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!!!
Keith Rowley MBA BSc (Hons)
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