Last personal client I took on back in 2002 paid me 7k up front for the initial coding and design concept. After that he decided he wasn’t going ahead with his project and I kept the cash. So yeah, £600 is a bargain imo if you get everything you need and it does what you want (although in 2002 there weren’t as many tools to speed things up).

Here’s what I don’t understand though – if you have used the guy before, you are happy with him, your clients are happy with his work and you are adept at writing a full, precise and clear brief, why are you asking us whether £600 is a fair price?

Here’s what I don’t understand though – if you have used the guy before, you are happy with him, your clients are happy with his work and you are adept at writing a full, precise and clear brief, why are you asking us whether £600 is a fair price?

iDave is the new Brant Richards and I claim my £5 😆

there weren’t as many tools

See?
😉

iDave is this just a troll? Seems you posted a question and then just got overly defensive and full of answers to your own question.

If he is “schooled in NYC” you have used him before and clients liked it then 600 quid is a no brainer, but as others have posted on here you get what you pay for.

There is no doubt that there are very skilled one man bands who can undercut agencies prices just as agencies outside London can undercut those inside the M25.

I am sure you could almost compare it to your mate down the road who “fixes motors” , Kwik Fitt and a Dealer service.. ish.

😆

These types of post make me laugh because at the end of the day, people have different experiences/standards/expectations/levels of understanding etc.

Hence I’m generally with MF on this. Sure, if someone wants to pay a few hundred quid for a “proper” ecommerce site then go for it. If they’re happy with it then even better. Job done. But if it looks shit, doesn’t encourage the viewer to stick around, has unstable cataloguing/banking, requires additional fees for edits and CMS, etc, then is there really anything to be gained? Hopefully iDave’s mate won’t deliver anything like this.

It also depends on your market.

IMO, if you want proper functionality + design + support + longevity etc, then investing in a proper build tends to be the way forward.

Of course, mainly it depends on the actual business. If the OP is only expecting to make a few quid from the ecommerce then there’s little point in spending thousands.

Still, I quite fancy a new Subaru Legacy so if anyone wants a “full” site building, let me know… 🙂

Rachel

To be honest, I’ve seen at close quarters how much “work” goes into building a website.
…
It ain’t rocket science.

If it’s so easy, why aren’t you doing it? Hey, I’ve seen how much work goes into surgery; bit of a cut there, dig about a bit, watch some TV, spot of sewing, money for old rope.

Sure, a good portion of webdev is modular; a better analogy might be a mechanic, he doesn’t CNC his own parts, but that doesn’t devalue his worth as a mechanic.

This adage crops up a lot in IT, and it really *swearwords* me off. We put a monumental amount of effort, time, work and research into making this stuff look easy. It’s not.

There’s an old joke that goes along the lines of; an old engineer is pulled out of retirement to fix a huge old machine that’s died, and no-one knows anything about it any more. He goes out, looks at it, turns a screw half a turn and everything flares into life. He presents them with a bill for ten grand. The CEO kicks it back and demands an itemised bill. The engineer replies, “labour charge for turning a screw, £20. Knowing which screw to turn, £9,980.”

If the OP is only expecting to make a few quid from the ecommerce then there’s little point in spending thousands.

I totally agree. We had a client come to us recently wanting a new website and they said they wanted ecomms as they wanted to sell books. On investigation, it turned out they had some old books they wanted to sell but the author (an employee) had died and they didn’t intend to write any more books – they just wanted to shift the 1,000 or so they had in stock.

We advised that the cost to develop the functionality would outstrip any money they might make on the sales. Instead we suggested they give them to a charity shop or try selling on Ebay.

At £600, if its crap, well you’ve only lost £600.

As others have said, you know the guy and you are only talking about £600 – which would struggle to buy two contractor/programmer man days in the UK.

A few of the comments on here have me chuckling…

Sort of (It’s certainly up there)

Who’s to say that people in foreign places have not been educated here? And since site design/trends are, by definition, global, there’s no reason why anyone would not be as up to speed on it as anyone else.

The question about how much he values his business – well he might value it more than his entire bank holdings, and more than any loan he might be able to get because his future depends on it. Doesn’t mean he should re-mortgage the house for the website. Only an idiot wouldn’t look at the cheapest AND the most expensive options.

As said from the start by someone I missed, it depends on what the customer wants surely? If you sit down with them and they require very little in the way of back end mods from a known structure, and very few graphics (I hate overly graphical/clever sites), there’s no reason why a startup company or small-size (or foreign) company couldn’t do a reasonable job for that cash. It won’t be the bees knees, but he’s clearly not looking for an amazon beater.

Web designer in not listening to customer shocker…

Customer not telling the web designer what they actually wanted shocker… 🙄

It’s fairly easy to knock up a decent looking website. The trick is to get it to look okay in all the browsers, and pixel perfect to how the faffy designer wanted it in the first place (despite just knocking it up in photoshop without thought for actually how it would work). Then add in the last minute customer requests to move things around that we never designed to be moved.

Not that I’m bitter or twisted….

If it’s so easy, why aren’t you doing it?

Oooh, get you girlfriend…getting all bitey on me 😉

Then add in the last minute customer requests to move things around that we never designed to be moved.

LOL like the call we just took ‘Will my new site work on a smart phone?’ (we are currently designing/developing it).

Err no, because you never asked for it and the proposal clearly states what browsers/platforms/versions it will work on.

Of course if you DO want it to work on one….

Of course if you DO want it to work on one….

Will you be doing it in Word for them? 😛

heh 🙂

Oooh, get you girlfriend…getting all bitey on me

Ah, I’m very rarely bitey. Please don’t start taking me seriously. (-:

Err no, because you never asked for it and the proposal clearly states what browsers/platforms/versions it will work on.

Just because a proposal states what browsers a website is designed for, doesn’t mean it registers in the consciousness of the customer. Maybe better business analysis up-front would avoid this type of thing?

I have a process of creating “characters” (personas for the enlightened) that represent the likely users of the site and detail their IT knowledge, education level and professional knowledge (what they know about the subject of the website). Then, we create stories based around each character that describe the likely things they will do with the website, how they will access it, where from etc. I then take the stories away and turn them into a set of website features that we again sit down with the customer and prioritise (MoSCoW) and provide estimates for.

That way, everyone understands what’s required/expected and we know how much extra time/cost is required to bolt on features if more time/money is available…

(giving my game away here – mmm)

Rachel

You mean ‘User Scenarios’.

Yes we did those and they showed that people were not particularly likely to buy/search for a car based on mobile searches.

Ohh, and our competitor research showed that his two main competitors don’t have mobile versions of their sites either.

And last month just 3% of visits to his site were from mobile devices.

But thanks anyway 😉

Cougar – Member

Ah, I’m very rarely bitey.

I have the scars, and catheter to prove otherwise.

Worst £5 ever.

I have a process of creating “characters”

That sounds like a really good tip. Thanks…

I have the scars, and catheter to prove otherwise.

Worst £5 ever.

Just off to change my keyboard, this one has tea in it.

lol you always seem up your own arse when you start going on about your company mastiles_fanylion…

A year ago one of our clients had less than 1% of his visits via smartphones, now it is >3%, nothing wrong with an element of future proofing and it isnt hard to target mobile devices specifically.

It does mean you can charge them a load more to “upgrade” it later on I guess. 🙄

errmm have I just used the wrong URL
– I could’ve sworn this was an MTB forum and not Alistapart / Smashing magazine etc….

Someone mentioned about £600 cars. The best car I ever bought was £700 (so obviously a good few notches above). It’s amazing and has actually never broken down between 157,000 and 230,000 mile life with me. Probably not the point but I thought it should be mentioned.

geoff, I would imagine that someone in Karachi wouldn’t be quite as up to speed in latest trends and design ideas in the UK. These things seem to change weekly, if not daily. I could be wrong though

Other than narrow-minded jingoistic Western ignorance of what happenz in the Rest Of The World, what makes you think this??

lol you always seem up your own arse when you start going on about your company mastiles_fanylion…

Because I take pride in what we do I guess…

Of course there is nothing wrong in future-proofing and all our current sites do work on smart phones but we don’t specifically design for them unless there is a clear requirement for it.

lol you always seem up your own arse when you start going on about your company mastiles_fanylion..

noooo – just all-knowing… 😉

If there’s one thing I have learned, it’s just how much there is still left to learn. That’s why I love working on sites – every one is an experience…

Rachel

Probably not the point but I thought it should be mentioned.

It is precisely the point I think – for that money you CAN get a great reliable car, but spend £10,000 and you are more likely to.

Depends what you get for your £600…. might sound glaringly obvious.

If the ‘designer’ uses an off-the-shelf eCommerce package (OSCommerce springs to mind), which gets re-styled in CSS in a few hours (only code they touch), then perhaps £600 for their time and knowledge would seem about right…. only if they were a part-time-cash-in-hand ‘designer’

If they’re building it from scratch, then I’d take it with a pinch of salt…

Depends if you want any old car that might be reliable, might not be, and probably won’t rain in if you’re lucky; or whether you want a car that meets your needs exactly and comes with ABS, PAS, satnav and mp3 player. Also depends whether you want to be embarrassed or proud when you show it to your mates.

(I’m not saying the former is inherently wrong, I’ve had some cracking £300 runabouts, but you get more if you pay more, which is the point.)

So for much cheapness you get an off the peg product that meets your needs – or you can pay a “designer” thousands to produce something unique that will have no better functionality but will look fancy.

Anything that uses a “designer” who talks about “branding” one should run a mile.

that will have no better functionality

Why would it have no better functionality? If we build a product for a client we build it to meet their precise needs, not generic market requirements.

For example:
A client recently paid £30k for a bespoke booking/CRM system for a ski site. It does exactly what their business requires and has no spurious functionality.

We are now making a generic version of that same system to sell as an off-the-shelf product, for which we will charge considerably less, but it will be packed with features although few customers will ever need ALL of them – it simply won’t be as streamlined as a bespoke system and therefore take more training in its use, will always take people longer to navigate, will never be as tailored to individual business models.

Anything that uses a “designer” who talks about “branding” one should run a mile.

Well that depends on what the customer wants really. Branding can be very important for many businesses, moreso if a web only brand – how else do they get across their brand message?

Other than narrow-minded jingoistic Western ignorance of what happenz in the Rest Of The World, what makes you think this??

ffs. my point was, if you read the rest of my posts, UK designers will know the UK market better than designers in other parts of the world. I used Karachi as the specific place as that is where the OP’s guy is based. not jingoistic, or narrow minded. I would imagine that a web designer based in the UK wouldn’t know the US market as well as a US based designer, does that make me a redneck? 🙄

and before anyone goes on about web designs being global by nature again. That is nonsense, what %age of web pages are truly global? and in that tiny percentage, how many are e-commerce site?

“Anything that uses a “designer” who talks about “branding” one should run a mile.”

Well that depends on what the customer wants really. Branding can be very important for many businesses, moreso if a web only brand – how else do they get across their brand message?

“Brand message” Hahahahahahahahahahaha – a statement without meaning and proves my point.

MF delete your last post while you can, remember the font saga

it isnt hard to target mobile devices specifically.

yes it is, and yes mobile is hard. Many more browsers, much different capabilities and therefore if you want it to actually work then its often more work than a desktop site

Unless you are being iphonecentric

a statement without meaning and proves my point.

What point exactly?