I need some help with a website quote for an offline biz. Plz

Hi Christian,

I manage software projects for a living, so let me give you some quick advice.

Overall, I think it's a good start, but lacks detail.

The first PDF is a screenshot of the majority of the admin screens. Although most of the functionality can probably be inferred from looking at the picture, I wouldn't be comfortable without an accompanying functional specification. IOW, each screen shot should be accompanied by a detailed description of how the screen should look upon initialization, and behaviors or actions it must support, error handling & error messages...etc.

The software development company in this instance says the cost covers the "full scope" of the project. But nowhere in what you provided is the "full scope" defined.

Let me put it simply. When it comes to completion, and the software company bills you for the work, how do you know it's done? There isn't a description of each page of the project, there's no test plan that it must pass to be considered complete, etc.

Even the simplest of projects can take an ugly turn, so the better defined it is at the onset, the less likely it will be to have misunderstandings.

Hope that helps!

Steve

Thanks for the input, I did not generate the quote the design firm did I am merely acting as an agent as I do have a good understanding of things in general. The clients do have an understanding of the function of the backend of the CMS and the project in general but getting it in writing would be nice I agree.

It was stated in our meeting the system would be bug free and complete before it is launched I am sure it would not be an issue to have this written up.

I am looking mainly at the cost of the project to determine if it is grossly out of line or appears reasonable. I understand the total scope is a bit hard to determine with the quotes as it is.

Thanks David,

Answers
I agree that is why I passed and found someone more experienced

The system will also accommodate integration of their existing dealer network about 250 dealers and allow them all to have a 3 page minisite capable of sales (through the main site payment processor) on their site. This will be set up by the dealers via password access and CMS backend. (should be a big benefit being able to geo-target these pages).....

Dealers will pay for their minisite but this setup is included in development fee and it is hosted on my clients domain.

It is quite a project.

a "licensing fee" is not the same as a "development fee"


I asked WHO. Not whether it's possible. I know an outfit once who bid on a project like this and ended up in a big lawsuit b/c this wasn't addressed. The client thought the vendor was going to maintain their inventory database, and the vendor said it was never included in their bid. It was a HUGE inventory, and the client didn't want to hire someone to maintain it, thinking that was really all they were contracting for!

People THINK "we've got 300 things we need to sell online" and the developers think, "they need a shopping cart with these 4 features added". One sees content, the other sees functions. Very different issues.

-David

I'm just posting questions that need to be addressed. I don't need the answers.

BTW, if you have a minute, could you help out with something quick?

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...st-please.html

Thanks!
-David

Christian,

I've looked over the details of both the PDFs you have provided, and as far and the numbers involved they seem to be reasonable.

However, what is left out is who the issue of future modifications if needed.

Also if the coding is encrypted or would some other programmer be able to modify the code assuming that the original writer was not available for updates.

On a project like this I would want in writing from the original provider pricing on future mods and for the first year, and the guarantee that their firm will be able to provide ongoing support in the event of server configurations and security modifications of the hosting provider and or payment gateways.

Most have no problem with these types of limited agreements, because they are a reasonable expectations considering they are the most familiar with the code and are likely to know the required modifications to make the software compatible with the hosting and the gateways. If they are providing similar applications to other clients they have already written the updates to the code so the cost to update are minimal.

In the event the original programmer is no longer with the firm it will be at their expense to get the coder up to speed.

Also a flow chart of the operation needs to be included with the bid.

A step by step of how to add merchandise, manufactures and categories would be great, yet creating detailed manuals is often beyond the scope of software development firms.

An agreement of when payments are to be made and list of actions and accomplishments that determine when the project qualifies for a payment for work completed.

An agreement of reduction of payment for missed deadlines (generally its better to be written as a bonus for completion prior to deadline AND penalties)

Mark Riddle

Thanks for the excellent reply Mark.

Looks high to me.

I am not sure what dealer type they are, but with car dealers, all that is provided by the manufacturer. The dealership's costs are usually inflated monthlies ($500-$750 a month only) with nothing up front. Of course that is an agreement between car makers and the dealers, not between a dealer and a site builder. But for the $17-18,000 that appears to be, must be a hell of a site!

Bump for more opinions if anyone has the time..

One thing I would suggest (and it might save you a lot of time) is look at Magento Commerce: Magento - Home - eCommerce Software for Growth. It is very powerful and will save you a lot of time on designing. Although from the looks of your first pdf you already have a CMS(and probably ecommerce.) The best part about Magento is it is free and extremely powerful right out of the box. There are tons of commercial addons for it (for a fee ofc.) and is pretty easy to modify to work to your advantage. One thing I will forewarn you about: You will have to modify the shipping system to force P.O boxes to only be able to ship USPS. Other than that I absolutely love Magento. Can't really add much else than that. I just charge a flat rate of $30/hr for anything I do and aim high on estimates. My clients love it when they have an estimate of $1.5k and I end up only billing them half. They think I'm cutting them a deal . Using a custom system imo is not a great idea unless you are dealing with a huge corporation and they can afford to have a staff addon/maintain it at all times. Coming from the Customers standpoint, what happens when you are no longer able to help them? They are pretty much SOL, but I guess that could be a good thing for you.

Well they sound like a rip to me, get more quotes.

Look for people at oDesk, freelance, guru.com and so on.

You could cut all of those hosting costs out, newsletter ect.
OMG $75.00 for GA! WTF.

However, I do like their cart and what they will do. Haggle that
price down and cut out some of those cost which you can
easily do yourself.

Another option may be to go with wordpress and an ecommerce
plugin. There's a few good plugins out there that cost only a couple
of hundred. But I do not know if they have the option let other users
post new ads and such.

Take a look at https://www.interspire.com/shoppingcart/
they might be better

Anytime Christian

I love GA, a good alternative is StatsCounter - They've been pretty accurate for me.

You bet,
I already use them...

Google is like a big dog that loves you all it's life and then bites your face off for no apparent reason.


I don't trust them knowing more than they need to.