We’ve seen a few tips about choosing a provider that will help you create your e-commerce website. Some of the main elements involve comparing prices between various web development companies and checking the reputation of your provider. There are also a few other tips that will help you save some money on getting your web store up, especially if you don’t have much of a budget. Here are some of them:
- Work with a freelancer as opposed to a professional web development company
If you just want to build a small site to begin your online money making efforts, then having your website designed by a freelancer as opposed to a professional design firm. While they could be very competent, web design firms that do e-commerce sites often charge very high prices, such as over $1000 for a website. Of course, not every new online entrepreneur could afford that. The alternative would be working with a freelancer, who could create a website for you for less than $100 in some cases. You can browse through the buy/sell section of many internet marketing forums, as well as take a look at freelancer sites like Odesk and Freelancer.com to find some people willing to do the task. One of the advantages of freelancing sites and forums is that checking the reputation of the service provider becomes much easier, as there is usually a feedback system as well as comments left on the thread by other clients.
- Design some of the elements of the site yourself
If you are able to do so, then you should definitely create some of the elements on your site by yourself. For example, if you are good in graphic design, you could create your own logos, buttons and website background, and just send them over to the provider that is creating your website. This will allow your website to be completed much faster and will also save you some money, as there will be less work for the provider to do.
- Avoid packages that include hosting
This is both for quality and price reasons. There are some e-commerce website providers that offer hosting solutions. However, these are often much more expensive than getting your own account at a web host. If you are going to build a small website, then you can find quality web hosting for around $5 – $8 per month. Many providers charge many times that and their web hosting is actually not too better in terms of quality, as they are simply using a reseller account on a web host like GoDaddy. After, if your site grows, you can get yourself a VPS hosting solution for around $30 to $50 a month. This will give you more reliability and flexibility than using a shared web hosting account. Also, managing the hosting yourself gives you more control over your website and makes it easier to make some advanced changes and troubleshoot problems if they occur, as opposed to letting a provider manage everything for you.