[Dean-123]

Hi people, I have been running my own business in my hometown and I’m wishing to offer my services to a wider range of customers, so I decided to get a domain, a server and some IT staff to run an online Business. I have spent some money at the moment and I read on several sites that big businesses spend money by the million! I wonder if I also have to spend this amount of money for a site with some e-commerce tools, member base and some news like myTino for example. Thanks for your feedback.

[HarveyJ]

If you've got the time and inclination, you can do it all for free yourself, except for the hosting.

That said, you probably don't.

Good quality hosting, with redundancies and high load capacity, will probably end up setting you back about $30/month. You'll also need to spend about $7/year on a domain name.

The site itself, if designed well using open source software such as OsCommerce or ZenCart, should be about 20-30 hours of work to setup with all the extras you need.
Technically, OsCommerce can be set up in a single hour, but I'm assuming you'll want things such as credit card payment processors, extra security, postage calculations, feedback forms, etc.
Don't forget to tell them you want the email address that matches your domain name.
And you may want to get a blog if you're a smaller business. Customers like to get to know small business owners for some reason.

Anyway, all that should run to maybe $2,000 if they're doing a nice layout for the site too. Substantially less than that, it probably won't be a good site. Substantially more and you're paying too much.

The millions of dollars that big companies spend mostly go on consultancy fees and advertising.

[MarkH]

What kind of business are you running and what are your objectives online?

[cashflowportfolio]

Dean-123 I believe my team and I can help you facilitate your e commerce needs. go to www.yes4biz.com\merchant and look under merchant solutions. We can provide the capabilities for your customers to purchase goods or services from you at an affordable monthly price. Help me to understand what it is you were exactly looking for and we can do some customize work to fit your plan of attack!

[cashflowportfolio]

Email me via nick@yes4biz.com or call the office at 1-888-280-9802 0r 216-674-0834

[Dean-123]

Thanks! I run a medium business and hope expand my business area. The first step for me is set up own website and then try some other marketing method like SEO or blog. I think I can not afford the local web designers like Harvey said. So I want to outsource it to cheap talented people in some other countries like china and Indian. Will it be available

[cashflowportfolio]

Dean what is your set target day to launch your website? Also what type of features are you in interested, such as shopping cart, by now options, and online processing etc?

[zionic]

Originally Posted by HarveyJ

If you've got the time and inclination, you can do it all for free yourself, except for the hosting

thats not entirely true, you can do the hosting yourself if you have the technical know-how or willingness to learn (ive set up mine to run on a spare computer i had). All you need is a decent broadband connection and a mediocre PC (you dont even need a dedicated PC to do it, though it does help). Your average home computer is more than capable of handling several '000s hits a month. Mine is running on a bog-standard UK 8Mb ADSL home package

Zionic Computers - Introducing D.I.Y. Computers if you dont believe me i have had a bit of trouble with speed, but thats just down to fine tuning and patience. Functionality wise, its got support for everything you could need - PHP, MySQL, ftp access, outbound email, SSH, Firewall. You can also set up SSL, which involves paying for a certificate from a Certificating Authority. Prices vary, but expect ~£30 minimum (sorry, i work in pounds ). At the mo im using paypal for my checkout so i dont need it.

Total set up price was: £10 for the domain name (2 years), and an optional £5 for a bit of technical mumbo. Plenty of free eCommerce solutions out there too

Obv if your successful then it may be better to outsource your hosting rather than upgrade your systems/internet connections. but you would need advice on that one

If you'd like some advice or more details on what im running then pm me

[MoneyMagnet]

I recommend Volusion. I use that for my website. The monthly prices vary on the number of products you will offer. The monthly fees go from about 29 a month, to 99 a month. This includes hosting, shopping cart software, 24/7 support, easy (I mean easy) SEO integration. They have more features, but its literally too much to list, its insane. The one time setup for your account is either $99 or $129. I'm not sure how anyone can beat their service and their quality. They also have free templates you can use.

You can check out my site, I'm currently using a free template and its super easy to setup and run the store yourself. Bernard Outdoors - Your Outdoor Adventure Store - Camelbak, Granite Gear, Nalgene

[HarveyJ]

Zionic: True, but most people will skip away from a site if it takes too long to load, and if you're doing it from a home plan, it won't be loading all that fast.
And a business bandwidth plan costs more than a decent hosting package anyway.