One of the most popular questions I get from clients or even friends that want to start a business online is “How much is it going to cost to build my website?”
That’s a pretty loaded questions…
What do you want the website to do? Most small businesses have no idea what a website should cost (like WordPress) or what an e-commerce site should cost (like Shopify) .
This is how I usually answer that questions:
A standard site that is “brochure style” with only a handful of pages I would highly recommend WordPress. I don’t charge a ton for wordpress sites like most do because I’ll install it for FREE, then refer them to some high end templates like at Theme Forest, and then only charge them to customize the theme to their needs. Most people are shocked at how little it costs to setup and get a professional theme running on the site.
For e-commerce, it use to cost thousands and thousands to setup a good store, even with open source software. Most small businesses “still” think it costs that much and there are plenty of marketing companies and agencies that will gladly sell you an e-commerce package for 5 and 6 figures. Those are usually heavily modified “Magento” based stores or similar. When you have been doing e-commerce for 18yrs (like I have), what you will quickly learn is that high end technology or expensive sites have almost no impact on sales.
What does is a great product/service that is not a commodity but has a large need. It’s old school economics but since it’s so easy to fire up a business these days, most people go for the “quick money” (and fail) instead of coming up with a great product or service that has a large demand and small supply.
In either case, I recommend Shopify more than any other e-commerce platform… PERIOD. Currently there is nothing that can beat it’s feature set, simplicity, and ease of use for someone at almost any level. I’ve worked with companies that have 1 product and over 20K on shopify. Some make no money while others are doing 2 and 3 million a month no problem.
It WILL blow your mind to see how easy it is and how little it costs. You can even try it for free for 14 days (seriously). If you don’t fall in love, no worries, you don’t pay a dime. My guess is that it will be your new best friend and will enable you to truly find out if that business idea has legs. If you already have a site giving you problems, spend the time to migrate and you’ll be in good hands.
Here is the link to the free trial… just DO IT.
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