how much should I charge - shopping cart website.

I have a client that's looking to start selling their products online as well. they sell scrubs and shoes for the medical field.

They don't have a domain or anything yet. A friend of mine had recommended them to me and gave them my number. With our first phone call they were already asking how much it would cost.. so I'm pretty sure I can make a sell. but I know they don't have tons of money either. I told them I needed to do some research first because I haven't ever messed with cart systems before and I'd get back to them.. and they wanted to know how much it would be for the research but I told them it was free.. I just needed to figure out what all needed to be done before I could make them a quote.

I'm curious how much I should charge them for the initial setup of the website.. which would include purchasing the domain and getting it all setup. I'm going to use wordpress and probably getshopped.orgs eCommerce plugins. I was thinking maybe 400$ for this. do you think that's too much or too cheap? I was also going to charge a monthly fee for continuing to host the website for them. but I'm going to make that around 30-40$ a month. After The website is done and everything I'm going to start talking to them about marketing tactics and getting into SEO.. to try and make some more money down the road.

but really I'm just curious how much I should charge for the initial setup of their website for now.

charge as much time as you spend.
for example I don't plan on working for lower than $100 a day.
i build ecommerce sites using wordpress and it takes about 2 days to build them (including email, analytics, contact forms and so on...)
so the minimum is $200.

so...think of your rate and ask away

Somestimes ecommerce can be a headache as the clients is looking fro an amazon looking site on a Tumblr.com budget!

honestly for ecoomerce tell them to go to Prostores as if your not that skilled in shopping carts etc, have a big company hold there hand like Prostores.

i know it will be a little bit of a headache.. but I'm not looking to turn them away. Even though this will be my first eCommerce site, I have to start somewhere.

I guess I could charge $200 + whatever charges I will incur .. domain fee, premium plugins, etc

take a look at the premium themes from woo

http://www.woothemes.com/themes/woocommerce-themes/

Well, for starters, if they want somebody else to do the work of setting it up, I'd make them actually
pay a professional's price for a professional service. If you think they can afford to wait a month or
more, then sure, I'd give them a low-ball price... because they are not going to be the priority.

If, however, they understand that the sooner it is setup, the sooner they can be multiplying their
sales, then here's what I'd do.

I use to outsource all of the e-commerce setups that come my way. They are based in India, but they
rate a "good-plus" on English, and are available on Skype everyday, so you can adjust and tweak the
deliverable to suit the needs of the prospective client. Their prices may be a bit higher than what
you like for this, but their services are more than worth it.

I actually charge no less than $1800-$2000 for their $800 setup, and up to $7500 for their $1600
setup (depending upon factors such as whether a fully loaded catalog with inventory counts is
included) but I help make sure the client is truly ready to go, and make myself available as
their connection in the event they need any last minute adjustments.

If your client already has a revenue stream from their business, they should easily be able to come
off the $2000 for an OS setup (or higher end if you want to take a lesser cut). And if not, what
makes them so sure they could satisfy the demand a light internet sales rush might create?

Either way, always collect enough up-front to pay for the outsourced work, and any balance
split between revision of deliverable and completion so you don't get burned.

I'd come down on the hosting fees to at lest 50% of what you stated, though, giving them
a break on the long haul, yet keeping then connected to you financially

eCommerce is one of the most expensive business setups on the internet, and any realistic
business owner knows this already. The returns are great from their point of view for this service,
so their numbers are naturally higher for this part of the business.

My day job (I enjoy it so I've kept doing it) pays me around $400 a day, but I still think I do
pretty good closing sales at my prices. Set your prices however you choose, but once you
low-ball a normally big project price, good luck getting the prices back up to reality.

~ T

Agreed with MrDoru,

Woothemes were awesome to begin with, but they just came out with WooCommerce. Fully functional shopping carts and Ecommerce solutions, on their already great looking themes. The Eccomerce themes "attach" to a normal theme, so you need to buy the real one first. Definitely worth it, and can easily be fixed into your costs.

Pricewise, your total cost will be about $100 + a few hours work. Figure out how much you want to make, and price it from there. I'd push for $650 if you want to be in their price range. You can always drop it down, or upsell additional features.