How to Negotiate a Fair Price for a Website for your Business?
The First Question You Should Ask of a Website Supplier
Although it should not be, when buying a website, the first question 95% of people ask is - 'how much does it cost'? This can be a fatal error that drives you into substantial economic loss and delays in business development. Drive any competent supplier down on price too much and he/she will drive you down on quality, deliverable functions, support and capability. Here's the first question you ask:
YOUR FIRST QUESTION ABOUT A BUSINESS WEBSITE is...
CAN YOU DELIVER ALL OF THESE FUNCTIONS?
This means you need a written job specification for the supplier to sign off on.
Now most people get put off by the very idea of a 'specification' but it's the best protection you can possibly have against incompetents and scammers - and there are many of those in this business. So what does such a document look like?
There are many examples on the web, but you don't need them. You just need a list. Here is one example just off the 'top of my head':
Typical and Useful Website Specification
- A Shop with 100 products and instructions or a manual on how to edit
- A payment channel - PayPal and Credit Cards
- The ability to refund customers who are unhappy
- Up to five images per product
- Sale price easy to enter
- Emails sent to customer and me when a sale is made
- Keep a record of all orders
- Membership system so I can give repeat customers special deals
- A domain - i don't have one yet
- Hosting my website please
- Works on mobile and looks quick (in line with industry standards)
- Use my existing logo and my suggested color design
- Puts my products in categories so I can have pages of each type
- Must have basic appearance like this site "https://...yoursite.com"
- I need 11 pages for my other website content - articles etc
- Must include pages for Terms and Conditions and Confidentiality
- Must have a contact page
- Must have clickable contact details in the site header
- Include a wholesale sales system so that the public cannot see wholesale prices unless signed up as bona-fide wholesalers.
- Must have industry standard security
- Must have backups to restore the site within 24 hours if it is hacked.
- Must have a phone number for support or a ticketing system and someone I can speak with if there are problems.
- Must have on-site SEO as an option so that we can start ranking - include as an option in the quote please.
- Must have slider for our products on the home page
- Must have a shipping system to calculate shipping costs in Australia
- Must be able to enter GST.
- I must own the website if you go broke or exit the business and I must have full access to move it whenever I wish
Setting this list up isn't hard - just write down what you want as a list and use it.
TO BE CONTINUED - CHECK BACK SOON!!!
Rowley Keith MBA BSc (Hons)
Professional Engineer, Web Guru, former Para, miner and Merchant Navy Officer. MBA and BSc (Hons). Proud Australian. Founder of Sydney Business Web, Thornton NSW.
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