Learn how to buy a template under cost and sell for a profit.

I will be covering a few things in this new article.

1. What templates to buy. 2. When to buy the template. 3. Convert that template into profit. 4. Trading, what’s a deal and what’s not. 5. How much should you pay for coding. 6. Being professional. 7. Conclusion

This article will mostly be covering the purchasing of templates, but you can use these tips for buying quite a bit of other things as well.

1. What templates to buy. If you are planning on using the template for yourself, you can buy any grade of template. It really doesn’t matter, but to yourself. Unless of course you will have a bit of people going to your website, then quality does matter. You won’t get returning visitors if your site is ugly. Now, how to tell if a template is good or not when buying.

Most of the time, when you look at a template and are a beginniner you have a beginner’s taste. You see ugly gradients, horrible bevel and emboss, and annoying outer glows and think it looks so nifty…. I highly recommend you get second, third, and fourth opinions on the template from your friends, or people you know in the web design industry. There are a ton of people out there making templates nowadays who are very good. You could even ask another designer from the same site to critique the templates you are interested in buying.

Now, you will get mixed reviews no matter what template you are looking at. Very few people have the same opinions about anything, that’s just the way the world works. Go for the majority of the vote though, of course you value all of the opinions, but you can’t ever make everyone happy. When looking at the templates, you can also compare products. Go to 4templates.com templatemonster.com and look at their grade of templates in comparison. You don’t have to buy a unique template all the time. I think nowadays people think that in order for you to have the most popular website in the world your template has to be unique. When in fact there are millions of websites out there, and you can have a hard time finding another website with the same template as you do. Unique may not be for you.

You may not even want to pay for a template, if so check out some good free template websites, such as oswd.org freeprotemplates.com clantemplates.com and many others. You can find many great deals on unique templates on many different sites such as sitepoint.com talkfreelance.com yaxay.com or clantemplates.com .

2. When to buy a template. Most people would ask me what I mean by this. What I mean is that when you are at a template auction site such as talkfreelance.com, you can do it 2 ways, and you will usually get a deal.

1. Bid on the template right before it ends. – This usually works as a way to make sure you get the last bid in, and you already have an idea of how far you want to go to pay for the template. If that price has already been reached and is now over your budget, skip that template and keep looking. There are around 300 templates made a day, you can find another one almost like it within 2 hours of looking usually.

2. After the auction is over. – I have gotten templates worth hundreds for around 20.00 dollars for doing this tactic. It is simple and effective. When purchasing a template after the auction this means that the seller did not get a bid during the auction. If the seller did get a bid in the auction and it wasn’t high enough then you may not want to talk to the seller afterwards if that bid was higher than your budget.

After the auction is ended, and the seller has not yet sold the template. Look for the sellers contact information, it is usually stated in the auction or in his profile on that website. If it isn’t, then just send him a private message. When contacting him, say 1 of 2 things.

1. I saw you recieved little to no interest for your template you are auctioning. I am sorry to see that, but I would be willing to take that template off of your hands for 5 to 10 dollars.

2. I saw you recieved little to no interest for your template you are auctioning. I am sorry to see that, but I was wondering how much I would be able to take that template off of your hands for.

Now you are probably thinking that the seller will say no to the first one, and the second state the normal template price he posted. This is most likely not the case. By now the designer is mad that he didn’t sell it and wants to get rid of it, or else it will just sit on his computer without making any money off of it. He doesn’t want that. So in the end, he will end up giving you quite a deal on the pricing of the template, at least half off the original price is what you should shoot for. Don’t give in to him, be willing to walk away. Buying a template from a designer is kinda like buying a used car, you gotta show that you won’t budge and know your way around.

3. Converting your template into profit. (not recommended for beginners). This one can be difficult, especially if no one wanted the template in the first place. But, it is simple to do and takes a little investment with some luck as well. First off, you purchase a template, that could be half decent or excellent quality. Then you need to get into photoshop and make it look just that much better, add better gradients, better styles, make it look more sleek, and pimp that template out! After you have completed tweaking the template to a higher standard, contact a cheap css/xhtml template coder to code the template. Make sure they can do it exactly the way you specify, I recommend having them add all the bells and whistles, such as javascript rollover images, drop down menus, and making sure it is valid. That is the key, you won’t get a buyer if it isn’t valid xhtml/css.

Once your coder is done with the template in the coding department it is ready to sell. When pricing your template that is ready to sell you need to think about the following.

1. Is the template unique, meaning is it only sold to you. 2. What are all the features in the coding. 3. How much did you spend on the template. 4. How much did you spend on the coding of the template. 5. How much time did you spend tweaking the template.

When thinking about these things, you need to price accordingly. For instance, if I purchased a 20 dollar mediocre template I would do it as so.

1. Yes it is unique. add 10.00 2. Added javascript rollover, and dropdown menus add 15.00 3. Spent 20.00 on the template. – add 7.50 4. How much did I spend on coding, (I have a valid coder who does it for 8 bucks a pop) – add 15.00 5. How much time did I spend tweaking the template? – I spent 4 hours, it was a mediocre template to begin with… Add 10.00

The total comes out to 77.50. You figure this is a 49.50 profit. Becuase you have to take out the price you paid originally for the template, and the coding you payed. I personally would round it up to 80 as people like to pay round numbers. Now of course, you can change the pricing to as you see fit, this was just a template you may want to go around when thinking about charging people.

4. Trading, what’s a deal and what’s not? This is something I don’t really like doing because you sometimes may lose in this without thinking. When trading I suggest always having a standard as to what you want and sticking with it. Usually when people trade, they do not want to keep it in the least and are doing anything they can to get rid of it. Don’t do anything you can to get rid of your template. You will be able to sell/trade when it is the right time. Be willing to turn people down in the trade. You always want to win in the trade, and sometimes you will end up getting caught up in being ale to get rid of it, that you will get a piece of crap trade in exchange for your template that is worth quite a bit.

5. How much should you pay for coding? I personally have friends who give me a great deal on it. This is hard to come by if you don’t have friends in the right places. Usually you can pay for valid xhtml/css around 35.00 for forum coding expect to pay 100 to 150 for coding of it. Now, remember to add a bit for this when trying to resell it of course. But be willing to talk them down in price. Remember, when dealing in web design/coding it’s like dealing with a used car dealer.

6. Being professional. This has been one of my biggest annoyances from designers that I purchase from. When talking to your client, do not use rude/vulgar language when dealing with them. Actually construct a sentence without using a swear word in the sentence. It drives me insane when I sign into msn and have a picture of my girlfriend on the profile and I get rude comments about her. I usually immediately block them and do not do business with them. Also using racial slurs is not allowed. I don’t care who you are “used to doing business with”. I do not tolerate it in any way, and you shouldn’t have to either. If they do that, it usually shows their age, it then shows you that they are probably around the age of 12 and think it is “cool”.

Another sign of being more professional is to stick to what you say, if you promise a person a ridiculously low price, you must give it to them. I have promised people many different things, and have always carried through in the end. If you don’t keep your word, people do talk. You will soon be known as a liar and a cheat. You do not want this in this industry.

7. Conclusion My final thoughts are, look for a deal. Wait till the auction is over if no one has put in a bid, and you will be getting a great deal. Be professional, and you will be treated with the same way. Don’t rip people off and not expect to get the same in return. Basically, always use the rule – do unto others as they would do unto you. It works, and will help you get far in the design industry and in life.

Copyright 2006 Jordan Dunn – SearchForDesigners.com

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

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