fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2946 ]

[ SECRET POST #2946 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2946 ⌋

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My "best" friend (whom I now want to maim if not kill) suggested me to a coworker of hers to help said co-worker "make a website" for her jewellery. Oh, did I mention, my friend didn't bother to even fucking text me that she'd done this? Yeah, thanks. Anyhow the woman called me tonight and because I have no spine, I agreed to meet with her on Friday.

She says she's willing to pay me...and I googled to see what a freelancer making websites charges. Seems the minimum is 50$/hr (and upwards). Not sure if she'll wanna pay that much. (hey, I could price myself out of a job). This woman admits she's not good with technology and doesn't seem to want e-commerce; however she does have some web space with Vista Print (I took a quick look, but could pretty much only look at the templates--which is good, templates are good). BUT there is a monthly/annual fee. I'm not sure this woman is making enough to pay that. Obviously I'll ask her. I also think there will be instruction wrt to cameras/photos/editing and even some software (for word processing). I really don't want this to be an ongoing web mistress job.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't maybe suggest she start an Etsy shop? It looks like it's free; I couldn't easily find any in depth info on whether they charge shop owners or do they make money via advertising?

So my questions: what should I charge per hour (I'm not going below my per hour rate at my job, which is $22/hr)? I have moderate web building skills and can do a good job with graphics/colours. And should I set her up with her own website or go the Etsy route?

Or should I just say my rate's 100$/hr and scare her off? haha

Charge what you think would actually make the job worth it. If the person looks like they're going to be difficult to work with, up the price.

Thanks! I especially like (and agree with) the last bit of advice.

Yeah, also forgot to mention that if the person seems like they're going to be too difficult to work with, just decline. Just say no. It's not that hard, and it's a skill you really need to cultivate if you want to get by in life.

Oh, I know, I know. The older I get, the more I tend to say "no", don't always find it easy, but sometimes, I just have to.

For freelance work you can charge either per hour, per day or per assignment (I.e. you make an estimate how long it will take and slap on a price).

If you want to chase her off, ask 100/hour (though that is unreasonable). If you want to make extra cash, ask 30-35 bucks an hour. Wouldn't go much below that for freelance stuff.

I go for about 150 bucks/half day (which is about the equivalent of 4 hours).

Thank you! I appreciate the advice, it's very helpful. And I was (mostly) joking about the 100$/hr thing.

I have an Etsy shop and it is a motherfucking godsend for actually selling product. How do they make their money? Like eBay, they charge you fees for listing your products, and also take a cut of the sale profit. So the key to really farm it to the max is to set your prices so that you're making the profit you deserve, while giving Etsy its 3%. But, you also have to not be shit at writing listings, photographing the product, and cross-promoting it on facebook/twitter/instagram/pinterest.

So when you sit down with your potential client, first find out what she wants out of her jewelry business. Does she need a storefront to sell on the internet, or does she just want the equivalent of a portfolio or gallery? If she honest to god is trying to sell via the internet, Etsy or any of the other existing sites for sole-proprietor businesses to dump their inventory is the way to go. A website is good, it's still very useful in the social media age, but if you're not going to have a shopping cart on it, or buy your own domain name to brand yourself, it's nothing more than a gallery. For some businesses, that's what they want, but for some, a gallery isn't going to help them sell product. People aren't going to like having to type in a vistaprint address to find the site, versus "jewels dot com" or whatever that will help her business name and purpose stick in their minds.

Sad to say, internet commerce is only part coding/web design. It's also part marketing, so if she needs help marketing (and photographing, copy-editing, etc etc etc), she has to pay you for that in addition to paying for the coding to make a webpage pretty. So, find out what she needs and what she wants before springing prices on her, and make sure she understands that you're only a web designer, not the marketing department of her business. If she needs help that you can't provide, push her to Etsy.

Thank you! You've brought up some really good points (and thanks for the info on how Etsy works, I did manage to find it after some googling--this post was my immediate, wtf do I do now panicking post).

Vistaprint does include an actual domain name as part of their fee, I was able to find that out because they do advertise their available packages/costs.

You've given me some great advice here and things to think about, I really do appreciate it.

no prob! I saw your 'aaah how does Etsy' and knew I could answer, and then I tl;dred. Hope it helps, and good luck on Friday.

totally agree with the above about raising the price to try to get out of an ugly situation. I had a boss that used to do that with custom orders, he'd quote an outrageous price, intending to scare them off. If they didn't get scared off, at least we were getting paid very well for the nightmare job.

No, thank you so much for the tl;dr--that's the part that really helped me! I tend to be a tl;dr type, too, so I really don't mind! :D

Oh god Etsy is amazing. I'm not even using it for its intended products (educational mental health comics!) but it's already been doing really well.

And I don't have to code a damn thing! Huzzah!

--Rogan

No coding is awesome--especially as I really don't want to be doing this long term. Thanks!

Yeah. I used to have to hand-code everything from scratch for hm.com, which meant that if I wanted to do something as simple as, say, make a new section, I had to go and manually fix it in EVERY SINGLE PAGE. It sucked.

Etsy, it does all that for me, so I can focus on OTHER things.

What you should do is meet with her, go to the nearest window and look out wistfully. Then say, "I remember when I didn't know what the internet was. Back when I was pure, back when I still had ownership of my soul". Then slowly turn to phase her and stare at her blankly, then smile really wide. (Don't blink)

face**

Ah, hahaha, love it. I actually lost ownership of my soul (think I signed away a kidney, too) after working at a call centre...but she doesn't have to know that.

As a web developer, I say tell her to go with etsy.

I would say start her out with an Etsy shop. Unless her business goes really well it's not really worth having its own site, especially as she most likely would have a harder/more expensive time marketing it. And it's probably a lot easier too for everyone as this woman says she isn't that good with technology.

Just say you'll help her set it up and help her design a banner, at least to begin with. Let her try that out for a while, and if she's not satisfied with how it works, maybe leave the option to help her with her very own site?

Thank you. I am leaning toward Etsy and can probably talk her into it. You throw enough jargon at someone, they'll go for the easier choice.

Seconding Etsy. Unless she already has her own established business with an established customer base or a physical store, Etsy will be a lot easier and more people will be likely to find her than they would at DebsJewelry.com or whatever. Now, unfortunately, Etsy has a LOT of people selling jewelry so competition will be tough, but that's not your problem. It's much easier for a non-techie to set up and maintain, and as another person said, they charge .20 per listing (and each listing is good for 3 months) and then take a small cut of the sale price.

I am leaning towards convincing her to use Etsy, although I inferred from our convo she was looking for more of a site to display her stuff and so people could look at it. But I think Etsy would be better even then, because then folks can do all their ordering, etc on line--which is what most folks want to do. I'll know more after Friday. Thanks for the advice!

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[ SECRET POST #2946 ]

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