“What sort of price should I be looking at when setting up a online store and how many man hours could I be looking at to maintain it?
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Prices can be massively diverse depending on which company you deal with. I am happy to talk with you and let you know what we would charge to give you something for comparrison but you'd need to pm me for that.
Maintaining the store isn't difficult and shouldn't take up a lot of time, unless you change the details of products you offer constantly as this is where your own workload will be concentrated. General maintenence of the site itself should be carried out by the developer.
Some general advice
Most online stores offer pretty much the same features so you shouldn't need to worry about the actual functional side of things. However there are a few things that are determined by the company who will build and host the site for you and you should ask them what they offer in this area;
How many products and categories will you be allowed?
This figure can range from as few as 50 to an unlimited amount and even if you only intend to put a few products online now, you will need to have room to expand without extra cost so consider this when you organise a quote.
Is there any restriction on number of visitors to the site?
It's less common these days for any company to charge you a premium based on site visits, but make sure you have an unlimited package.
How much will they charge for hosting and maintenence?
Again this can be a bit of a minefield as not all designers will tell you up front and you may find you have some unexpected extras to pay for.
How much will it cost you to move to a new hosting company in future?
Most companies will retain the copyright on the work they do on the site, and quite rightly so, but they all have different charges to release that copyright so you can move hosting if they don't give you the service you want. Some can charge you thousands to prevent you from moving. Find out up front.
Is there a charge for advice or assistance should you need it?
When you buy an E commerce site you are given a password to enter the site back office. It is here that you can add and remove products, change prices and change some of the site settings. If you do something in your sites back office that changes things you didn't expect, you are likely to need some advice to remedy the problem. Some companies will charge for this so make sure your maintenence/hosting agreement covers such eventualities.
I've tried to think of everything but if you have more questions, I'm always happy to help.
