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Rohit Begani
5,614 PointsEcommerce store using PHP
Hi, I followed the PHP course on treehouse and I believe that now I am in a position to make an eCommerce store. I have a friend who would like me to build an online store for me. And he wants to know that what it would cost him to get one made? And I suddenly realize that I have no clue. I couldn't find it on google so I would like to ask this community that how much would making a simple eCommerce store cost considering web hosting cost, paypal integration etc. Thanks
7 Answers
Mike Bronner
16,395 PointsI built an AJAX-driven PHP shopping cart and store for a customer back in 2004, and it took me 2 weeks of solid coding and designing to get it done. I would NOT recommend coding one from scratch, unless your client's needs are so specific that existing solutions won't work. If you want to do it as a project to learn from, that's great, by all means do it, but don't charge the client for it when they could get a solution that's already proven and costs less.
Of course that's just a suggestion as to how I might approach the project. :) Best of luck!
Rohit Begani
5,614 PointsMike Bronner
I don't intend to charge the client, he's a friend and I want to code the website as it would help me learn. What I meant was what would it cost my friend for other stuff like hosting or PayPal integration and stuff like that. Because we can only go ahead if we know the price as he wants to know whether it would be in his budget or not.
Thanks
Mike Bronner
16,395 PointsThanks for elaborating on the circumstances. Paypal integration should only be your time, and the paypal charges for his business account with paypal (I believe they charge 2% or something like that, per transaction). Hosting charges vary widely. You can go anywhere from as cheap as $4 /month to as much as $50 /month or even more. Then you have around $15 /year for domain name fees, and you also will want to get an SSL Certificate for between $40 and $100, depending on your needs. In the long run, PayPal will probably cost him the most in processing fees.
Rohit Begani
5,614 PointsMike Bronner
Thanks for your help. I hope that my friend finds this in his budget so that I can work on this website. Again, thanks for your help.
Rohit Begani
5,614 PointsAlso is there anything else which could cost me money in making this eCommerce website. It's going to be a very simple website with I guess only 10-20 different products.
Rohit Begani
5,614 PointsAlso is there anything else which could cost me money in making this eCommerce website. It's going to be a very simple website with I guess only 10-20 different products.
Mike Bronner
16,395 PointsThe only thing I can see from what you described so far is the cost of your time. I don't thing there are any other costs regarding the web site itself.
Rohit Begani
5,614 PointsThe cost of my time is totally acceptable by me as I believe that I will get even bigger returns from the experience I can gain by working on a project like this. :)
Mike Bronner
16,395 PointsYou're welcome! Best of luck! Keep in mind the costs vary from project to project, but after the entire project is done, the running costs consist of:
- Hosting (monthly or annually)
- SSL Certificate (recommended for customer confidence, but not needed if using Paypal, needed if accepting payments via a form on your site -- annually)
- Domain name (annually)
- Paypal Fees (per transaction, and possible fees for business account)