rough quote for work

Robdav · 23 Apr 2006 at 21:23

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice. I've been asked to provide a quote for the following work and although I have a figure in my head I was wondering if anyone here could suggest a price?

Work required:

* web site with custom CMS to allow clients to make changes etc.
* customised e-shop with payment gateway intergration for retail customers
* customised e-shop with payment gateway intergration, and invoice history/order information for trade customers.

notes: e-shop needs to have same look & feel as web site hence it needs customising.

many thanks

Mickey · 23 Apr 2006 at 22:06

Robdav said:
Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice. I've been asked to provide a quote for the following work and although I have a figure in my head I was wondering if anyone here could suggest a price?

Work required:

* web site with custom CMS to allow clients to make changes etc.
* customised e-shop with payment gateway intergration for retail customers
* customised e-shop with payment gateway intergration, and invoice history/order information for trade customers.

notes: e-shop needs to have same look & feel as web site hence it needs customising.

many thanks

It all depends how long you think it'll take you and what your hourly/daily rate is really...

A simple formula which should get you somewhere near:

( ( (hours you think are needed) * 2 ) * hourly rate ) + ( any fixed expenses involved ) = Quote

Beansprout · 23 Apr 2006 at 22:25

That's really very vague and could be anything from £1,000 to £20,000.

Robdav · 24 Apr 2006 at 09:43

thanks for the replies. the figure i have in mind is close to the £5k mark which i don't think is unreasonable considering the amount of work etc. it's also an ongoing relationship with the customer who will want more work done in the future.

thanks

nav... · 24 Apr 2006 at 10:03

don't forget to take into account, the lucrative support side of things. which this will need.

at my old job, the carp web designers they had would charge £700 a day for maintenance and support.

they built horrible 1998 style javascript mess websites too with no backend. original site cost like £10k as well.

oh and hilariously, when the company was looking to get a standards compliant modern website, said web designers came for a meeting offered us a "quote" and charged a day of suport to do it. (and the quote was horrible).

punky_munky · 24 Apr 2006 at 10:48

By custom CMS and custom e-commerce systems do you mean you'll be building them from the ground up? Big bucks if you are.

Robdav · 24 Apr 2006 at 12:16

punky_munky said:
By custom CMS and custom e-commerce systems do you mean you'll be building them from the ground up? Big bucks if you are.

I will be writing the CMS from scratch, well using most of the stuff I've developed for other CMS work i've done. I've developed a basic "standard" cms that I can drop into a site and use so I'll just re-gig that to allow for the specific requirements from my client.

As for the e-commerce side I'm trying to find a shopping cart which I can modify to fit in with the look and feel of the site, which allows intergration with either 2checkout, worldpay, or protex, and keeps the visitors "on-site" while the processing is done in the background. If I can't find anything that does it then I'll write it myself but I'm not looking forward to doing that.

I was thinking of cubecart as a starting point as it does pretty much what I want above, but i'm not 100% sure if it'll be flexible enough to allow me to skin it to match the style of the site i'm developing. any one care to comment?

thanks

Beansprout · 24 Apr 2006 at 13:02

Robdav said:
I will be writing the CMS from scratch, well using most of the stuff I've developed for other CMS work i've done. I've developed a basic "standard" cms that I can drop into a site and use so I'll just re-gig that to allow for the specific requirements from my client.

As for the e-commerce side I'm trying to find a shopping cart which I can modify to fit in with the look and feel of the site, which allows intergration with either 2checkout, worldpay, or protex, and keeps the visitors "on-site" while the processing is done in the background. If I can't find anything that does it then I'll write it myself but I'm not looking forward to doing that.

I was thinking of cubecart as a starting point as it does pretty much what I want above, but i'm not 100% sure if it'll be flexible enough to allow me to skin it to match the style of the site i'm developing. any one care to comment?

thanks

Oscommerce, cubecart, Zencart, X-cart are all common choices. X-cart in particular uses Smarty which should make it far easier to template than the others. It costs, but you get what you pay for

Robdav · 24 Apr 2006 at 14:51

Thanks bean..

what if i was to write the shopping cart myself, any thing i should keep in mind? the only worry i have is the shipping side of things...

Beansprout · 24 Apr 2006 at 15:38

Robdav said:
Thanks bean..

what if i was to write the shopping cart myself, any thing i should keep in mind? the only worry i have is the shipping side of things...

Security security security

And don't underestimate the time it'll take to do well :eek:

Robdav · 24 Apr 2006 at 15:52

aint that the truth! thanks mate. sounds like you have some experience with this sort of thing. mind if I pick your brains occasionally??

Beansprout · 24 Apr 2006 at 16:15

Not at all...there's also others on here with far more than me, too

Robdav · 24 Apr 2006 at 16:30

thanks mate. a little daunted by it all at the moment but i'm sure with the support of all you lot it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

cheers

punky_munky · 24 Apr 2006 at 16:48

As long as you don't ask us to do it all for you I don't think anyone will mind helping out.

Beansprout · 24 Apr 2006 at 17:10

punky_munky said:
As long as you don't ask us to do it all for you I don't think anyone will mind helping out.

Aye. I also far prefer helping cool people rather than idiots like Freak_boy.

(I hope I'm allowed to call him an idiot now, he's permabanned last time I checked

)

Robdav · 24 Apr 2006 at 20:22

Don't worry I won't be asking anyone to write anything, I might ask for some pointers though

I take it that freak_boy was a problem then?

Beansprout · 24 Apr 2006 at 21:03

*music* How do you solve a problem like Freeeak_Boy....BANNOR!

Yes, he was a bit of an incoherent twit, iirc he also bugged me on MSN.

He asked for help and never said thankyou. Ever. Like, never ever.

Not exactly sure why he got banned but I looked one day and there it was...permabanned

Robdav · 24 Apr 2006 at 21:10

lol ... and to think that manners cost nothing. oh well sounds like he deserved what he got.

Anyway thanks again.

zetec452 · 24 Apr 2006 at 22:09

You have to be careful of any liabilities you may create in making your own customized e-commerce website.

A client of ours had an e-commerce website developed. The web developers left a fatal opening which nearly cost my client their visa license. Needless to say they weren't happy and are suing the company.

My basic bottom line is cover your ass and use a commercial product. IMO of course.

.

PS: Im not trying to imply that you can't create one etc.

Nim · 24 Apr 2006 at 22:20

JonRohan said:
My basic bottom line is cover your ass and use a commercial product. IMO of course. .

Indeed. The week-or-so before launching a custom-built online shop will cause hair loss, irregular screaming, and night terrors. For every security hole you fix, there will be at least one more that hasn't dawned on you yet.

Not to mention the premature ageing caused by payment gateways. And that wasn't even my part of the job.