eCommerce Website for Local Client [NEED HELP PLEASE]

Hi mates

I pick some suggestions here on this great forum and I start to release that there are many clients waiting for my suggestions to improve their business!

This is what I did: I went to local shops in my city (with a tie of course ) with a couple of contact business cards + adwords vouches + phone in my hand. Now I got my first client that will pay me 500 DOLLAR for an ecommerce website + 100$ per month to update products/prices. It is sick (i think) that local store is selling hardware computer products and they have not website for sell them via online (LOL).

I think I will promote website via facebook + seo and I told him that my business is that (SEO) and that was what I said when I went to that stores. Anyway, they need a website and of course I will make it for them

I never did eCommerce website and I do not know how to do it the best way. I think I will pick some template (free or not) since they will pay me 500 dollars I think I can pick some pretty good premium template. But I do not know how to things works. How to make the orders/payments/shippings etc etc etc

Hope someone can give me some serious advices and tips to start this project.

For people that are thinking how many local business I went to get my first client I will tell you this: I went to 6 in ONE day and yesterday I got a call for my first first 500$ client. This is amazing I think the key was the tie and the business cards with my contact. I also have a website with my name with a couple of posts in the area of internet marketing + few portfolio website that I own xD

So buy a tie and start looking for business in your city because you will be amazed with how many clients are waiting for you

For a free shopping cart host you can use vendio.com easy to use but sucks (for me) if there are ALOT of products. If there are just a few this is the way to go..FREE....Also isnt there a buy now plugin for wordpress? I think you can do so much better for a site(SEO) using WP and they can even blog to help with content.

Anyway, good job and I wish you luck!

Oh also I think you are undercharging if you are going to do the website build, the upkeep and also the SEO...I think alot of the guys here charge $500-$1000 p month JUST for the SEO work.

Think about it you get say, 10 clients at $100/p month to upkeep the site next thing you know you are making just $1000p/month and spending hours updating the sites.

Even if you get 30 clients and update one site per day everyday of the month now you are making $36,000 p year..way to low for an "SEO expert".

There are many ways to make a commerce site, from the one's that host and give you all the technology to worpress plugins, ubercart of drupal and php scripts.
Setting up the site is not a problem and I guess you know how to do SEO and social marketing.
If you have any question about that you can write me.

When I had an e-commerce site the problem was the shipping, are you going to do it yourself? Are you going to teach the store owners how to use the system?
Trust me this is the hard part (assuming you know marketing already)

500$ is for build the website alone + 100$ to update the website with new products. I like to work so no problem if I get too much work that means I am getting much money so I can outsource to friends

thanks for the tips mate, realy apreciated

I think you are slightly under charging for what you are going to do for them, but as long as you do a good job for them it could be invaluable as they could recommend you to other people.

Check out Adobe Business Catalyst, it's a great piece of kit and comes with pretty much everything you need.

to get things simple to understand :
1. go with drupal based cms , and you will lose hundreds of hours trying to learn how actually works the core of it
2. go with joomla and will finish most probably in to some troubles with your hosting since your site most probably will be hacked pretty soon by those scriptkiddies
3. go with wordpress if you just wanna make the site and get the paycheck ( less learning curve / simple things and so on )
4. go with cubecart if you wanna play big (* yeh this crap worth hes money lol ) , and if you work your ass a little and customize it , you will keep your customers forever since the fkers will not be able to maintain the site by them-self so extra charge it's always good thing .
5. you can try other shitloadcrappyreadymade cms suitable for your needs but , my best best right now is like this , you are lucky enough to get your first client , play smart ( bring him a decent site / save your countless hours of searching & testing ) , maintenance income can be serious if you are doing things nice .

What about hosting account with security certificate? I think you're under-charging but once you put in the work you'll probably figure that out. Also I hope there are no high expectations for online sales. That niche is a tough egg to crack.

Building e-commerce sites isn't like building WP sites. It's a lot of work if you do it right. If the customer just wants his stuff on the web to sell then use ecrater or similar. If he wants a full ecommerce site with database driven inventory, hosting with dedicated IP and security certificate then an OSC or ISC cart will probably get the job done. For a turnkey solution with FB support maybe look at BC (bigcommerce).

Good luck and at least you're taking action! That puts you miles ahead of many on here.

Oh and get half up front and other half on completion. I've done too many of these and waited too long to get paid. At least half up front means they're serious.

thanks mates as always

kvmcable said:

What about hosting account with security certificate? I think you're under-charging but once you put in the work you'll probably figure that out. Also I hope there are no high expectations for online sales. That niche is a tough egg to crack.

Building e-commerce sites isn't like building WP sites. It's a lot of work if you do it right. If the customer just wants his stuff on the web to sell then use ecrater or similar. If he wants a full ecommerce site with database driven inventory, hosting with dedicated IP and security certificate then an OSC or ISC cart will probably get the job done. For a turnkey solution with FB support maybe look at BC (bigcommerce).

Good luck and at least you're taking action! That puts you miles ahead of many on here.

Oh and get half up front and other half on completion. I've done too many of these and waited too long to get paid. At least half up front means they're serious.

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ecomerce sites / shop sites how you wanna call them without security certificates are like beer without alcohol virtually worthless :=|

hfcorreia said:

thanks mates as always

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things can be done in '' right way '' or simply poor to get rid of the job , yeh ... maybe at the start for you will look like '' fk too much to work / too much things to do '' , but once you have build your base of local customers and I can bet if you are living in some decent city you can make a fortune . Learning curve is a bitch , is true ... but guess what nothing bad on this will be a good experience for you .

No way. 500$ is more than minimum salary at my small country. I am studing a lot to make this happen and I will make the best for sure I realy think if I make this good enouch I will get more clients for sure. Also if I make a decent website and explain exactely what they need to do to control sales/payments thats means they trust on me. And will pay me again to promote the website

thanks for you help mate!

keinehabe said:

ecomerce sites / shop sites how you wanna call them without security certificates are like beer without alcohol virtually worthless :=|



things can be done in '' right way '' or simply poor to get rid of the job , yeh ... maybe at the start for you will look like '' fk too much to work / too much things to do '' , but once you have build your base of local customers and I can bet if you are living in some decent city you can make a fortune . Learning curve is a bitch , is true ... but guess what nothing bad on this will be a good experience for you .

Click to expand...

Go to Woothemes, and use their New WooCommerce. It's easy to use, should cost about $100 to get everything going, and it has all the features a store could need.

Here in south africa is a company that made some sort of automated system for ecommerce sites selling computer harware and stuff basicly what it does is it allows you to import you're suppliers pricelist and show a live stock feed(you dont need to carry stock it pulls the stock feed of the suppliers website) on you're webpage.When someone places an order on you're webpage it places the order automaticly at youre distributers and notify's the courrier company to pick up the clients order at the distributer.the courrier company then deliver it to you're client the system seems great but gheez there templates they use for their clients looks horrible

But from previous experience I would recommend using magneto ecommerce.
Opinions from users around here will vary so try a few of the above mentioned ones and see which one works best for you. Remember using one that have plugins and mods widely available will make you're life much easier.
just my 2 cents

Try PrestaShop, it's free. But it's worth buying a decent template which you can get for around $50. I had a paid version of cubeCart but migrated to Prestashop because it has a lot more features and was free plus the community is very helpful.