Please pals help.
A client wants me to design for him an online book store so he sale his books. He's a book shop owner.
He wants the type he can update new books himself. (Which means it will be on cms).
I can handle did if I use WordPress with woocommerce plugin
My problem now is how do I charge him. What and what should I consider aside domain name, hosting, design, before charging him so I will not undercharge.

Thanks for your kindness.

wisehouse:
Please pals help.
A client wants me to design for him an online book store so he sale his books. He's a book shop owner.
He wants the type he can update new books himself. (Which means it will be on cms).
I can handle did if I use WordPress with woocommerce plugin
My problem now is how do I charge him. What and what should I consider aside domain name, hosting, design, before charging him so I will not undercharge.

Thanks for your kindness.

Will he be selling downloadable books also?

I don't trust anything WordPress, while not use Magento?

adewasco2k:


Will he be selling downloadable books also?

I don't trust anything WordPress, while not use Magento?

for a start no. Hard copy. Woo commerce have option for downloadable books, do u thinks magento is better.

Though cms choice is not my main prob but how to analyse costing.

P.s.s.s hi boss ur d man, i know u can b of great help Mod., please ready to follow ur advice.

wisehouse:
for a start no. Hard copy. Woo commerce have option for downloadable books, do u thinks magento is better.

Though cms choice is not my main prob but how to analyse costing.

P.s.s.s hi boss ur d man, i know u can b of great help Mod., please ready to follow ur advice.

i sure know woocommerce does support digital contents.

When going for such your choice of a CMS is one of the most important part, i will not just say Magento is better than Woocommerce as it all depends on what suits the project but i find magento more robust with lots of customization and sales analysis, also opencart is a better alternative.

what you should consider now are:

1. number of the products
2. mode of payment
3. mode of shipment
4. how easy is it to add products, promos, discounts, coupons, offers etc
5. how secure is the platforms downloadable products
etc

wisehouse:
do u thinks magento is better...Though cms choice is not my main prob but how to analyse costing.

You can't compare magento or other purposely developed ecommerce software with an integrated or plugin based ones like woocommerce.

If your clients want ecommerce website, then use a pure ecommerce software, if they want blog, then use blog software.

Regarding pricing, you are the best person to know your own pricing structure, other people's pricing structure may not be good for you, unless you don't have a business plan in place. Like the saying "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" is not always true, the perfect one is "fingers are not equal" and this is why pricing variation exists.

Are you charging hourly, or one off.... are you using a free software or premium one ? are you charging maintenances or you would be providing manual and tutorials?

Adding inventory is not necessarily part of a developers job, as a matter of fact it's a separately chargeable service. Either you or your client will need to higher a data entry staff, which ever way it will cost money. Unless you want to do it for free Adding inventory can be more demanding and long winded than programming. Unless your client has a small number of inventory.

For example, there was a project I worked on, design and development completed in 3 weeks, five of us worked on it. Then came the inventory adding part, we had to sub contract the data entry to 10 more people just to add about 3,900 products. Their jobs include, taking photos of each product, adding descriptions, product variations, pricing etc

Are you also going to be providing in-house training on how to use the preferred ecommerce software ? All these things come into play when taking up an ecommerce project.

Konga for example was built on magento, Sim has enough budget to keep the site running. So serious clients will appreciate it when you give them a total break down of the cost of your services, some will try to negotiate.

You can encourage your clients by offering easy payment term, for example 60% upfront and 40% after completion. Make sure the whole site had been developed on your own test server if you have one, other wise, you will learn a hard way.

Don't be afraid of loosing customers because of your pricing, as long as you are reasonable enough. I will start from 80K as an entry, personally I charge a minimum of 120k. My price is not made from the air, I can easily itemise my charges, plus based on years of experience, technical ability etc.

I've given you enough ideas and I hope it works for you buddy.

Best of luck

WebHostingPal:

Make sure the whole site had been developed on your own test server if you have one, other wise, you will learn a hard way.

can you please explain why?

adewasco2k:


can you please explain why?

It's difficult to explain without discouraging up coming developers. If you put all your add work on your clients server, you are doing so at your own risk. I have met clients that will change access to web hosting in order to avoid paying the balance, How cheecky is that ?

I've also met clients that will give you stories why they can't pay you the balance, do you understand what I mean by when they make you chase your own money, even though you have completed the job?

At the end of the day, you will have tens of clients owing you money all over the place. This is a fast growing industry and you don't have the time to be chasing client all over, it's very unprofessional.

The best bet is to perspectively avoid issues like that. It's more professional that way. Someone whose paid you 60% upfront, will pay you the remaining balance to upload to their own server. Never complete the job on a client server until you got all your pay.

Remember to let the client know this is your policy from the start.

^ ooh! really!! thats true

adewasco2k:


i sure know woocommerce does support digital contents.

When going for such your choice of a CMS is one of the most important part, i will not just say Magento is better than Woocommerce as it all depends on what suits the project but i find magento more robust with lots of customization and sales analysis, also opencart is a better alternative.

what you should consider now are:

1. number of the products
2. mode of payment
3. mode of shipment
4. how easy is it to add products, promos, discounts, coupons, offers etc
5. how secure is the platforms downloadable products
etc

hmm. thanks man, now i see reason to opt in for ecommerce cms. i dont really understand no. 4, do u mean who handles the process?

wisehouse:
hmm. thanks man, now i see reason to opt in for ecommerce cms. i dont really understand no. 4, do u mean who handles the process?

exactly, i mean you have to consider who handles the project, if its gonna be somebody who is not use to web things you might consider a platform that doesnt require any technicalities

[quote author=WebHostingPal post=27807175]

You can't compare magento or other purposely developed ecommerce software with an integrated or plugin based ones like woocommerce.

If your clients want ecommerce website, then use a pure ecommerce software, if they want blog, then use blog software.

Regarding pricing, you are the best person to know your own pricing structure, other people's pricing structure may not be good for you, unless you don't have a business plan in place. Like the saying "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" is not always true, the perfect one is "fingers are not equal" and this is why pricing variation exists.

Are you charging hourly, or one off.... are you using a free software or premium one ? are you charging maintenances or you would be providing manual and tutorials?

Adding inventory is not necessarily part of a developers job, as a matter of fact it's a separately chargeable service]thanks for your time bro, God Bless U. Very Educating.

adewasco2k:


exactly, i mean you have to consider who handles the project, if its gonna be somebody who is not use to web things you might consider a platform that doesnt require any technicalities

actually The Man wants to do that himself. thou he doesnt knw hw. he was like, "i want to b listing the product myself, nt relying on someone to do dat all d time".
in these case, which among openchart and magento should i use?

wisehouse:
actually The Man wants to do that himself. thou he doesnt knw hw. he was like, "i want to b listing the product myself, nt relying on someone to do dat all d time".
in these case, which among openchart and magento should i use?

i have used both and currently working on a magento site, i think magento will be a better option, they both might require same level of technical know-how but generally i will pick Magento

adewasco2k:


i have used both and currently working on a magento site, i think magento will be a better option, they both might require same level of technical know-how but generally i will pick Magento

great, will too, though never used it before