So Hubby and I are currently faced with a decision with regards to a project we need fulfilling. We need to get a new upper deck on our house. We have received a quote and it is going to empty our pockets a bit. We could wait until our folks come out and have a go at bodging it up ourselves and probably save quite a bit of money you would think? Yes? No? Well firstly we are a bit over DIY when we have no previous experience to draw from. By the time we make mistakes, buy the tools, damage our property while making the mistakes, damage ourselves and swear a lot we might this time bite the bullet and get the pro in. Basically our time is money and we are going to take ages to do the job due to work commitments and it eats away at our time with the kids too.
The same theory can be applied to your business website. You have a decision to make on whether or not to build your own website or get a professional to do it for you. I actually worked out how much it would cost a friend to make a website with Shopify the other day and my findings surprised me. Let’s say it takes you 30 hrs to finish it. So your time is worth approx $40 per hour? So $1,200 worth of your time plus with Shopify it has monthly fees…. the website will probably last you 3 years so $35 per month x 36 mths = $1,260 so total $2,460. You have to pay more per month if you want to expand the online shop but let’s take the minimum. Pro’s like myself charge for a WordPress eCommerce website with Woocommerce between $1,500- $2,500 depending on size and pricing and shipping rules. That usually includes graphic design of sliders, graphics around the website. We also provide our experience as we have built a good number of these types of websites.
The benefit of building using WordPress is the website is yours you can take it and hand it to another developer where as with the online websites like Shopify, Bigcommerce, Volusion you cannot move it where you like. It gives you freedom and no monthly fees apart from your hosting which you can have for about $5-$7 per month for which usually includes email.
You can have a go at building your own WordPress website but by the time you work it all out and pay full whack for the plugins you need you have to ask yourself is it really worth the effort?
So based on my thoughts above I am thinking go pro and spend more time doing what you love.
Must dash I have a carpenter to call 😉
Kim x