own marketing campaigns, search engine referrals will be your biggest referrers.

I was recently negotiating with a new client after they had been through three 'amateurs' and two years later they have a splash page that provides no information of value and a bunch of broken links. Their jaws dropped when I dropped the $3k price tag. I ask what was wrong and they said that was quite a bit more than they had been paying - to which I replied 'Look where that has gotten you'

'If you think hiring a professional web designer/developer is expensive, try an amateur.'


----------



## Rodney

> Last fall we paid in excess of 35k for just a design - that's 5 wireframe layout .psd's and color pallettes. My team did all of the implementation


You guys paid way too much for PSDs and color palettes. WAY too much.



> Yes these look great but before you go with one of them make sure you ask for a portfolio and try to search for those sites using Google and Yahoo!. Note where and how often they return in the results. Remember next to direct referrals from your own marketing campaigns, search engine referrals will be your biggest referrers.


I think designing a website and marketing a website in search engines are sort of different things. Of course you need to take SEO into account when designing the website, but the marketing of the website is the customers job, not the designer.

That being said, you can still get that included with a web design for MUCH less than 35K or 5K.



> I was recently negotiating with a new client after they had been through three 'amateurs' and two years later they have a splash page that provides no information of value and a bunch of broken links. Their jaws dropped when I dropped the $3k price tag. I ask what was wrong and they said that was quite a bit more than they had been paying - to which I replied 'Look where that has gotten you'


Paying more for a web design is no guarantee that you're working with a professional. It's also no guarantee that you'll get a quality site.

Paying less for a web design is no guarantee that you'll be working with an amateur; it also doesn't mean you won't get a quality website.

Sure, everyone has horror stories, just as there are probably many customers who have paid less than $5K for a website and got exactly what they needed.


----------



## CyVaquero

> You guys paid way too much for PSDs and color palettes. WAY too much.


Overall, I agree - maybe half of that, but it's a drop in the bucket when you consider we have ~5K undergrad and grad student, a single Executive MBA's tuition is $80k/year - our website is our primary marketing tool. There was more to it than just design - which I didn't want to go into, such as content reorganization (8,000 object site) which required getting some very large egos around a table (dept. & research heads) and giving them the recommendations and changes that our group had been trying to get pushed through for years.



> I think designing a website and marketing a website in search engines are sort of different things. Of course you need to take SEO into account when designing the website, but the marketing of the website is the customers job, not the designer.


Disagree. If the site is ecommerce then good SEO is an a major part of driving traffic and conversions. Good SEO is part good content (use the keywords your potential customers would use in your content) and part good standards compliant design. In short, good SEO is free marketing. I have never used a Google AdWords or a link farm to promote any of the sites I have designed yet they return on the 1st page of search results for the keywords they are targeting.



> That being said, you can still get that included with a web design for MUCH less than 35K or 5K.


I agree, I just don't want to see people getting swindled by Dreamweaver template warriors for a table-based or god-forbid framed design that looks good but isn't standards compliant - most of the sites I've taken over were just that.



> Paying more for a web design is no guarantee that you're working with a professional. It's also no guarantee that you'll get a quality site.
> 
> Paying less for a web design is no guarantee that you'll be working with an amateur; it also doesn't mean you won't get a quality website.


Again - ask to see their portfolio. There is a great web design podcast out of the U.K. called Boagworld.com which targets not only web developers and administrators but also what the client should be looking for and what to watch out for.



> Sure, everyone has horror stories, just as there are probably many customers who have paid less than $5K for a website and got exactly what they needed.


I agree 5K is a bit high for a small site, and most small businesses have neither the funds nor the need for anything that extravagant. This thread has carried on without us having any more information on what that firm was offering other than the proposed cost.

I am a huge advocate of Open Source and there are many fine free solutions out there but like they say it's free as in beer not as in money - you (or someone) has to work to make it yours and that work takes time and time is money.

I apologize for getting on a soapbox. I didn't mean too. I am really just trying to educate the many small business owners here that getting a site up and running is not a small undertaking but if done right it can pay for itself in new revenue streams and markets.


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## Rodney

> If the site is ecommerce then good SEO is an a major part of driving traffic and conversions. Good SEO is part good content (use the keywords your potential customers would use in your content) and part good standards compliant design. In short, good SEO is free marketing. I have never used a Google AdWords or a link farm to promote any of the sites I have designed yet they return on the 1st page of search results for the keywords they are targeting.


I understand SEO fully, but your design doesn't have to be standards compliant to be search engine friendly. 

I've heard that argument before, but my own experience tells me otherwise.



> I have never used a Google AdWords or a link farm to promote any of the sites I have designed yet they return on the 1st page of search results for the keywords they are targeting.


That could be due to many many factors (probably beyond the scope of this thread )



> I agree, I just don't want to see people getting swindled by Dreamweaver template warriors for a table-based or god-forbid framed design that looks good but isn't standards compliant - most of the sites I've taken over were just that.


I'm still not sold on the "table based design = evil". If a "dreamweaver template warrior" can deliver what a client needs, more power to them.

If the site uses tables and still functions in browsers, more power to the site. Tables aren't going to hurt your sales if done right.



> Again - ask to see their portfolio. There is a great web design podcast out of the U.K. called Boagworld.com which targets not only web developers and administrators but also what the client should be looking for and what to watch out for.


Asking to see their portfolio is definitely a good practice. Although, I think most web designers will have their portfolio listed right on their website.




> I am really just trying to educate the many small business owners here that getting a site up and running is not a small undertaking but if done right it can pay for itself in new revenue streams and markets.


I fully agree


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## dfalk

I have learned so much from all the info that people have posted. Since my original post, I have found multiple web designers that will be able to deliver exactly what I want for much less than 5k. Guru.com is a great site to check out if anyone is looking for website designers.


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## TripleT

Great thread - thanks to all.


----------



## On Your Sleeve

farennikov said:


> Well what, we're all just joking around here just because it's a forum? I am pretty serious about it, especially that I work in IT. So please, don't take it as if I was mad - only that I was serious.


 
I'm in the midst of building my own site and my friend who wanted to charge me $2000 is actually really impressed with some of the stuff I've done. I'd take a kick in the teeth before I paid someone $5000 to make a site for me....because if someone else can do it why can't I? there is a bit more pride wen you do the majority of it yourself.


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## Moo Spot Prints

farennikov said:


> Rodney, with all the respect, I disagree. You have to focus on your core strengths. If your strength is business, art, management, then that's what you have to do, and not try to learn everything. You'll spend more time and possibly money. And as a result you WILL get a mediocre out-of-date product. ...


So what you're saying is that I should leave the t-shirt stuff to the professionals and stick to programming? That's no fun!


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## farennikov

Moo Spot Prints said:


> So what you're saying is that I should leave the t-shirt stuff to the professionals and stick to programming? That's no fun!


IMO it's easier to switch from programming to t-shirts then from t-shirts to programming, don't you agree?

For example, there's a better chance that a design company can hire you with 1 year of experience in design, then a programming company to hire you with 1 year experience in programming. Go to Google and tell them you want a job and that you were making t-shirts all your life and now have a basic knowledge of HTML.... lol that would be fun to see what they tell you.


----------



## Moo Spot Prints

farennikov said:


> IMO it's easier to switch from programming to t-shirts then from t-shirts to programming, don't you agree?


I know this is going to sound weird, but no, I don't necessarily agree. I've spent a LOT of time figuring out the t-shirt thing. It's probably on par with learning a programming language. Ok, maybe one of the easier ones, if you have the aptitude for it. 

It took me a good 4 months to transition from C to Java. It took me a little longer than that to learn how to reliably design and print shirts.

Programming ain't exactly rocket science for the most part. For e-commerce sites most of the hard work has already been done for you and there are TONS of tools to make it brain dead simple. 

I think it's a worthwhile exercise for people who are interested to try and implement it themselves. At the very least when they give up and hire someone they will have a better appreciation for what's involved.


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## farennikov

Moo Spot Prints said:


> It took me a good 4 months to transition from C to Java. It took me a little longer than that to learn how to reliably design and print shirts.
> 
> Programming ain't exactly rocket science for the most part. For e-commerce sites most of the hard work has already been done for you and there are TONS of tools to make it brain dead simple.
> 
> I think it's a worthwhile exercise for people who are interested to try and implement it themselves. At the very least when they give up and hire someone they will have a better appreciation for what's involved.


Ohhh, of course once you know 1 programming language, learning another one is much quicker - same as with human languages. I mean once you know Objects for example and can use them in C, you can just learn java syntax pretty much and you're good to go. 

I just strongly disagree that making an e-commerce site should be an "exercise" - money transactions are involved and you risk not only your security but your users as well. I personally would not want to shop on a site if I knew some amature made it as a school project, you know what I mean?


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## Moo Spot Prints

farennikov said:


> Ohhh, of course once you know 1 programming language, learning another one is much quicker - same as with human languages. I mean once you know Objects for example and can use them in C, you can just learn java syntax pretty much and you're good to go.


I cut my teeth with assembler. EVERY programming language is easy... except perl. Perl is the anti-easy. 



farennikov said:


> I just strongly disagree that making an e-commerce site should be an "exercise" - money transactions are involved and you risk not only your security but your users as well. I personally would not want to shop on a site if I knew some amature made it as a school project, you know what I mean?


Of course, but there's a lot to a web site than just the financial transactions. I mean, what on earth are you paying thousands of dollars to 'pros' for? Add a paypal plugin? 

Most of what's involved is with layout and organization (for a fairly simple site). Good artwork costs money too. There's little (if any) programming involved with a lot of that.

Granted, I have yet to *install* osCommerce or CubeCart but just from reading the documentation it doesn't seem all that hard. Maybe it's my perspective... I still type up all my web pages in emacs. I may be singing a different tune after I set it up on my server.


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## karlking85

I'm not about to let anyone discourage me from building my own site. If anything it makes me that much more determined to make mine the BEST DAMN site possible, and who cares if it cost 5-10k or more? The customer doesn't know how much you paid for your site, and I strongly disagree that you can only get a great site with a huge wallet. It's just not true. Sorry. 

/rant


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## farennikov

karlking85 said:


> I'm not about to let anyone discourage me from building my own site. If anything it makes me that much more determined to make mine the BEST DAMN site possible, and who cares if it cost 5-10k or more? The customer doesn't know how much you paid for your site, and I strongly disagree that you can only get a great site with a huge wallet. It's just not true. Sorry.
> 
> /rant


Rant. Not trying to discourage you. Listen. I do web design for living, it's my job. Yes, you can make the best ever website in the world, alone. It's not matter of can or can't. It's the matter of how long it will take you if you never built websites before. Even if you are a great designer, you must realize that not all design is equal. Design for print, design for motion, design for fashion, web design, they're all quite different and if you're good in one does not automatically mean that you're good in everything else. Yes, you can learn. But as I said, if you have 5 years to learn all aspects of web design by yourself - you can build that perfect site. 

You're not being quite realistic about what building an e-commerce site entails. If you want a contemporary online store, ready for great user experience, and also hacker safe, and you also want to build it from scratch, here's an incomplete list of skills you need:
- Web site architecture
- Usability
- Page layout design (e.g. in Photoshop)
- Making template out of a page (HTML, CSS, Photoshop)
- You need programming and database skill if you want to have a catalog and want to receive online payments. So you need to know one of the web programming (e.g. PHP, ASP, .NET, etc.) and one of the DB languages (MS SQL, MySQL etc.)
- You need to have skills of integrating 3rd party online payment processing code and/or APIs (PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize etc.)
- Web site security issues
And if you want to be really up to date, you'd probably need to know javascript and Ajax.
This is not even a complete list. So if you want to make a DARN GREAT website, you got to know all the above DARN WELL. 

Again, not trying to discourage you, just trying to open your eyes.


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## karlking85

I know the majority of those issues at least well enough to start out, and I have a world at my fingertips for support when needed. If I was trying to do this ten years ago, I would be hopeless, but now, there are plenty of great folks out there that are more than happy to help out with areas you don't feel 100% confident with on your own.


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## farennikov

Well yeah, that's right. My point is that for whatever professional product it's always better to let professionals create it. It's true that if you have enough time and resources, and help, you can make a car from scratch, right? Make your own blueprints etc. But it's hard to become a specialist in all areas of expertise needed to build a good car. Even if you can, it will take a long time. So it's better to trust the company who makes cars, as they know exactly what they are doing, and you can concentrate on the area of your own expertise.

And if you just want to do it for fun... then you know, there are better ways to spend free time. And like I mentioned a while ago in this thread, I wouldn't trust an e-commerce site if I knew that it was made by an amature web developer.


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## karlking85

Well no, actually I CAN'T make a car from scratch....sorry.


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## farennikov

karlking85 said:


> Well no, actually I CAN'T make a car from scratch....sorry.


Lol yeah, neither can I. Even though I do web design myself, when I have a serious project, I hire a contractor, because I know that either size or complexity (or both) of a certain project are beyond my ability.


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## HarryBeaver

farennikov said:


> Rant. Not trying to discourage you. Listen. I do web design for living, it's my job. Yes, you can make the best ever website in the world, alone. It's not matter of can or can't. It's the matter of how long it will take you if you never built websites before. Even if you are a great designer, you must realize that not all design is equal. Design for print, design for motion, design for fashion, web design, they're all quite different and if you're good in one does not automatically mean that you're good in everything else. Yes, you can learn. But as I said, if you have 5 years to learn all aspects of web design by yourself - you can build that perfect site.
> 
> You're not being quite realistic about what building an e-commerce site entails. If you want a contemporary online store, ready for great user experience, and also hacker safe, and you also want to build it from scratch, here's an incomplete list of skills you need:
> - Web site architecture
> - Usability
> - Page layout design (e.g. in Photoshop)
> - Making template out of a page (HTML, CSS, Photoshop)
> - You need programming and database skill if you want to have a catalog and want to receive online payments. So you need to know one of the web programming (e.g. PHP, ASP, .NET, etc.) and one of the DB languages (MS SQL, MySQL etc.)
> - You need to have skills of integrating 3rd party online payment processing code and/or APIs (PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize etc.)
> - Web site security issues
> And if you want to be really up to date, you'd probably need to know javascript and Ajax.
> This is not even a complete list. So if you want to make a DARN GREAT website, you got to know all the above DARN WELL.
> 
> Again, not trying to discourage you, just trying to open your eyes.


 
Very well said! I own a small 6 person web design/development company and have been providing eCommerce solutions for over 10 years and the truth is...it's NOT EASY. Just the integration of the merchant account and payment gateway can be a complete nightmare.

Furthermore, if you don't understand usability and the science of "conversion" (converting a shopper into a buyer), then you have a high probability of building a site that no one understands or navigates.

Honestly, even at $10K, that is a pretty low cost compared to what it takes to open a physical storefront. You would spend $100K for one location in a mid-sized market.

I guess the analogy is that you can take your car to someone who learned automotives out of a book over the course of a few months and pay them a small fee to fix it, but how confident will you be with that? Sure, a trained professional costs more, but your level of satisfaction will end up MUCH higher.

Good luck!


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## farennikov

Right, and I didn't even mention SEO / online marketing. Because you can build the best website and have no traffic to it - then what's the point of building it? 

In short, my point is that it's always better to hire a professional (better a firm then a freelancer).


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## karlking85

I agre with both sides of this one way or another. I do believe SOME people can do it themselves and get a satisfactory result, not everyone, but some. I believe it depends on that person's drive, determination, willingness to learn new things, ability to process those new things, ability to spend alot of sleepless nights hacking away until they are completely satisfied, and then DO IT OVER ANYWAY! And several other things.  But yes, I believe it is possible. 

Please do not misunderstand my intentions, I do not mean to discredit your profession. You will likely always know far more than me in the field of web design and I am okay with that. But I believe in myself, fiercely almost. And anyone going into this business should, or else....they won't last long. It's a tough world ahead.


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## HarryBeaver

farennikov said:


> Right, and I didn't even mention SEO / online marketing. Because you can build the best website and have no traffic to it - then what's the point of building it?
> 
> In short, my point is that it's always better to hire a professional (better a firm then a freelancer).


 
Ohhhhhh, don't get me started on SEO...what a game. Making significant strides in a moderately competitive niche using "white hat" SEO techniques is near to impossible without a TON of inbound links which take years to develop. Sure, you can employ "black hat" techniques and see quick results, but it won't be long before you are black listed and banned from the search engines for good! 

Best marketing you can do is start a blog or become some sort of trusted resource for GOOD, QUALITY information...it takes time, but can pay off big time!


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## farennikov

Well I am not about to discuss SEO techniques. I am just making a point. Whatever marketing it is, SEO, PPC, print, etc. Even starting a blog as you say. Without knowing one or more of these marketing techniques it's impossible to promote your site.


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## HarryBeaver

farennikov said:


> Well I am not about to discuss SEO techniques. I am just making a point. Whatever marketing it is, SEO, PPC, print, etc. Even starting a blog as you say. Without knowing one or more of these marketing techniques it's impossible to promote your site.



I totally agree with your point...I wasn't meaning any disrespect. I just had a rather difficult conversation this week with an SEO client of our's who does not have a realistic expectation of the service we provide and feels that they should be in the top ten listings for any of the keywords/phrases associated with his business after only a month of work. Oye... Sorry...soapbox...lol. Now, back to the original conversation... you are completely right!


----------



## cottonmfg

Rodney said:


> It's not doomed at all to do it yourself or hiring a freelancer. You can go to designoutpost.com and get the design done for about $300. You can go to rentacoder.com or the cubecart/zencart forums and get the install done for about $200. You can get someone to customize your skin for about $200 and it's easy to manage your shop after it's all installed and looking the way you want. Adding products is just point and click.
> 
> A website doesn't *have* to cost $5k or $10k to get it looking like Johnny Cupcakes or bustedtees. The companies that pay that much have the money to spend to hire a full time team (design firm) to work on their site.
> 
> If you are just starting out, you have to learn out to be resourceful and get the same tasks done, but only cheaper. Outsourcing sites like eLance, rentacoder.com are a great way to get big work done on a smaller budget.
> 
> Check out how Digg and other companies started out using elance:
> Kevin Rose Diggs Elance | Elance
> Handyman On Demand | Elance
> Elancer | Elance


You've just opened a whole new wide world to me. I have the budget to pay someone like a Elance freelancer to get my site started. I would rather get a part-time job on campus to pay to have someone make the site than me drive myself insane trying build the site. I then could focus more on designing original shirts, production, and my guerilla marketing.


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## karlking85

I hope I'm not making a mistake in doing it myself. After the site has an established customer base and steady cash flow, I have considered reworking it with the help of a professional designer, but I am just trying to take it a step at a time.


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## Rodney

karlking85 said:


> I hope I'm not making a mistake in doing it myself. After the site has an established customer base and steady cash flow, I have considered reworking it with the help of a professional designer, but I am just trying to take it a step at a time.


As you said earlier, some people can do it all themselves, and some can't.

Just as some people can start their own business and some can't.

It really depends on the person, their skillset, their drive to learn and the time they have.

When I started, I did everything myself without knowing the first thing about any of it. I just researched, learned, implemented, made mistakes, researched, fixed them, etc.

Not everyone can do that though. I was already pretty comfortable around computers, so I didn't mind breaking stuff and learning along the way.

Some people will get frustrated when they make a lot of mistakes (which is understandable), and they may find a better use of their time is focusing on their strengths and hiring someone else to do it.

Like Alexander, even though I now can do it all myself, I still find myself hiring freelancers for different aspects of putting a site together because of the time requirements (my time is sometimes better spent doing other things) or some other small technical requirement.

There's no ONE way that will fit every situation.

Just make sure that if you're doing it yourself that you take the time to do it "RIGHT". 

Your website is your first and ONLY face of your company to your potential customers. If it looks amateurish, then you will LOSE customers and money.

Even if you are truly a top notch professional company with great products and customer service...if your website doesn't reflect that with todays standards for design and usability, your profits will suffer.


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## enclothe

Rodney said:


> When I started, I did everything myself without knowing the first thing about any of it. I just researched, learned, implemented, made mistakes, researched, fixed them, etc.
> 
> Not everyone can do that though. I was already pretty comfortable around computers, so I didn't mind breaking stuff and learning along the way.
> 
> Some people will get frustrated when they make a lot of mistakes (which is understandable), and they may find a better use of their time is focusing on their strengths and hiring someone else to do it.
> 
> Your website is your first and ONLY face of your company to your potential customers. If it looks amateurish, then you will LOSE customers and money.
> 
> Even if you are truly a top notch professional company with great products and customer service...if your website doesn't reflect that with todays standards for design and usability, your profits will suffer.


I totally agree with this post. You really CAN do everything yourself but it's going to take some serious determination and a LOT of Google searches. 
I did my whole site, but it's really just a glorified template applied over a commercial shopping cart system. 

Getting my new site online took some very scary steps and some giant leaps and some serendipity as well, and as we speak I'm still having some issues with the site that keep me up all hours. 
Scary things included, Database creation on a remote server, customer database transfer, gateways and SSL certificates, , url redirects, htaccess, things not working as planned...and many more.

The first Enclothe website was dreamweaver tables and paypal buttons, pretty simple to implement and great for the two shirts I was selling. Then I moved up to OSCommerce and a crappy hacked template. I hired a programmer to help me get that site to where I wanted and it still never really did get there. 
I'm using Product cart now, which seemed kind of expensive initially but has been worth every penny and then some. Still not 100% where I want it to be but closer than ever before. It's been a lot easier to upgrade slowly this way over the years, but someone entering the market now might not have that kind of luxury.


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## karlking85

Rodney said:


> Just as some people can start their own business and some can't.
> 
> It really depends on the person, their skillset, their drive to learn and the time they have.


That's the name of the game. Anyone in this position should be unnervingly relentless when it comes to building the business, the site, getting every detail just right, and hopefully, getting an hour or two of sleep.  

My eyelids are getting kinda heavy. lol


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## buzzbox

design is simple. takes about 16 hrs to design the whole site. copy is another thing all together. it takes 8 hrs per page to generate simple descriptive copy.
looking at johnny cupcakes website i would give the design and graphics a c+.
the copy on the other hand is 90% of the work involved on that site.


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## farennikov

As long as by designing a site you mean "make a layout in Photoshop"... then maybe. But realistically you won't produce anything outstanding in 16 hours... unless you are a genius of web design.


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## buzzbox

1st. layout in photoshop. 2nd. import into flash. 3rd. write the action script.
4th. maybe an xml layout page for easy editing.
Now comes the hard part. relavent copy. and words that create images.
you should'nt have to read thru a website. it is easy to write a lot of meaningless content.


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## karlking85

16 hours does seem kind of pushing it. I would spend that much time on the first page AT LEAST, forget the whole site.


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## buzzbox

i will give you a tip. this is the secret to designing a website in 16 hrs.
Everything is done on paper. don't try to design on the computer. your paper mock ups should be as detailed as possible.


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## buzzbox

i feel like i am defending a statement if made on a website building forum they would say i was slow.


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## karlking85

Well, as Farennikov would point out, I'm not a web designer. It would probably take me weeks to complete a site from scratch, and that doesn't include the time it takes me to figure out what I'm doing with the shopping cart. You are absolutely right though, most of my design work starts on paper. It just makes life easier.


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## buzzbox

have you tried ebay? they must be willing to do something to get you up and running.


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## buzzbox

oh ya, ask them if you can put a google checkout icon on your site. hehe


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## scripttees

Well, after reading 5 pages of very informative material, I am not sure what to do for my new site. I had a friend of mine who works for NASA design my first site for under 2k and it was everything I didnt want: Small images, flash, 9 shirts on each page and 9 pages of shirts, music he liked, no description of images, etc. I asked him to change a lot of things and I guess you cant tell a webmaster that his work isnt that good when you give him free range to design it as he sees fit. I had no idea what I was doing a year ago and trusted him since he has been designing sites for 12 years and works for NASA doing this type of work. Needless to say he didnt make the changes and now I have another tee shirt company and trying to decide what to about my site. 2 lessons I learned; dont do business with friends, design a layout in photosop and give it to the designer or work with in the design process. 

This time my wife who is a graphic designer, wants to create the site herself. She is studying Dream Weaver and Cube Cart as we speak. 
After reading this I think I will just send our design layout to a free lancer and get it done right and much faster only because we just dont have the time. Although I agree with Rodney, if you have the time and the drive, you can do it yourself. Will it be " outstanding" or up to Alexander's standards, probably not, but it will work just fine. I would rather spend the time designing more shirts and learning how to improve my SEO. I dont think anyone in this business needs to spend 5K on their site. 

This forum is suppose to be here to help people in this business get to where they want to be, not to tell people they cant do something and or if they did it wouldnt be good. Many owners in the forum have built their own site with help from Rodney and other web desingers. Maybe if you would have spent as much time assisiting and encouraging this person as you did defending your profession and discouraging him, he might have competed his site by now.


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## Rodney

> I guess you cant tell a webmaster that his work isnt that good when you give him free range to design it as he sees fit


If you don't give them direction and say they can design it how they want, then you're right, you probably can't expect them to change the whole thing at no cost since they did what you asked.



> I was doing a year ago and trusted him since he has been designing sites for 12 years and works for NASA doing this type of work.


I don't think designing websites for NASA would be the same as designing and ecommerce site for a small business. I could see how the credentials might blur things though


----------



## Moo Spot Prints

buzzbox said:


> 1st. layout in photoshop. 2nd. import into flash. 3rd. write the action script.
> 4th. maybe an xml layout page for easy editing.
> Now comes the hard part. relavent copy. and words that create images.
> you should'nt have to read thru a website. it is easy to write a lot of meaningless content.


Skip 1 & 2. Defer 3 while you're at it. Concentrate on 4 and add a step 5: Plan out what you want to do on paper first. If you cannot convey what you want the layout and/or user experience to be on pieces of paper, you're at the mercy of whomever you pay to do it for you.

Well designed web sites (IMO) are not always pretty and don't need a lot of graphics. Remember also that Google does not index flash, nor does it index images (for the most part). It indexes text. Look at this forum. See any flash? See any fancy artwork? Did you ever notice that relevant posts always show up when you do a google search? Coincidence? I think not.

This thread has gotten a bit muddy. Does the OP have a product that he/she wants to promote or is the intent to use the web site to promote a new product? Is the web site strictly a sales site?

I gotta tell you, taking a cart and customizing it yourself to sell some t-shirts ain't rocket science. It should not cost anywhere near the thousands of dollars that are being mentioned here. Even if you decide not to roll your own, take a look at one and learn what's involved.


----------



## farennikov

Wow, don't you start a War on Flash. 

Flash isn't indexed, correct, but good Flash developers embed text and links that are used in the Flash into HTML document. 

Google's goal is not to impress you visually. But most of consumer products must be displayed in a manner suitable for the product and its audience. Why do you think most or all of car makers websites have Flash, why do electronics companies websites use Flash? A lot of websites for designer brands of apparel also use Flash - it's useful as long as it helps display their products right. 

About thousands of dollars. Hight quality work costs money, no matter where it is done, in America, India, or Russia. And yes, a good web site does cost at least a few thousands of dollars. If you don't have these thousands, you can always use services such as Volusion, a hosted e-commerce engine - you just add your products and merchant account info and you're good to go. You can customize the look etc.

Anyway, let no one deceive you into thinking that you can get a great website for small money. That's not going to happen.


----------



## Rodney

> Anyway, let no one deceive you into thinking that you can get a great website for small money. That's not going to happen.


It's also important to remember that some things in this thread are just opinions and not cold hard facts.

Some people have gotten great websties for small money. It's not easy, but it's not impossible.



> This thread has gotten a bit muddy. Does the OP


I don't think the Original Poster is still responding to this thread. It's pretty old. 

I think it was just brought back up recently by another member who found it using the search.

At this point, the thread has wondered off to an open exchange of opinions on semi-related topics.



> ut most of consumer products must be displayed in a manner suitable for the product and its audience. Why do you think most or all of car makers websites have Flash, why do electronics companies websites use Flash? A lot of websites for designer brands of apparel also use Flash - it's useful as long as it helps display their products right.


Just because they do it, doesn't make it "right".

Most car maker websites overuse flash. Electronic websites do it to make the sites look "shiny", but the ones that are doing ecommerce (onecall, amazon.com, bh video) don't use flash. Some t-shirt designer websites use flash, but not usually the ones that are focused on ecommerce, they are usually the ones that are designed to showcase their line to retail buyers.

The fashion/designer ecommerce websites don't use flash (buckle.com, ftkonline.com, threadless.com, designbyhumans.com, etc)

That's not to say flash is bad at all. There are a lot of great flash sites. It's useful in the right situation and when it serves a specific purpose. Not just because you "can" use flash.


----------



## farennikov

Oh yeah, it would be *ridiculous* if Amazon or Ebay used Flash. But they're retailers, they're not marketing consumer goods under their brands. 

I do not insist that Flash is necessary but if it's user right then it's okay, I personally don't mind Flash in proper places. I agree with you on the music though - unless it's a record company or a band, music can't play by default. One of our clients had a site where they simply embedded a wav file, believe it or not, it was like 50Mb and was jacking up both of my computers but I guess they thought it was alright.


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## Moo Spot Prints

farennikov said:


> Wow, don't you start a War on Flash.


Ok, I won't start a war.  

I disable flash by default so I don't have to see it unless absolutely necessary. I will agree that for some products it is helpful but for pete's sake, keep things in perspective. You're comparing TEE SHIRTS to cars and electronic gadgets! The budgets, money involved and audience are orders of magnitude apart.

About the only time I would deem it appropriate is for a previewer to show up different designs and/or shirt colors interactively. That's pretty cool. 



farennikov said:


> Flash isn't indexed, correct, but good Flash developers embed text and links that are used in the Flash into HTML document.


Most flashers aren't good developers then. I have found this to be the exception rather than the rule.



farennikov said:


> Google's goal is not to impress you visually.


No, it is to give you the most relevant information quickly. Flash is the reason people are obsessed with this "Search Engine Index" or whatever that nonsense is called. If you don't have indexable content you have to rely on 'experts' to make your site visible. It's all a great big scam.



farennikov said:


> Anyway, let no one deceive you into thinking that you can get a great website for small money. That's not going to happen.


I couldn't disagree with you more. 

Rodney, care to tell us how much this site cost to set up initially? I bet you it wasn't all that much. I consider this one of the better ones out on the pipes, and it ain't because of it's snazzy graphics.


----------



## dfalk

Rodney said:


> I don't think the Original Poster is still responding to this thread. It's pretty old.


 
Oh I'm here and I have been reading everything. I have learned so much just from reading these posts. I myself decided to go through a freelancer that I found on Guru.com. When I spoke to him I came armed with a list of questions that I came up with just from the information everyone here has provided on this thread. I think this is all very helpful to anyone in the process of developing a website and I thank you all for the information you have provided.


----------



## Rodney

dfalk said:


> Oh I'm here and I have been reading everything. I have learned so much just from reading these posts. I myself decided to go through a freelancer that I found on Guru.com. When I spoke to him I came armed with a list of questions that I came up with just from the information everyone here has provided on this thread. I think this is all very helpful to anyone in the process of developing a website and I thank you all for the information you have provided.


Sweet, good to know the thread is still helpful


----------



## Solmu

buzzbox said:


> it takes 8 hrs per page to generate simple descriptive copy.


If you're sub-literate perhaps. Admittedly copywriting is another thing professionals don't really get enough credit for (along with web design, graphic design, clothing design, typesetting, printing... and every other creative art this business encapsulates... and accounting).


----------



## karlking85

Holy cow, this is turning ugly in here.  Websites don't always have to cost tons of money to be attractive, user-friendly, etc. Some good sites cost next to nothing, and some "$35,000 sites" are absolute rubbish. Ie, they don't even come close to serving the purpose they were intended for, they are distracting, slowloading, flash-bombarded, and just all around poor, despite the price tag. 

Give me the lower-priced, yet cleverly and concisely designed site anyday. (Begin offense.  )


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## Rodney

> Holy cow, this is turning ugly in here.


I'm not sure what's "turning ugly"? Just people sharing opinions about web design.


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## karlking85

Just kidding, I enjoy the debate. It keeps things interesting.


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## farennikov

Well, those of you who claim you can get awesome websites for no money - prove it to me. Show me those professional cheap websites. Please.


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## buzzbox

good flash work is expensive. flash programmers write the code in actionscript or load the pages with php so there is no delay. also a dynamic site directory allows flash to be indexed just like an html site.


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## farennikov

Well one of the ways to get Flash indexed is to copy Flash content to the <div> with Flash html tags (embed, object) and then use FlashObject (a javascript function) - which should be used anyway because of the IE bug - to replace whatever is within the DIV with a copy of embed/object code for the Flash file.


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## karlking85

Flash still should be used sparingly in ecommerce. There's more to it than just the SEO. Too many people still surf on 56k.


----------



## farennikov

Well I don't argue that Flash should be used everywhere or a lot - all I'm saying is that we can't blindly ban Flash.

If I make a website selling space suits - I bet I will probably use Flash.


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## karlking85

I agree with you on that Alex, It is almost necessary for some sites, just not all.


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## Susie

Hi all, interesting thread!

I too have been thinking about who will make my website. I am a programming grad with a fashion/art background and worked in finance for five years. I've made a few simple sites.

But when it comes down to it, I don't think I'm going to make my own site. I think you do get what you pay for, up to a point. I'm with the guys who say concentrate on your core skills. I know there are people out there who are way more skilled in web programming than me. Can you learn? Sure...but do you want it to take that long? 

Let's say if you could (only in distant theory, of course) learn everything you need to do a fantastic, perfectly working, secure site. How long would that take, 4..6..8 months? How many potential sales might you lose if it's not up to snuff? First impressions last, sometimes forever.

Let's say you'll be up and running within a month(or two?) if a pro does it. Wouldn't that be months and months of lost sales for a DIY? What does that add up to? Deduct it from pro's cost and now it's not really that expensive any more. 

BTW, I don't know about you guys, but you know those super fancy sites with the fabulous flash movies that want to download as soon as you arrive, the first thing I always look for is a SKIP button. If it isn't there I leave after about 20 secs. Impatience is a virtue.


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## karlking85

Hi Susie! Here's one of my favorite examples of why flash is not always a good idea. 

Welcome to Bebop Jeans Eeeeek!!!  haha


----------



## Moo Spot Prints

farennikov said:


> Well I don't argue that Flash should be used everywhere or a lot - all I'm saying is that we can't blindly ban Flash.
> 
> If I make a website selling space suits - I bet I will probably use Flash.


Can you imagine how pissed someone who owned a space suit would be if they needed to download a patch from your site while in outer space? Those uplinks are SLOW! 

Get it? Patch? 

Thank you, I'm here all week.


----------



## Susie

Hi Karlking! 
aaargghhh... That's what I'm talking about. Especially apparel sites for women. Some are notorious like Shan.com. What, do I have the rest of my life to wait while your products show themselves? Maybe we're too spoiled, but time is the most precious thing I have.

As a woman, I want to click on a link..see product and price in less than 8 seconds. For men, I think it's about 3 seconds....heh heh.

People don't wait and apparently they don't want to read much either. KISS - keep it simple. My website is hardly going to have any words cause nobody wants to read 'em.

Just give me the goods...
BTW, did you make any decisions about what direction to go in yet?

Susie


----------



## Rodney

farennikov said:


> Well, those of you who claim you can get awesome websites for no money - prove it to me. Show me those professional cheap websites. Please.


Take a look at the thousands of sites that run off cubecart, zencart, oscommerce, etc. You'll see lots of good, functioning ecommerce sites that didn't cost a lot of money.


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## Moo Spot Prints

Rodney said:


> Take a look at the thousands of sites that run off cubecart, zencart, oscommerce, etc. You'll see lots of good, functioning ecommerce sites that didn't cost a lot of money.


Right on. I think the key thing we're discussing here is awesome vs functional/appropriate web sites. What constitutes an 'awesome' web site? For me, it's google's home page. Simple, plain and to the point. For others, it's probably something quite different.

Zen/OS/Cube carts take almost all of the computer know-how out of the equation. That's the entire point of those packages. The single hardest part is adding content and maintaining it. If you want it to look 'pretty' you can find someone to provide artwork that you just plug in (for a fee, of course). You will still have to spend time taking pictures of your products, describing them and organizing them properly. That's not going to change no matter what type of web site you go with. You can pay someone to do this for you or you can do it yourself.

My gut feeling is that people really have no clue how a shopping cart works. This is why I encourage them to try and set one up. It's really a lot easier than you think. At the very least, you'll learn what it is you're paying someone else to do if you end up outsourcing the whole thing.

Yes the one-size fits all cart sites all look sorta cookie-cutter. So what?


----------



## Rodney

> My gut feeling is that people really have no clue how a shopping cart works. This is why I encourage them to try and set one up. It's really a lot easier than you think.


I think this is very true. From reading threads here, I don't think people realize all the things a shopping cart can do and how much easier it can make things.



> Yes the one-size fits all cart sites all look sorta cookie-cutter. So what?


That's very true. Out of the box, they can look very similar. But with a little design/HTML knowledge, there's a lot of customization that can be done.

You wouldn't even be able to recognize some cubecart/zencart/oscommerce stores.

Like lmnotees.com is powered by zencart, but looks VERY custom.


----------



## karlking85

Susie said:


> Hi Karlking!
> aaargghhh... That's what I'm talking about. Especially apparel sites for women. Some are notorious like Shan.com. What, do I have the rest of my life to wait while your products show themselves? Maybe we're too spoiled, but time is the most precious thing I have.
> 
> As a woman, I want to click on a link..see product and price in less than 8 seconds. For men, I think it's about 3 seconds....heh heh.
> 
> People don't wait and apparently they don't want to read much either. KISS - keep it simple. My website is hardly going to have any words cause nobody wants to read 'em.
> 
> Just give me the goods...
> BTW, did you make any decisions about what direction to go in yet?
> 
> Susie


Hey Suzie!

I definitely know whatcha mean, when I set up my site, USER-FRIENDLY is the word of the day for me. And anything that takes up extra load time, bogs down the system, or otherwise just irritates most visitors....uhuh. Not happening. lol I want my visitors to enjoy bnrowsing my products, not have a seizure from the flash movies.


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## authenticboricua

I would totally go with an agency.


----------



## farennikov

Rodney said:


> Take a look at the thousands of sites that run off cubecart, zencart, oscommerce, etc. You'll see lots of good, functioning ecommerce sites that didn't cost a lot of money.


Rodney, hold on, there were people here who claimed they can learn everything in web design and make a cool site from scratch. 
Of course I know about OS carts. Btw did you see this? I think this is the best one I've seen so far: Magenta Commerce (Demo store). Heavy on Ajax but I think it's implemented very well here.


----------



## Comin'OutSwingin

farennikov said:


> Rodney, hold on, there were people here who claimed they can learn everything in web design and make a cool site from scratch.
> Of course I know about OS carts. Btw did you see this? I think this is the best one I've seen so far: Magenta Commerce (Demo store). Heavy on Ajax but I think it's implemented very well here.


Hold on Alexander. I believe Rodney's post is in response to you asking for examples of good websites done with little money:



farennikov said:


> Well, those of you who claim you can get awesome websites for no money - prove it to me. Show me those professional cheap websites. Please.


I think the point was made very well.  

I don't remember ANYONE saying that they could make a site AND cart from scratch by doing it themselves. The point I've seen others make, and I tend to agree, is that you can get a very professional, good looking site done with very little money.


----------



## farennikov

Comin'OutSwingin said:


> I don't remember ANYONE saying that they could make a site AND cart from scratch by doing it themselves. The point I've seen others make, and I tend to agree, is that you can get a very professional, good looking site done with very little money.


Read a few pages above.


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## Solmu

farennikov said:


> Read a few pages above.


We've all read the thread, you might want to be a little more specific than that.


----------



## Comin'OutSwingin

Yes, specifics would do wonders here!

Again the point was that you asked to see a good, inexpensive site. Rodney showed it to you. Now you have no reply to that.


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## Rodney

Easy guys, let's keep this a friendly discussion over the different ways to get a site built


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## authenticboricua

I think the point is this, if you are looking to save money, hire a freelancer, but buyer be ware. They tend to take longer, disapear, not give you what you want and worst, if they actually do complete the job, you can't find them to do updates. 

My advice, if you are serious about starting and building a legit business, don't be cheap, hire a firm that will work with you from start to finish and give you the proper support and advice to scale your website up when you are ready.


----------



## Rodney

> They tend to take longer, disapear, not give you what you want and worst, if they actually do complete the job, you can't find them to do updates.


You're making a blanket statement about a whole industry which is just not true. 

Just because there are a few bad apples doesn't make the whole freelance industry an unreliable way to go. Too much generalization

You can get a freelancer that can work with you from start to finish and give you proper support and advice and scale your website up when you're ready.

A design firm can just as easily flake on you and not call you back and not give you the right website for your needs.

The main point I think is to do your research and find the best provider (freelancer, firm, do it yourself) that will fit your needs.


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## authenticboricua

Just my opinion Rodney. There are a lot of bad apples out there. I've been around the block quite a few times. But I hear what you are saying.


----------



## buzzbox

is this an os commerce site you are trying to build?


----------



## violette

Interesting discussion! Let me add my $0.02. I work as a freelancer 
I do mostly software development, but about 80% has some sort of web component to it. The going rate starts at $70/hour, so that's why you'll find some shops and individuals who charge a lot. There are some lousy freelancer out there, but there's also some really excellent ones. 

Back in the late 90's, there was such high demand that people would read a book on HTML and proceed to hang out a shingle as a web developer. Needless to say, they made the rest of us look bad.

In designing a web site for a business, you have to look at what it is you want the web site to do for you. If it's just and advertisement for your brick & mortar shop, then it can be really simple. If you've got an inventory of say 20-30 different t-shirts, then you can probably get by with a simple shopping cart with a flat file 'database.' If, however, you're offering 150 different shirt designs in multiple variations, plus mugs, keychains, tote bags, etc... and you want to do reporting or tracking of sales trends, customer profiles and such, then you're going to need something more robust. 

That said, if you have the time and interest, you could roll your own site, but it may involve learning a programming language, database design, SQL query design, and then integrating all of it so it works together and doesn't crash every other day. It's one thing to learn something and make a simple setup work, but for complicated requirements, you're paying for the expertise to put something together that works well and works consistently. Designing for scalability is a talent in and of itself.

So, if your needs are complex, expect to have to pay decent money for it. You can find inexpensive quality talent, but it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

Phew!

As an FYI, I am rolling my own ecommerce web site, since I have that particular skill set, but I'm outsourcing a lot of my graphics work because I'm not an artist and it would really defeat the purpose to have a smooth and well-running web site that has crappy graphics 

Violette


----------



## jlcanterbury

farennikov said:


> Very bad idea. It will take a few months only to master HTML and CSS. Then for a an e-commerce you're talking about a dynamic website which involves programming, i.e. PHP, .NET etc. It will take six more months to get well familiar with that. And making a website without programming experience is a really bad idea too. It will at least be very vulnerable to hacks. And I am not even talking about code quality. It will be a mess.


I downloaded a trial copy of both adobe flash and dreamweaver, bought a template for about $50 and had a functioning website in two days.... no prior experience. It's not all that complicated if you use your resources like web tutorials and my template company offered a support page...


----------



## peteVA

I just posted on this in another thread. Rather than copy it all here, I'll give you a link - http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t12114-4.html

It's nice to have your own dsign for an online store, but the main person you'll impress is yourself. Forget flash, forget into pages, go with a shopping cart site, have your products right up there "above the fold" and ask them to buy.

It's not about winning the "designer of the year" award, it's about selling your product. You custoemrs come to buy, not admire your art. If you're using SEO techniques to get them there (you are aren't you?), give them what they came for - the stuff your keywords says you have. 

They come to buy, they have credit cards in their grubby hands, get that card number at your checkout, for get the "best looking site of the year" award.

You can take a default CubeCart, OSC or ZenCart (x-cart if you want to spend a couple hundred bucks) , put a custom header up top and nobody (except you) will care. The header across the top, menu down the left, cart details and such down the right is the look people expect to see nowadays. Go with the flow on your site, be individual with your products.

http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ecommerce-site-design/t12114-4.html


----------



## redcell1

Okay first of all since you have one bad experience with a freelance designer you make the whole market seem bad

a freelancer vs a Design Company 

the freelancer will win price wise because

the design company has to pay for its office space/multiple employees and thats there Job so they overcharge.

a Freelancer does this for his job but he doesnt need to pay for his office/ all the charges that design companies get from running a business.


----------



## prattejr

What about using Yahoo Business? I looked into their packages and it is alot cheaper and the design seems up to par.


----------



## peteVA

First, you are selling from a subdomain, not your own real place. Like renting a booth in a shop, not having the shop to yourself.

The price is high. You can get a year with me, having your very own store and as many email accounts @yourstorename as you want for less than 2 monthly payments to them.

I have had any number of clients come to me from Yahoo and Citymax and similar plans. 

When you have your own hosting and your own shopping cart you have much more freedom to do as you wish. 

For much less cost......


----------



## redcell1

I will admit it would make you much better with your own domain/hosting etc but I didnt see there design services ?


----------



## peteVA

There are probaly a hundred or more sites where you can get custom templates done for virtually any cart. There are even a number of free templates, that are so unique that no one will ever notice that they are not your's alone.

And I've mentioned hundreds of times, if you have a good product, at a fair price and your site is set up properly you are not going to have people leaving because of the design of the site.

Virtually all shopping carts end up looking the same. A header across the top, a category menu down the left and the cart contents and links down the right.

You can put a dragon or a devil or the moon and stars or whatever up top and around the sides, but it's still a shopping cart and people are conditioned to look at the center, at the product offerings, not the outer fringes.

Sure, it's nice to be different. But you can have an "out of the box" cart with your logo up top and people will be fine with it. They're not going to say "Oh, well, this guys just using a default OSC site, I'm not going to buy from him."

Have you ever left a standard shopping cart site because of the look of the site? I didn't think so. Ever think "this guy's got a plain Jane cart, his stuff must stink?"
.


----------



## karlking85

Pete, you have got a great point, I know I care more about the quality of the product and the FUNCTIONALITY of the cart, rather than the looks of it. But it is important to remember that everyone looks at things differently, and values a site in different ways. As for me though, I am with you on this....if only everyone was as intelligent as us.  lol


----------



## farennikov

Here's a new free open source e-commerce platform, Magento Magento - Home - Open Source eCommerce Evolved -- from what I saw in Demo it's a little more sophisticated then OS Commerce or Zen Cart but has way less modules. But if you're thinking of open source - check this one out.


----------



## T-BOT

karlking85 said:


> ...if only everyone was as intelligent as us.  lol


you kill me.  

in my next life I will write a TV comedy script and I will contact you to be part of it. Guaranteed.


----------



## peteVA

I've got one client who stillhas the CubeCart logo in the top left corner and sells products.

I'm not saying, particularly in a forum where their are many designers, not to have a custom design to your site. Simply that having a basic out of the bos cart is not going to cause people to leave. 

Get a cart up and loaded with goods, then worry about the final design, in fact keep changing the design. The cart in the center is going to be the cart in the center, no matter what you do around it.
.


----------



## origbboy

seibei said:


> hey wow, I didn't even know I was being mentioned on here - I'm glad you like our new website!
> 
> I won't say how much, but our current website cost considerably less than $5000. A couple of things that knocked down the cost, though:
> 
> 1. The designer that did it is a freelancer, albeit an expensive one.
> 2. The designer is a friend of mine, so I get a decent price, but I'm still giving him a pretty good lump of scratch (I will say that it's a four digit number).
> 
> I'd recommend looking into freelancers - you don't need the exact group that did the Johnny Cupcakes site to get that feel or quality. Also, be sure of what you want in a site, and maybe give them examples and a color palette to work with. I'll be honest, I told my designer that I wanted a shop page similar to the Johnny Cupcakes site, because I like their use of model shots on the shop page rather than graphical representations (like you would have found on my old site, and many other sites like BustedTees, Snorg, T-Shirt Hell, etc).
> 
> Anyway, pardon me for rambling. Thanks again for the kind words.



thanks for the reply, good info, dig the website too!


----------



## origbboy

great post, anyone willing to point me in the direction of good freelance designers via private message?

thankx


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## kanon

Make sure your looking for someone who can design and develop the site - two different skillsets.

I'm a graphic designer, but lack in the development side of building a website.


----------



## origbboy

kanon said:


> Make sure your looking for someone who can design and develop the site - two different skillsets.
> 
> I'm a graphic designer, but lack in the development side of building a website.


develop, meaning grow with my needs for different functionality? can you explain. thanks


----------



## kanon

No. I mean someone who can program and code the website. Graphic Designers are rarely have the ability to be a web developer/programmer and vice versa, but it is possible to find someone who has both talents. Don't be surprised when they asked for more money because of that. 

I love designing websites, but generally rely on a programmer or developer to ultimately convert the design to a live website.


----------



## origbboy

kanon said:


> No. I mean someone who can program and code the website. Graphic Designers are rarely have the ability to be a web developer/programmer and vice versa, but it is possible to find someone who has both talents. Don't be surprised when they asked for more money because of that.
> 
> I love designing websites, but generally rely on a programmer or developer to ultimately convert the design to a live website.


ok I understand, like coding for shopping carts and various things which are seperate from the general visual design of the site...good to know.


----------



## silverbackpsl

Lots of good info here. My point is that it all depends on what you get in value and ensuring your objectives are accomplished. 

You have to consider all of the following:

Custom Design: Do you really need a "from scratch" custom site? There are tons of templates on numerous CMS where from free to $100 you can get a template that just needs to be customized. 

If it's simply a business presence site that's purpose is to generate leads (no selling of products, payment processing etc.) then I would say the high end of $12,000 is way too much.

Content: How many pages do you need? If you need dozens or hundreds, expect the price to go way up! Are you going to provide the content for these pages/subpages or does the developer/marketer need to come up with the appropriate text/marketing words for these pages? If so, they have to research your competitors and learn a bit of your industry and that can take time.

SEO: Are they ensuring basic SEO is done for major keywords for your business? Depending on your service and audience (local/national) this can change the quote a ton. If their just making a design without any SEO/marketing, then $5,000-$12,000 is way too much!

A simple/sub par website with basic SEO/marketing is FAR more valuable than a killer designed website with no traffic. 

Making money from your website is the goal right?

I've been an ecommerce director for 10+ years and while I'm not in the T-Shirt business, the widget doesn't matter. I'll give my 2cents on cost for a few different websites concepts from my years of experience.

$1,000: A basic business presence website with 4-5 pages of content (about us, services, contact, home page etc.). You'll get this made from a template using a major CMS provider (wordpress is best). You'll probably get the very most basic SEO done onpage so that google knows what your business is about but is unlikely to drive traffic/leads from this alone)

$3000-$6,000: All of the above + many sub pages that describe many of your services and are filled with related content to improve your ability to appear in search results for primary/long tail keywords. 

On the high end, they might help submit your website to major online directories and do all your NAP information for google's satisfaction.

Also, on the high end of $, they might help you create/brand the major social sites (facebook, twitter, youtube & linkedin). This won't drive traffic and you'll be required to submit content for them to really have any long term value.

From the two options above, the "design" quality is likely to look the same and both look "professional" just the more expensive bracket will have spend more of the money on creating additional subpages, research and SEO for your industry.

$8,000-$15,000 - Ecommerce. All of the above + CMS (Magento is free, powerful and awesome) that has the ability to display products and have users checkout for items. Most likely, major SEO/marketing still wont be accomplished to compete with national brands but depending on the firms services, local SEO is likely to be sound. 

__________________

Final Comments:
Designers vs Developers vs Marketers - Their all different and each firm usually has a specialty in ONE of those areas but also can crossover.

Check their portfolio for the type of work they've done in the past to get an idea on what types of sites their proud to show. If you're wanting an ecommerce machine but their portfolio is filled with "simple" business presence sites, then I might look elsewhere. 

Your input: How much you're going to assist and manage the project can drastically change the cost of any size of a site.

If you say "Hey I'm a local screen printing business, make me a nice website." ...and that's it, expect the cost to be higher, or don't be surprised if you don't get everything you were expecting. 

If you say "Hey, I'm a local screen printing business and these services are my bread and butter, these are my competitors websites and what I like/dislike about them and I'm available and willing to provide the content for the main pages." -- Expect that a designed/developer can spend more of their time on their job than learning your industry to fill in the gaps.

Keep It Simple - : For local service providers, get involved at first. My recommendation would be to make a simple business presence website using wordpress and a pre-made "template".

Ensure major "pillar" pages for all your main services and potential customer segments filled with unique content with related keywords.

Then either do it yourself or hire a SEO/marketing company to help your onpage/offpage SEO efforts. Spend more of your money here. 

Sadly, there are too many scum SEO marketing "firms" so make sure to choose wisely. 

If someone offers to get you ranked and driving traffic for $20/month or one time fees of $200-$500, tell them to get lost. 

Just my 2 cents.


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## silverbackpsl

Opps forgot one last point....

Creating a website is just the beginning. To maintain, update products/services, write blog posts, post on social etc. requires a lot of effort after the site has created. Most business owners wear several hats and typically end up "too busy" to keep everything regularly fresh. 

So, be realistic about your own resources to keep these going in the long term. 

My best suggestion (for local SEO) is always to have the business owner do the marketing to generate their first 10 leads all by themselves. It will be a ton of effort at first but after you've done this, you'll have learned so much and have a template to repeat and scale the efforts that gave you your first 10 leads.

Use Google Analytics. Conversions to paying customers is ALL that matters. Total Traffic/Visitors doesn't mean squat.


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## mgparrish

silverbackpsl said:


> Lots of good info here. My point is that it all depends on what you get in value and ensuring your objectives are accomplished.
> 
> You have to consider all of the following:
> 
> Custom Design: Do you really need a "from scratch" custom site? There are tons of templates on numerous CMS where from free to $100 you can get a template that just needs to be customized.
> 
> If it's simply a business presence site that's purpose is to generate leads (no selling of products, payment processing etc.) then I would say the high end of $12,000 is way too much.
> 
> Content: How many pages do you need? If you need dozens or hundreds, expect the price to go way up! Are you going to provide the content for these pages/subpages or does the developer/marketer need to come up with the appropriate text/marketing words for these pages? If so, they have to research your competitors and learn a bit of your industry and that can take time.
> 
> SEO: Are they ensuring basic SEO is done for major keywords for your business? Depending on your service and audience (local/national) this can change the quote a ton. If their just making a design without any SEO/marketing, then $5,000-$12,000 is way too much!
> 
> A simple/sub par website with basic SEO/marketing is FAR more valuable than a killer designed website with no traffic.
> 
> Making money from your website is the goal right?
> 
> I've been an ecommerce director for 10+ years and while I'm not in the T-Shirt business, the widget doesn't matter. I'll give my 2cents on cost for a few different websites concepts from my years of experience.
> 
> $1,000: A basic business presence website with 4-5 pages of content (about us, services, contact, home page etc.). You'll get this made from a template using a major CMS provider (wordpress is best). You'll probably get the very most basic SEO done onpage so that google knows what your business is about but is unlikely to drive traffic/leads from this alone)
> 
> $3000-$6,000: All of the above + many sub pages that describe many of your services and are filled with related content to improve your ability to appear in search results for primary/long tail keywords.
> 
> On the high end, they might help submit your website to major online directories and do all your NAP information for google's satisfaction.
> 
> Also, on the high end of $, they might help you create/brand the major social sites (facebook, twitter, youtube & linkedin). This won't drive traffic and you'll be required to submit content for them to really have any long term value.
> 
> From the two options above, the "design" quality is likely to look the same and both look "professional" just the more expensive bracket will have spend more of the money on creating additional subpages, research and SEO for your industry.
> 
> $8,000-$15,000 - Ecommerce. All of the above + CMS (Magento is free, powerful and awesome) that has the ability to display products and have users checkout for items. Most likely, major SEO/marketing still wont be accomplished to compete with national brands but depending on the firms services, local SEO is likely to be sound.
> 
> __________________
> 
> Final Comments:
> Designers vs Developers vs Marketers - Their all different and each firm usually has a specialty in ONE of those areas but also can crossover.
> 
> Check their portfolio for the type of work they've done in the past to get an idea on what types of sites their proud to show. If you're wanting an ecommerce machine but their portfolio is filled with "simple" business presence sites, then I might look elsewhere.
> 
> Your input: How much you're going to assist and manage the project can drastically change the cost of any size of a site.
> 
> If you say "Hey I'm a local screen printing business, make me a nice website." ...and that's it, expect the cost to be higher, or don't be surprised if you don't get everything you were expecting.
> 
> If you say "Hey, I'm a local screen printing business and these services are my bread and butter, these are my competitors websites and what I like/dislike about them and I'm available and willing to provide the content for the main pages." -- Expect that a designed/developer can spend more of their time on their job than learning your industry to fill in the gaps.
> 
> Keep It Simple - : For local service providers, get involved at first. My recommendation would be to make a simple business presence website using wordpress and a pre-made "template".
> 
> Ensure major "pillar" pages for all your main services and potential customer segments filled with unique content with related keywords.
> 
> Then either do it yourself or hire a SEO/marketing company to help your onpage/offpage SEO efforts. Spend more of your money here.
> 
> Sadly, there are too many scum SEO marketing "firms" so make sure to choose wisely.
> 
> If someone offers to get you ranked and driving traffic for $20/month or one time fees of $200-$500, tell them to get lost.
> 
> Just my 2 cents.


Did you realize the last post here before yours is over 5 years ago?


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## silverbackpsl

Yea, which is why it needed some updating.


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## STPG Press

Did you notice how old that thread was? Nobody cares anymore. It's bad form to pull up posts that are years old and respond to them. Either start a new thread if you have something to say or find a relevant thread that isn't 5 years old. Pay attention to the original dates of the threads you are looking at.



silverbackpsl said:


> Lots of good info here. My point is that it all depends on what you get in value and ensuring your objectives are accomplished.


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## silverbackpsl

STPG Press said:


> Did you notice how old that thread was? Nobody cares anymore. It's bad form to pull up posts that are years old and respond to them. Either start a new thread if you have something to say or find a relevant thread that isn't 5 years old. Pay attention to the original dates of the threads you are looking at.


Try to make my first post and get nothing but hammered. THe info I posted IS RELEVANT to the OP's question and belongs on the same thread for anyone else who's looking for the same information in the future.


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## mgparrish

Umm not sure I was doing any hammering, but I don't appreciating being called any foul names.

I simply didn't know if you had noticed the thread was dead for 5 years, just giving you a FYI. 

But if you feel the urge to post to old dead threads best get busy, there are hundreds if not thousands of posts here needing "updating".


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## Boxtopus

I didn't read thoroughly read all the posts in this thread, but did anyone mention WordPress to Derek? 

First, it's free, including eCommerce options. (You can spend money on the themes, but that is optional) I purchased a 99¢ book online and taught myself. I built my website in a couple days. It took longer to create the pretty background pictures in Photoshop than it did to build the website. 

It is still a work in progress. If you go to the site, please don't judge.


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## mgparrish

Boxtopus said:


> I didn't read thoroughly read all the posts in this thread, but did anyone mention WordPress to Derek?
> 
> First, it's free, including eCommerce options. (You can spend money on the themes, but that is optional) I purchased a 99¢ book online and taught myself. I built my website in a couple days. It took longer to create the pretty background pictures in Photoshop than it did to build the website.
> 
> It is still a work in progress. If you go to the site, please don't judge.



Umm Derek's post was dated June 1st, 2007. But the other gentleman responding to a post that was _only_ 5 years did mention WP.


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## Boxtopus

mgparrish said:


> Umm Derek's post was dated June 1st, 2007. But the other gentleman responding to a post that was _only_ 5 years did mention WP.


Wow. Sorry. 

It just popped up in a "Tapatalk" email. I'll be unsubscribing from those.


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## mgparrish

Boxtopus said:


> Wow. Sorry.
> 
> It just popped up in a "Tapatalk" email. I'll be unsubscribing from those.


No need to apologize. View of all the posts I think is limited on those cell phones apps unless you like sliding a lot of screens.


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## splathead

Anyone is free to post in any thread, regardless of how old it is. And they shouldn't have to take flak about it.

So what it's 10 years old. If the post is related, post away. Seeing history and progress through the life of a thread is important. It's why you rarely see "Closed" threads here.


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## into the T

i agree completely splathead

i've gleaned many little pearls from 10 year old threads


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## mgparrish

Just to be clear I was not busting on anyone for posting here, (except when I got called a name. )

Newbies often post on old threads not realizing it, so it's not uncommon for people to point this out. 

I have no skin involved if someone posts on an old thread, I was just pointing it out as a courtesy.


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## STPG Press

Same here. It's generally internet common courtesy to not revive old threads. My apologies to the group.


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## aldorabancroft

dfalk said:


> I have been recently speaking with multiple website designers at established graphic design studios to get a professional website done. A website similar to Johnny Cupcakes Clothing — Home or even Seibei's website at SEIBEI - Put A Monster In Your Closet! and I have been quoted anywhere from $5,000 - $12,000. What I kind of want to know is, is it cheaper and safe to hire a graphic designer that freelances or should I stick to interviewing people that work at firms? I actually was working with the guy that did Johnny Cupcakes site and he is very good but he is very busy. What do you guys think. Thanks.



Hope you have got your website. If you want to rewamp your website or your store then you shpuld do it fast. Nowadays there are lots of new features available with online store like custom product designer. If you do have online store regarding printing and you have installed that plugin then customer can design product as per their choice.


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## brushyourideas

Rodney said:


> You can get a GREAT website for much less than $5000http://www.elance.com/p/corporate/community/resource-center/elancer-mar-07.html?rid=140L4#martell


Hi Rodney,

I am not fully agree with your answer that freelancer are cheap for website design and development. but it's a risky and no guarantee to complete task by one person. 

My question is that why you have to go through freelance or other website design company. 

I would like to suggest you to choose very good web to print storefront solutions provider that is very cheap and good for launch business within some days. Web-to-print - Store is readymade store solution for those who want to get into the business of selling personalizable products but are either not tech savvy enough to handle the development of an online store or want to start selling products immediately without getting into the hassle of developing a full fledged online store integrated with product design tool.


Thanks.


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## rklovestruck

If you are looking to get your items up for sale I recommend Shopify. They have some great templates and the sites always look modern and clean. If you want more than a shop then use Wordpress. You can download templates that you like and just pop in your information.


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## djmmet

If you want a really nice website, you can get something like this from a freelancer but still be prepared to pay similar to what you have been quoted. Maybe toward the lower end, but anyone who designs websites - and I mean not just using a template and putting something really cool together which reinforces your brand - knows how much time it can take to make something really sing... anyone willing to do it for $1000 will most likely not be at the level you are looking for... I'm not saying it's not possible, but doubtful.


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