need help in negotiating

bepositive

Thu, Nov 13 2014, 1:24 pm

I am a web designer, and I made contact with a very large company who is interested in updating the website. I really want the job as its very good to get him onto my portfolio.

the CEO was very satisfied with the sample I made for him and he asked for a price quote.

it's a shopping website with over 3500 products- which is alot.

I said I'll charge him $1100 for the actual website, which includes all the pages, contact forms, slideshows, setting up the domain, google etc.

additionally I charged $1.5 for each product. each product needs to have a picture, the details and a separate product page.

it's a very time-consuming job.

so if he has 3500 products, the total price will be $6350

he was not happy with the price, saying that it's way too expensive and he doesn't want to spend more than $3150

I know he can definitely afford it, he is minted!

what am I meant to do??

I really really want to get this job- it's very good for my portfolio.

but is it worth going down so much for such a big job??

how should I negotiate with him?

please answer me asap!! I he is waiting for an answer.

TwinsMommy

Thu, Nov 13 2014, 1:31 pm

I'd point out that this job will likely take x number of hours. Keeping in mind how much you wish to make per hour and putting in a bit for cushioning (time might take longer than you expect), bring down the price a BIT for him while still paying yourself fairly (web designer--- $50 an hour or so maybe?)

Can you hire a high school girl to input each product photo and description, paying her ten bucks an hour while you do more of the high level stuff on a separate computer to speed up the time? Let's say you want to make $50 an hour, so then you'd work it out so he pays roughly $60 per hour? But the turn around time will be quicker than you anticipate, keeping him happy? So say you can't bring down the price that much but you can bring it down a bit AND have a quicker turnaround time as a negotiation tactic?

TwinsMommy

Thu, Nov 13 2014, 1:40 pm

shoot. for my service based business I can easily guesstimate number of hours a project will take. Didn't realize that wasn't true of web design.

I figure each photo and description would take the same amount of time, multiply it out, etc.

Hmm. In that case can you bring the price down to say $5000 which covers x number of hours and if the project requires more than x hours you'll charge y per additional hour? That way maybe he can decide to keep some of the products out of this phase of the project making the price more reasonable for him.

amother

Thu, Nov 13 2014, 5:09 pm

I will post from the business perspective.

My employer got quotes from several companies to rebuild a website (with an online shop) from scratch. Company A estimated time it would take to build plus training to use the website and uploading content with a few extra hours as leeway. We got a flat rate. We did not have to worry about the programmer or designer wasting their time. They had a job to do with a set price.

Company B offered just to do the design (we would do the uploading) to be paid per hour. However we were given an estimate that for the following tasks (all details listed) it would take 100 hours at a rate of "x" (+/- 3 hours "on the house"). After that each additional hour would be billed X per hour.

The client needs a clear contract with an estimate of what is included in the job, estimated hours it should take and rate.

Have you compared your pricing with others in the same industry and experience in your community? Did they get a quote from someone more professional for the same price as you or significantly lower from someone just beginning? If the business owner won't budge you have to decide if it is worth your while to lower your price or rather skip the job.