Date: 07/07/06 (WebDesign)    Keywords: ecommerce, css, web, shopping

another question for you all.

i am about to begin a website refresh project. basically, they want: a flash video, more streamlined nav, a conversion of a hard copy book into a pdf, add a tickertape for news, clean up styling inconsistencies, and maybe add a shopping cart if they can afford it.

my main question is this: i just looked at the source and realized it's all tables. is it even worth suggesting a total coding overhaul to CSS? it wouldn't add much to the user experience (aside from accessability) but it sure would make updating easier. the biggest problem is that i'd have to charge them at least 2 grand more than their budget to do this. should i bother?

next question: does 8 grand sound like a reasonable estimate for the work (not including the shopping cart)? i way overestimated my hours to get that number, but i ALWAYS underestimate. plus, if they went through a firm and not a freelancer, they'd get charged at least 3 times that.

next: how much do you charge to add a shopping cart? originally i was going to say 4 grand, but that puts it way out of their budget. so i brought it down to 2 grand. the thing is that i'm not exactly an ecommerce expert so i know it'll be a lot of work.

any replies would be awesome, i have to send this proposal out today. thanks!

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/webdesign/1136855.html