What to quote for running the web section of a local retail business?

[CollectorofCookbooks]

I work with a small local retail business, doing their marketing and PR. I have just been asked to quote for running their web shop, which they want to get up and running in the next month to take advantage of the Christmas period.

So I'd be keeping a daily eye on the orders coming in, processing the orders, keeping up to date with the stock, going to the shop to pick up items, packaging them up and taking them to the post office. I have NO idea what to quote her on that - whether to go per item (which gives me more of an incentive to market them strongly) or to do a monthly charge. Any ideas?!

Obviously I would need to ramp up the marketing side to push this service, so my regular monthly charge would go up anyway.

And if anyone can give me any advice on how to run a webshop and manage the stock flow I'd be ever so grateful!

Always so tricky quoting for jobs when you have no idea what their expectations are, I have been burnt doing this a few times (sometimes underselling myself and sometimes overselling myself!).

I don't have knowledge of this sector I am afraid but if possible I would try and find out the ballpark they are looking at and also think about what realistically makes it work for you. Also sometimes associations etc give ideas of payrates e.g. NUJ has suggested payrates for journalists and Society of Editors has suggested payrates for Editors etc so maybe see if there are any web related associations that might help?

Good luck!

Hmm .... well, packing orders and doing post office runs don't sound like traditional marketing/PR type tasks, so presumably you wouldn't be looking at doing that part of the role as a long-term thing?

I'd be thinking about quoting for the setting up of the web shop itself and perhaps a transition period of looking after orders until your marketing efforts work their magic and the online shop is booming! At that point, I'd be setting a monthly rate to look after the marketing/PR side of the website, but be passing the more retail/admin-type tasks (like packing orders) to someone else.

That's just me though! It's hard to judge really without knowing the volume of orders they are likely to get and therefore how much time would need to be spent on processing orders.

It would be a real pain to get this wrong. I actually run a small ecommerce site, that I built myself, but still cant think of how to advise you

Try asking on www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/

The members have helped me out in the past.