Hi there! I’m currently building a website for my online shop. Since I don’t have the necessary skills in web designing and developing, I’m planning to hire one of the North London web designers my friend told me about. I just want to know how much this usually costs so I can arrange my finances accordingly. How will I know if I’m paying too much? Thanks for your help!
It's actually impossible to predict the amount because you provided very little information. Let's say I want to buy a real estate and ask this question: How much should it costs and how do I know it's too much? No one will answer it. Hope you get my point.
just get a budget from 3 different people and choose the one that most close to your budget, but remember if its cheap, it's probably crap. Im doing REAL STATE websites for 320 USD, includes 1 year hosting, 10 email accounts and all CPANEL tools.
I've seen web design range anywhere between $50-$15,000. I'm sure people spend even more than that, especially major corporations. I think the perfect balance is to start with a template (check themeforest) and have a developer modify it to your liking. In general, most of the stuff you see on themeforest is posted by the original designer. Reach out pre-purchase and see if you can work a deal for them to customize it to your liking. Because most of the work is done, it is cheaper than someone designing something from the ground up. But with customization, you're likely happier than just a template.
I'm agreed with @mikebvm. You don't need to hire designer for your ecommerce website. You just need to purchase template and little customization. that's it. Designer takes more money to design template so its better you pay money to developer for customization.
But if you use a ready template you'll have the same website as hundreds of businesses have, which is not the best solution for your business. Your business has to be different, unique. Your goal should be not just to have a website. You should have a unique solution, a marketing tool for your products or services.
If branding is important for you, don't go for template or template modification/customization. But since cost is also important for you, try to get in touch with a couple of designer and compare their pricing. And then try to see if you can negotiate for some discount. Most people will give you some form of incentive to hire them.
Don't worry,i'm just telling you eCommerce projects dealing process.It is impossible to give the account along,because this is continuous development process.Estimated cost is possible to say but for this estimation required prepare some documents.1.SOC-Scope of Work documents,2.Prototyping ,3.Technology requirements after prepared technical requirements it will be possible to provide estimation.