Website hosting savvy mums - advice please!

[isittooearlytoputthekidstobed]

I am looking at costings for a new business.

Can anyone tell me how much I would be looking at for website hosting (I would already have the template if that makes sense - the brand is operating in another country already so I can just use their site and do it with .co.uk).

I would just need hosting, and need someone to be able to add products, make changes etc. Does anyone have an idea of annual costs (obviously the making changes bit would be variable!).

Any advice gratefully received with thanks!

[invisiblecats]

You aren't talking just about hosting, you seem to be talking about someone running the website for you. They are two different things.

Website hosting is relatively cheap - although if you're selling products it's important to make sure the website will load fast enough - too slow and customers won't bother. Make sure your hosting is in the same country as most of your customers (don't but US hosting if selling products in the UK - get it on UK servers).

Making changes will be much more expensive as it involves asking a person to do a job for you, - and likely to significantly eat into your profits. Can't you learn to do this bit yourself? What platform is the website run on?

Things like shopify and Wordpress are pretty easy to use.

What do you mean you just use their site? How do you get this site? Why don't they host it?

[isittooearlytoputthekidstobed]

Thanks for your reply invisiblecats, sorry - I did know they were two different things - probably not very well worded!!!

I think they could probably host it, but it is in another country (we are planning to import a foreign brand) so I thought it might be easier to have it hosted in the UK as you mentioned?

I am working a bit blind as I don't yet know details of things like what platform it is run on (we are still in negotiations, but I'm trying to put together top line costs), if it is something simple like wordpress then yes, I could do it myself, but anything more complicated I feel would be a bit over my head!

Do you have any idea on the costs of just the hosting cost? Does it depend on the size of the site? Many thanks