Always interesting to see how other website designers work and was pretty amazed to see the following information that indicates that the company charges a huge monthly fee for email and website ‘rental’, additionaly it appears that there is an additional fee to have the website compatible with mobile devices, despite those being responsible for the majority of website visitors (since approx the end of 2015).
Although they only charge a small initial fee the cost over the first 2 years will eclipse that of a standard ecommerce shop from us and obviously the cost will continue to occur while you are tied to such a company. There is rarely a benefit to this type of arrangement and if you cant afford to pay the the website once its completed we can arrange an interest free monthly payment schedule for you that will end once the website is completed and then you will be in control of your website and own it 100%.
If you want a mobile friendly website that is owned by you and search engine friendly come to us, if you want to end up paying for a website that isnt search engine friendly from a company that are happy to charge you a huge amount of money year after year then look elsewhere (if you are crazy).
Website Designers ‘unfair’ proposal
Thank you for your interest in redesigning your website please find below costs involved to setup a new ecommerce website for your business.
Fixed Website Costs
Setup fee (desktop website) (optional Smartphone no setup)
Monthly Rental Fee (desktop first 12 months discounted fee then our normal rate) (optional Smartphone monthly rental fee first 12 months
Annual SSL Certificate for data protection
Cost per email hosting
Payment Gateway and Internet Merchant Account (required)
No transaction fees on your first agreed amount then transaction fees apply
Email Hosting (Optional)
We do not provide email services direct to clients, we use a 3rd party provider. We set everything up for you but you pay the 3rd party direct monthly, this allows up to 5 mailboxes which is their minimum order. When we’re close to going live we will email over sign up information.
Your Websites Design and Product Range
The site can look like anything you like, you will be in control and I’ll spend time with you whenever you need me showing you how to update and maintain your own content. You can use one of our range of product pictures included in the price, or you can use your own product images if you like.
Our main 3 themes are available for you to choose from, the product display is different, you can also add your own products to any of our ranges, we take care of adding seasonal and occasional ranges for you included in the price throughout the year as they become available or you can do this yourself.
Please let me know if you would like to go ahead, if you do I will send you a payment request which you pay online, when paid our software will send you a receipt for your accounts. At this point I will email you our setup questions, your answers will enable us to start work on your new website. If you have any questions please call or reply to this email.
Thank you for paying the setup fee and agreeing to our offer and becoming a new client.
To start development we need:-
1. Your logo as large as you have it
2. Which site from our customer list would you like your new site styled on? It does not have to be from our customer list, you can point us in the direction of any site out-there in the web you like the look of. (Please tell us where their shop is as sometimes we have more than one client with the same name)
3. Website background colour, what colour, the same background colour as your logo or do you have something else in mind?
4. Are there any other colours you would like us to use that are now shown in your logo?
5. Would you like products to be available to purchase on your websites homepage?
6. Which products would you like to use on your website? Your Own or give links to manufacturers
7. Local delivery charge
8. National delivery charge
9. Same day cut off time Monday to Saturday local and national
10. Do you deliver on Bank Holidays
11. Do you deliver on Sunday
12. Do you have a minimum order value for local orders and national orders (the minimum value’s do not have to be the same)
13. Shop opening hours
14. A picture of your shop inside and out if you have it for the about us page, delivery van for the delivery page
15. Would you like to receive orders from other ecommerce clients that do not deliver in your area? If so what percentage commission will you offer, min 15% max 25%
16. Would you like to send orders outside of your own delivery area to other clients?
17. Facebook link address
18. Twitter link address. (if you do not have an account please sign up and then forward me your username and password)
19. Do you use Flickr, Pinterest or Instagram – If so what is your address
20. Do you have a video on Youtube? If so would you like it linked on your site?
21. Google Analytics, if you would like to monitor your sites traffic I need your Google username
22. Opening paragraph of content, introduction text for your sites homepage
23. Email accounts, a list of email accounts you use to send and receive
24. Would you like to accept payments from PayPal, do you already have a PayPal business account setup? If not Sign Up, sign up for the free business account
25. Does your card machine in the shop accept American Express payments?
26. Are you licensed to sell alcohol?
27. Are you VAT Registered? If so please can I have your VAT Number
28. Are you a Limited Company? If so please can I have your company number and limited company name as it appears on your certificate of incorporation. By law we have to show this information on your website.
29. Do you have more than one shop telephone number? If so what is it?
30. Have many shops do you have?
31. Do you have plans to open up another shop? If so where and when?
32. Do you have more than one domain name? If so please let us know about other domains you have registered
33. How to did you find us / hear about us?
34. Direct Debit Details
We would like to setup a paperless direct debit for your website rental rental each month starting when your website goes live, not before, please can you email your:-
Title (Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms)
First Name
Initials
Surname
Account Name
Account Number
Sort Code
Who you bank with
If you setup a PayPal Account please email us your username and password so we can activate PayPal payments on your website. A note on PayPal we know that 1 in 5 customers that order online from our clients checkout using PayPal, however PayPal is the most expensive way of accepting payments online at 3.4% and 20 per online sale but there is no monthly fees.
What are we all about, I suppose you could call this our mission statement
We develop websites, we do not promise top ten listings on search engines, we’re not exclusive to any one client, we work for you for the greater good of local shops versus national companies, companies acting as middle men between the customer and shop, order gatherers or any other business that takes profit away from real local independent florists, we do not discriminate against which real local shop we work for no matter how large or how small, working together we can keep local shops on the traditional and digital high street forever.
