I have a customer that wants me to make their website more "pretty". Essentially, they are asking me to redesign their site. It's one of those online store websites, that runs on a shopping cart system.

I've never seen or heard of the script they are running, and really don't want to work around it. I don't know if it allows for easy design integration, so I've told my customer that I'll be building them a whole new website - and that they'll have to re-enter all product information manually. What I plan on doing is picking up a good shopping cart script (I've seen some very nice commercial ones around), and basically create them a template of their liking for it.

For this, I'm charging $350.00. Is it right for me to do so?

Seems somewhat on the cheap side from my perspective considering the time it will probably take.

I agree with chrishirst, it seems a bit cheap, especially with all the time setting it up on thier hosting etc.

Is the system they already have a 'software' e-commerce program, or a web based system?

If it seems cheap, I guess it's alright. I was afraid I was ripping them off for a task that's more on the easy side - except for the whole design a template part.

There is an immutable law in programming/web development physics.

If it looks like an easy job ....


.... It won't be!!

There's another one that I used in setting prices in cabinetry that believe it or not carries over well into web design: Whatever your initial impression is for a price quote, triple it. Whatever you thought was going to take a short amount of time NEVER, and I repeat, NEVER, will. Reference what chrishirst said above.

tim

I believe you will think "why the hell I asked only $350" as soon as you start developing this template

Depends on how involved you wanna' get with that template.

Nothing unethical about using a script that's already been written as long as you aren't plastering your own name all over the source.

I suspect you'll ultimately hate yourself for giving that estimate though.