Opinions cost for website

[lozza]

A friend of mine has asked my advice about the cost involved in updating his website:

Probably a decision that only I can make but your comments always welcomed!

My Boxing Website has undergone several transformations from a simple half a dozen pages to one that gets plenty of visits and a rollercoaster of very good order days and not so good nil order days. It was never set up as a purely commercial enterprise but i'm in the process of making it more so.

My dilemma is that the current appearance:
http://www.warriorboxing.com/ is slightly amateurish but then again many people in Ambox don't look for fancy design. The downside is that my ambition to secure national advertising from people such as Adidas, Royal Marines etc., is unlikely to happen within the current format.

The alternative i'm considering is a complete revamp along the lines of this site:
http://www.wolfrace-alloy-wheels.co.uk/wolfrace/ with News story links and product advertising in place of the Car pics..............

Obviously more professional but too much the other way? Do you shy away from overdeveloped sites???

The cost for updating to the second option will be in the region of £2,500 but I could easily make that money in a week if things work out.

Is that still too much to pay for web design in this day and age?

He will be wanting a fully intergreated shop/shopping cart system as well, so what do you think of the cost? Is it a reasonable fee and what should he be looking out for an making sure he gets for his money?

 

[Gman]

I think if he's asking for a full shopping cart system, with a backend giving you access to orders etc as well as the news section they i'd say £2,500 is quite cheap realy, especialy if there not going to using any exising products such as OsCommerce to do the shopping cart.

Some designers would be charging that just for the design sometimes, but in the end it depends how good the guys making it are.

 

[Beansprout]

For a bespoke ecommerce system you're looking at £10k min for good work' for integrating existing software and redesigning the site I'd look at £2.5k - £5k.

There are lots of cheap people around but you get what you pay for in this day and age (I'm just redeveloping a client's site which looks like it was programed by cowboys wasting them lots of time & money :/ )

 

[Nate]

as most people have said you are probably looking at more than £2.5k. I work for a web design/development company we have done small ecommerce sites for 4/5k but a lot of it depends on how complex your products in terms of relationships to each other.

 

[blade007]

lot of design and with shopping cart/ordering system would be really expensive ... for a decent one (customised to how you want it)... £5K.

this is how much nice sites cost to build ...

 

[nav...]

plus you need to factor in the annual support costs.

also you need to think about marketing strategies, email newsletters, things like that as other potential costs as well.