Is my webmaster ripping me off?

eastcoastkayak

TitoPuente wrote: »

Just ask him if it's okay if you can take administrative control of the hosting a/c, domain, etc. .

What are my rights in regard to ownership of the site? ie Can he refuse to hand over control to me?

tricky D

I'm going with the opportunistic opinion.

Firstly, with regard to adding pics, gmaps and editing content, the developer's shop and other packages say CMS included, except for the cheapest one - the brochure package which your's most certainly is not. So asking for €349+VAT is a bit of a pisstake, imo.

Similar, the SEO is supposed to be provided in all but the brochure package. As others have said, it isn't great.

The implementation of the shop isn't particularly good either. Starting on the homepage, there's only one single product being sold in the main content area which is the most valuable piece of real estate on the site. And you can't even add to cart from there!

The categories are only in alphabetic order so you've no flexibility to put your best sellers/high margin products in the optimum order.

The header and top of the page has too much height which pushes the product listings down and the design layout isn't great. There's also too much redundant stuff: home link, language and currency info (which can't be changed anyway), unnecessary content repetition, etc..

The layout of the product pic, info and call to action isn't great either.

Many of these and other issues affect sales.


It looks like you've been provided with only the most basic solution, done by someone who has put little or no thought beyond providing those basics. Smacks of having been given to the least experienced developer they have. Usually €2.5k for a decently thought out and implemented shop is a good price, but this isn't the case.

TitoPuente

eastcoastkayak wrote: »

What are my rights in regard to ownership of the site? ie Can he refuse to hand over control to me?

Well if he's the official domain name registrar then he owns the domain. Legally there's very little you can do about it if he refuses to hand it over. If you have a contract with him regarding the site development (or legally even a paper trail of emails will do), then you own the site/work done so he'll have to hand that over to you. With regards to the hosting and SSL certificate - I wouldn't worry too much about that as you can set that up elsewhere; it's the domain that's the big issue.

I've registered plenty of domains for clients and I'd always hand over ownership if they ever asked but it really depends on the integrity of your designer.

Liam Byrne

I always register domains in the clients name and provide them with the admin details from day one.

I might tell them not to use them, so as not to screw anything up, but I'd never force them to go through me for updates, etc.

If they're happy with my work, they come back of their own accord, not because they've no choice.

Seth Brundle

I would imagine that any domain transfer requests would also require payment of the cost for the recent renewals first.

exsitingisinit

I also had an issue with this and cost me big bucks........

:mad::mad::mad:

p

eastcoastkayak wrote: »

Given the pretty overwhelming opinion, has anyone any opinion on how to approach the webmaster. Judging from the zen cart tutorials, making the sort of modifications I'm looking for seems pretty simple-I just don't have the administrative access.

Just to clarify the advise given here, there's a lot of people on this forum who are students, hobbiests, amateurs, or don't deal with real world pricing. Do bear that in mind when reading some of these comments.

Based on industry rates, I don't think this was a rip off. €2600 is lowish for a web shop, and means there's not a huge amount of extra room left for additional work. If you need extra features added later, then I would expect to pay for them. I think the additional hosting & SSL stuff seems a little bit pricier than it could be.

Overall though, I wouldn't go fire your designer without much thought. I think you may be able to question their maintenance fees and negotiate a better rate though. In general, my advice would be a good idea to get more info on these type of rates upfront, as it can often cause confusion when people have different expectations.

All the best with it.

Shzm

p wrote: »

Just to clarify the advise given here, there's a lot of people on this forum who are students, hobbiests, amateurs, or don't deal with real world pricing. Do bear that in mind when reading some of these comments.

Based on industry rates, I don't think this was a rip off. €2600 is lowish for a web shop, and means there's not a huge amount of extra room left for additional work. If you need extra features added later, then I would expect to pay for them. I think the additional hosting & SSL stuff seems a little bit pricier than it could be.

Overall though, I wouldn't go fire your designer without much thought. I think you may be able to question their maintenance fees and negotiate a better rate though. In general, my advice would be a good idea to get more info on these type of rates upfront, as it can often cause confusion when people have different expectations.

All the best with it.

Have you actually seen the website? Do you have any experience of Zen Cart at all?

If you did you'd know that for the standard of work delivered the price is a rip off.

TitoPuente

p wrote: »

Just to clarify the advise given here, there's a lot of people on this forum who are students, hobbiests, amateurs, or don't deal with real world pricing. Do bear that in mind when reading some of these comments.

I'd imagine that makes up the overwhelming majority of posters on here to be honest. With regards to Web design and development, you're going to come across plenty of very strong opinions from people who might seem to know what they're talking about but, in fact, they're utterly clueless. Such is the nature of a relatively young industry.

Personally I've never worked on an eCommerce project budgeted less than around €15,000 or so. Then again, most of these sites ended up being incredibly successful and paying for themselves inside a few months. If you're going to go cheap and use inexperienced kids posing as Web industry professionals, you're going to be disappointed 99% of the time. There are a lot of considerations and niche skills required to create a successful eCommerce site.

DrivingInfo

TitoPuente wrote: »

I'd imagine that makes up the overwhelming majority of posters on here to be honest. With regards to Web design and development, you're going to come across plenty of very strong opinions from people who might seem to know what they're talking about but, in fact, they're utterly clueless. Such is the nature of a relatively young industry.

Personally I've never worked on an eCommerce project budgeted less than around €15,000 or so. Then again, most of these sites ended up being incredibly successful and paying for themselves inside a few months. If you're going to go cheap and use inexperienced kids posing as Web industry professionals, you're going to be disappointed 99% of the time. There are a lot of considerations and niche skills required to create a successful eCommerce site.

Very true............. But i spent €9000 on a website and turned out I was getting ripped off also because he was getting most of the work done in India for next to noting. He knew noting about SEO and I ended up teaching him about it..

Some people are giving big prices so that the customer will think "if they are that price they must be good"
It is open source software......2500euro is about right to setup the online business Using OSS...But IMO it is the updating of the site is where he is getting ripped off. It is a click of a view buttons and he could do a lot of the work himself......

eastcoastkayak

Thanks for all the info so far folks. Just to update you, I've just recieved the completed quote to make the following changes:
1. new "about us" paragraph to replace 1st paragraph of the existing 'about us' page.
2. A new "links" page , which will be linked from the 'INFORMATION' box on the right hand side?
3. new "Technical and Sizing" link in the INFORMATION box, and the info is in the .doc and that info will need to be formatted for the webpage, table etc.
4. New photo to be placed on the homepage. is the new photo to go under the 'WELCOME' text/image banner on the homepage?
5. Add the google map to your contact page and format it there for width, centre etc.
6. New contact details and mobile number removed.
7. in the step 1 to 3 bit the 'special instructions or comments' text on the webpage to read "insert special instructions here, and clothing sizes/colours etc." ?
8. a small photo of the google map on a right hand side box on the homepage which will link to the full google map.
9. opening hours on a right hand side box too.
10. Postal address to be placed and centered under the homepage main photo.

Total cost for making these changes €949 plus vat!!

herya

Honestly I'd take your business elsewhere. Good sites do cost, but this is not a good site and it's open source based so not custom made either. To be honest with you I wouldn't buy any stuff via a website that has the look and feel of yours. It does not instill trust well enough for me to put my credit card number anywhere near. Sorry to be harsh but I'm trying to be helpful - I'm sure you can do better with this budget and get better sales as a result.

Pixelcraft

Not going to comment on the designers work, or whether it's a rip off or not - but I feel compelled to point out that there's nothing wrong with using an open source solution to power a site, it should not cheapen or devalue the work being done. Non open source systems are only cost a tiny percentage of project costs.

Also, there's no way you could get a secure, well designed, entirely custom backend for 3k.

herya

I agree with you, I was just trying to point out that with such a poor work on the design/look/functionality front the webmaster cannot defend themselves saying that they put in some backend custom work either.

Ardent

I agree with the post above. The ripped off part, that is.

~1k for those simple changes is unashamed gouging of the customer, there's no two ways about it.

As for SSL certificates in your original post, you can pick them up for around $10 (e.g., RapidSSL). Take your business elsewhere.

matt-dublin

there's the standard usertrust cert you're paying for..
http://www.comodo.com/business-security/digital-certificates/ssl.php

matt-dublin

i like the way that rapidssl uses versign for their own website, good confidence in their own certs i see!!

https://forms.rapidssl.com/websurveys/servlet/ActionMultiplexer?Action_ID=ACT2000&WSD_surveyInfoID=659&WSD_mode=3&toc=J0GS7-659-03-26

bigjohnny80

Try asking for a more detailed breakdown of the cost eg hours worked, any software bought etc.

Some of the top designers/ developers are well worth forking out. However a modified off the shelf template does not take that much work. At a decent hourly rate, say 40 euro even, then he is claiming to have done 65 hours work ie a over week and a half full time.

I would doubt it took that much....maybe 3/4 days considering Zencart has done most of the work for them.

steve_oh

well it wasnt sale of the century but the site is ok. SSl certs are like $100 with my hosting company. €350 for adding text is lunacy. I'd ask them for training. Pay the money once and DIY from then on.

mneylon

Just reading through this thread ..

One obvious question springs to mind ..

Was the OP quoted a price (including the annual renewal) before the work was done?

I assume they were.

Asking for a refund based on a cost / price that you already agreed to doesn't make much sense to me.

If they had failed to deliver anything, then you might have some right to do so, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

vir7ual

I'd have to agree with Blacknights comments on this.
Firstly a quote would have to be agreed. this quote should have included updates and upkeep of the site, OP did you agree to this? Have you signed a contract for web design?

On the other on the bottom of the OP's site "web development by www.myit.ie"

Just a few quotes from the designers site
Control your website content - for FREE!
http://www.myit.ie/Content-Management-System.html

From the home page:
plenty of server space and bandwidth - 500mb and 2gig's - wouldn't say 2gb's would be near enough for a very busy e-commerce site

Google Adwords account setup - OP did you get this????

OP as regards to the legality of where you stand, that depends if you agree a contract with the web designer and what scope of work was outlined in the agreement.

vir7ual

blacknight might be able to clarify this for you

you have a registered .ie domain

you have a registered company name (hopefully)

when registering a .ie domain do you not have to supply the CRO number of the company for a business .ie domain???

would this not entitle the OP ownership of the domain name over the web developer?

Anytime i've registered a .ie, cro number, company name, company registered address (from CRO's website) have always being submitted when requesting a .ie