mainstream project, how much would you charge??
 

I'm a webmaster for a mainstream client. For the most part I really hate doing the work, but I do it because I'm friends with the guy who runs the store and I kind of feel obligated because he's friends with my family.

He's asked me to re-do the entire site for e-commerce and build a shopping cart system, setup the merchant account and such, and build the product database, SEO, and traffic purchases.

I have a couple buddies that run a pool and spa parts store and it took their 2 man crew 3 months to enter all the products into the database. They think it will take me longer for this project, being a 1 man crew.

How much would you invoice a project like this? I'm thinking $3k a month would be fair, I don't want to over-bill them for the time. But of course, I don't want to under-bill them and feel like I'm wasting my time. In reality I'll probably feel like I'm spinning my wheels either way because I make that much in about two days of shooting content. Ugh...

tell him you dont have time to do it, and recommend someone else for the job

do the easy stuff and outsource the work to someone from gfy. especially the database stuff. hire one of those foreign outsourcing places and it will save you a ton of money and it should be pretty cheap.

$3k a month???

That's giving away your time.

Charge 3000 but hire a college student to do it for 10 an hour...You will still have to do some of the work but it would cut your time in half and you would end up with a better profit and be able to get back to the work that make you your main income...

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I'm sure I could send over a huge product list and have all the greuling manual cutting and pasting outsourced. Then I'll outsource the graphics work, and probably end up doing the shopping cart configuration myself.

Maybe it won't end up being too tough after all. Hmm.

Charge 3k and outsource it... if your lucky, for less than 1,000k you should be able to find a good webmaster/designer... ?IF? you really are that lucky... :Graucho

Try OSCommerce, its free php based and it as a lot of modules readily available such as affiliate program, all kind of payment processor setup, manufacturers and products import tool. I just setup a full online travel agency with over 4000 packages and it took me about a week to setup!

Here's the address: http://oscommerce.org/

Good luck!

Macromind

absolutely NEVER EVER hire somebody off GFY to do grunt work - this place is filled with people who can't get their shit together to do real work - they want a paycheck but no workie. designers, programmers, etc you stand a better chance - but grunt work, this is the wrong place. go to Scriptlance and outsource to an Indian company for grunt work.

thats a chance you take when hiring anyone to do grunt work. if you're strict with them and dont pay until they're done, then you just drop them when they dont do it and move on to the next person.

back when i first started a long time ago when i was still in college i've done grunt work for people. i put a 100% effort into it and got it done on time or earlier.

Go by the hour. Dont give a fixe d prive because you will loos your balls. Blue is never the right blue and that stuff. Charge a reasonble price per hour. And get things on paper.

Being strict is the key... Make use of their trial period... If on the first day you feel annoyed by the person they gave you, you just keep on asking for a replacement... If your lucky, they may commit a mistake and give you a really good person... :1orglaugh