ZAP Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 Ok so here's the deal..I have an assignment to hand in in a few hours. This is really important. I am doing a feasibility study of opening up an online hookah shop (UK based).I have most of my stuff done but now I am onto drawing up a cash flow forecast. I don't have ANY experience with designing webpages so I need some help getting some ball-park figures to put in.How much would the start up costs be? What would they include? (domain, hosting etc.)What would the running costs be (monthly)?I just need some ball-park figures and what kinds of costs would be included. I've been looking around all night.All I can really think of is paying for hosting and the domain name which would be a really small cost. Also can you please name the hosting/domain companies you get your figures from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
web250 Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 I use http://www.hostdome.comI pay $10/yr for a domain, and currently $5.95/mo for my site which gets around 40,000 page views a month.But for a hookah site you'd need to pay potentially for a store backend, a credit card "machine" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZAP Posted January 8, 2007 Author Share Posted January 8, 2007 Ah yeh totally forgot about that. You think you can help me out a little? How much would those things cost for startup/running? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
web250 Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 QUOTE (ZAP @ Jan 7 2007, 10:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Ah yeh totally forgot about that. You think you can help me out a little? How much would those things cost for startup/running?I don't run any software like that.For a store you could run osCommerce, which is free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fewwdragon Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 There is a wide range of website builders and for a professional site you can expect to pay upwards of 200-1,000 depending on the qualtiy and the time. On the other hand you can get free templates and what not. Web hosting and domain names is fairly cheap as web250 said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvansLight Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 hmm guess it might be too late for me to chime in XD but i will anyways.Monthly costs of running a site vary from site to site. Small sites and blogs usually run under a good 1-10gb of bandwith, and usually use no more than a good 100mb-500mb, but some blogs do take a heavy mysql toll, thankfully you dont have to worry bout that. For sites like e-commerce, and anything major, your looking at traffic of anywhere from 10gb to the 10,000gb a month, depending on the traffic of the site. Most of the sites with that high of a traffic are more towards high end companies with there own servers and usually there own backbone, maybe a high end OC connection.For a hookah site, your looking at about getting a good starter ecommerce package. You can get one from sites like siteground, that come with SSL and private IPs, which you need. With SiteGround, and most good hosts, you have to pay for a year to two years in advance. So to get there best package for E-Commerce, your going to drop about $120. That will cover you for 2 years. Next you gotta look into scripts and design, along with a webmaster. If you know how to do these yourself, you can save some money, but if you dont, you better pray that you got a good friend who knows what there doing, or get lucky, cause a good web designer can run you up in the hundreds. As for the script, i would say ZenCart for new people, and well...... ZenCart for more experienced users. I used to say osCommerce, but its got too many bugs, and is outdated in so many ways.Other costs include the shipping, and the payment gateway. You can usually get a free account with shipping companies giving you easier access to getting your stuff shipped. As for packaging, depending on who you go through, and how much you ship, you can possibly get that stuff for free. Payment gateways are another thing. You gotta find first off a company who allows you to use theres and still sell tobacco, along with one that will work with your ecommerce script, and most do. The most common is Authorize.net. But with a.net you gotta get a merchant account, and you can only get that from a.net resellers, not them directly, so you can pay from $50 - $1000 for a merchant account. The final part of starting a good succesful online buisness, is of course, advertising. Luckily if your a good member of the forums, and give us some good discounts ;-) you can usually post up here without problems. But also getting an adwords account and paying for google ads helps, also getting people wearing clothing with your companies name on it can help alot word of mouth is your next best bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fewwdragon Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 Nicely said evanslight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
web250 Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 Hmm...I think Evanslight know what he's talking about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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