[thelist] Finished, at last !

[Steve Cook]

Hi Kev!

Congrats on the site - I think you've had useful feedback from people, I
wanted to put in my thoughts about the pricing issue.

I understand your thoughts about price and the phrase which pops into mind
is that it is "very noble". Of course even bands who are starting out
deserve to be able to get a site built that works for them and helps them
along. However, you as a site builder know how long it will take to produce
the site and only you can determine what you think is a fair price.

In my experience, whenever I've produced sites at a very low price for
people either they have been disappointed with the result or I've been
disappointed with the extra demands I have had to fulfill in order to leave
the client satisfied. This probably stems from bad communication of
expectations (from both sides), but I've heard it from many other developers
as well. The problem is that first time customers rarely understand how much
effort goes into producing a site and have only "other sites" to compare
against. When they see that their site hasn't the bells and whistles that
competitor X's site has they want to know why, often not accepting that
competitor X paid 10 times what they are paying.

What I'm saying is that you need to have your goals clearly defined for
yourself. It's possible to produce low-cost, high quality sites of course
(and I'm sure you are someone who can do that). Myself I would look into
reusing as much standardised code as possible and being very clear in what I
set out for a client at the start of the process. You need to also ask "why"
you are holding your prices low, is it altruism, or fear of charging a
higher price? "Getting started" is also a common reason to charge a low
price, but it can be very difficult to raise the price later - especially
for cusomers who have already experienced your "low" price. Finally, you
need to examine whether your goal is to eventually make a living from this
work. At the point where that becomes a reality, then charging 100 quid a
site becomes unrealistic. When you have to pay tax and the bills out of the
money you generate, then you need to be sure that you have those margins
built into your prices. If it remains a hobby business however, then that
may never be so important.

Heh! Well, that was some thoughts from one of your more capitalist friends
;-b Having said that, someone who understands the altruistic urge all too
well. I'm pretty sure you will have already thought through those issues,
but it's morning and I felt like expounding!

.steve

----------------------------------
   WapWarp - http://wapwarp.com
 Wap-Dev - http://www.wap-dev.net
 Cookstour - http://cookstour.org
----------------------------------

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin Stevens [mailto:kjs at ratking.co.uk]
> Sent: den 10 september 2001 21:32
> To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: Re: [thelist] Finished, at last !
<SNIP>
> 
> 1. I have given prices for a basic site because I realise 
> that small bands
> will not have a lot of money. My initial idea is just to 
> offer people a web
> presence, and as I am still learning I thought that the cheap 
> price will
> perhaps allow me to do a few sites to boost my portfolio, 
> then I can start
> charging more money.
>