Friday, March 28, 2008

Custom vs Canned E-Commerce Web Site Solutions

I received a call yesterday from a prospect that was trying to find a host for a PHP canned E-commerce solution. The prospect explained to me that he needed direct access to my kernal and he needed Root access to my server. I then informed him, that the only way I could make that happen is for him to have his own Standlone server and it would be $150.00 a month for the dedicated server. He then quickly told me that it should only be $5.95 a month.

Of course, this person did not realize that his requirements would not allow him to be on a "virtual" server with other customers. Since his "requirements" is root access, I seriously doubt that anyone will share acccess to him when there are other customers on that box.

After explaining the issues, he soon agreed that he would need his own server. I then asked "what are you trying to host?" He then explained that it was a Canned e-commerce package. That he's been trying to deploy for months. His web designer just can't get it to work.

I then said, You know for around $4500, I could write him a custom e-commerce solution and he could be up in selling in 3 weeks. Of course, he tells me that's more money than he wants to spend for a e-commerce website.

I then asked him, how long has his web designer been working on this project, he states around 3 months and the project still is not complete. I then find out that this guys sells web design to customers. I asked him how much he bills his web designer for. He states $50 an hour (pretty cheap in comparison)

So I then added up the hours of work that his web designer hasn't been able to bill out because he's been wasting time on this. 3 months x 40 hours a week = 516 hours x 50 an hour, he's lost 25,000 just in the last three months.

So a minimal $4,500 is alot cheaper than going the route he's trying to go. I also informed him that the following year his cost would only be the web hosting which would only be $350 for the entire year.

So For all you people that don't think that you can afford a custom E-commerce website, please reconsider the true cost of these "Canned e-commerce"


Custom E-commerce solutions hosted by Houston's web Hosting Company

No comments: