Comments on: How much does an online store cost?

By: A White Knight comes to save our vending machine dilemma | Ideate

A White Knight comes to save our vending machine dilemma | Ideate — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:30:18 +0000

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By: Elemental

Elemental — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:56:01 +0000

Thanks for this article I found it quite interesting and I agree that in most cases it requires alot of planning and development hours to produce something that is really what the client wanted.

By: Brett

Brett — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:02:15 +0000

And the cost of “plugging” in that South African gateway? http://www.shopify.com does not support any SA gateway’s so along come the developers? Naeem’s favourite..

By: Jacques

Jacques — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:16:52 +0000

> Setting up the website for an e-commerce
> store can cost from R5,000
If you’re paying R5000 for a very basic e-commerce site, your paying too much! Try R300-R600: http://www.shopify.com . You have to get your own payment gateway though.

By: Antilogic

Antilogic — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:55:52 +0000

I have been involved in some of the biggest South African online stores and I have to say that there are quite a lot of hidden costs that people don’t consider.

The payments, gateways, security and penetration testing, ssl certificates and a whole lot more.

In the end, I don’t think the “physical” store itself is that expensive, but all the other things definitely boost the price.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:49:03 +0000

@Naeem Thanks for the comments. There are definitely sharks out there to make a quick buck off unsuspecting victims. But, I do know that a professional e-commerce site takes a huge amount of planning, implementing and tweaking. We’ve been working on Yuppiechef pretty solidly for 2 years, and we still want to do so much more. It’s definitely not a once-off process.

I used the term “advertising” rather loosely. Your idea of targeting bloggers is a form of marketing that requires effort and some money. And next month you’ll have to keep going with the next marketing idea. A shopping mall will give you guaranteed traffic every month. That was my point.

By: Naeem

Naeem — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:35:27 +0000

developers in SA are crazy.

I know they are in business and have overheads, but i often get the feeling that i’m their ‘ticket’ to easy living.

That said, i’m delving into magento to see how that goes. I have graphic experience, plenty of online shopping experience.

I’d like to think the store i launch soon will be a success. Either way, within a a few months i will give the reigns to my sister (its for her anyway

Big adverts and huge adwords accounts is not a must have (they are important and have their place) but this could work too:

– build up a trust with key figures in your niche
– offer some sort of free service for them, not everything is about $$$
– give them freebies to blog about

I figure, if you give 10 blogs products worth R200. And each blog has a readership of about 100. You do the math, you can easily cover that costs in sales and more importantly boost your reputation.