Is my webmaster ripping me off?

eastcoastkayak

I had a ecommerce site designed (well actually modified from a template) for €2599+vat earlier this year. I have complete control over the shop but have no administrative access to the rest of the site whatsoever. Now when I want to add in some more details, specifically a photo, google map and modified about us and contact details (we've moved) my web designer is looking for an additional €349+vat, minimum. I've also now been informed that the site domain also needs to be re-registered and a new ssl security cert installed at a cost of €390+vat. Is this pretty standard? I have no experience of web design before this and don't personally know anyone who is involved. Should I have to fork out hundreds of euro every time I want the site modified in any way? Am I being taken for a ride? The site is www.eastcoastcanoeandkayak.ie. Thanks

Thoie

According to www.whoislookup.ie, the domain is registered until 15 December 2010, so they may have already renewed it for you automatically.

eastcoastkayak

It was renewed from the 13th of this month

RoadKillTs

Am I being taken for a ride?

Sounds like it to me.
Ask them for the relevant access so you can add the details yourself.

TitoPuente

Did you have an initial scope of work agreed with your designer? €2,599 is very little to pay for an eCommerce site so no, I wouldn't say you are being ripped off. Then again, the site is poor (and it's a template) so you probably paid for it what it's actually worth. Are you making any sales from it?

And yes, it's normal to pay to renew your SSL cert and to have to pay for hosting on a monthly/yearly basis.

dlofnep

€2599 to install Zencart and hack up a theme? Seriously? I would have done it for you for free! Infact, any webhost with cpanel would have allowed you to install it yourself with the click of a button.

And yes, the SSL cert is important but your cert is from USERTRUST Network. I checked out their website, and they appear to be giving out certs for free. You might want to double check it by e-mailing Usertrust (htpp://www.usertrust.com/users_business.html)

You are being severely ripped off.

Shzm

I don't know how anyone can justify charging €2,599+VAT for that.

Cost of the cart? €0. Zen Cart is free.
Cost of the template? Pfft - http://www.zen-cart-power.com/zen-cart-templates.html do very good templates. $60. That's as much as i'd value your template at tbh. Although the template its based off was probably free anyway.

Logo? I don't know if this was included in the price or not, but it's nice. €60?

Content? I'm going to assume they put all the products and images up for you as this would be the most expensive part since its very labour intensive. Even so, they've put 0 effort in to it. Take for example the helmet found here: http://www.eastcoastcanoeandkayak.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=56 in the description it states it comes in 3 lovely colours and 4 different sizes. Brilliant. But how do I order a specifc size? It's the same for your clothing items aswell. Whoever set this up for you should have specified the attributes on your products so customers can order different sizes/colours without you having to go back to the customer to ask what they want. There's also the problem of the image there. It states to click on the image to get a large picture, but the image is just the same size in a pop-up!

They've also not added any of the 'standard' zen-cart mods, ie. seo urls, and I would guess theres no Google xml sitemap mod installed either.
Nor does Goggle Analytics appear to be setup on your site.

Complete ripoff.

Liam Byrne

dlofnep wrote: »

€2599 to install Zencart and hack up a theme? Seriously? I would have done it for you for free! Infact, any webhost with cpanel would have allowed you to install it yourself with the click of a button.
:
:
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You are being severely ripped off.

I sincerely doubt that you'd have done it for free! :rolleyes:

Yes, €2,599 is a fair bit OTT, but discussing requirements, chopping up graphics, creating the "hacked" theme and installing it all take time.

Even knowing that it's appropriate to "click the button" to install Zencart requires a level of knowledge that the OP wouldn't have.

So you're looking at maybe €400 - €500 minimum. Whether there was extra involved in the €2,599 (domain name discussions, payment for registration & SSL, etc) we don't know.

Whatever about doing it for €500 or so, saying "I'd have done it for free" is ridiculous! Do you not value even day of your time and expertise ? And did you win the Lotto to pay your rent/mortgage ?

Whatever about querying a "fair price" for something, saying "I'd do that for free" is what has the proper web design industry in the doldrums at the moment, with zero respect or thought as to the expertise and time required.

dlofnep

Yup exactly. Zencart is free. The cert appears to be a free cert, but yet they want to charge him to renew it 390?

I would advise to ask him what exactly the costs incurred are for, and to ask for a refund if you are not happy. All in all, I think you've been not only severely ripped off - but stolen of your hard earned cash. I can't see any web development. But I do smell a scam.

dlofnep

Liam Byrne wrote: »

I sincerely doubt that you'd have done it for free! :rolleyes:

Yes, €2,599 is a fair bit OTT, but discussing requirements, chopping up graphics, creating the "hacked" theme and installing it all take time.

Even knowing that it's appropriate to "click the button" to install Zencart requires a level of knowledge that the OP wouldn't have.

So you're looking at maybe €400 - €500 minimum. Whether there was extra involved in the €2,599 (domain name discussions, payment for registration & SSL, etc) we don't know.

Whatever about doing it for €500 or so, saying "I'd have done it for free" is ridiculous! Do you not value even day of your time and expertise ? And did you win the Lotto to pay your rent/mortgage ?

Whatever about querying a "fair price" for something, saying "I'd do that for free" is what has the proper web design industry in the doldrums at the moment, with zero respect or thought as to the expertise and time required.

Firstly, less of the rolling eyes. You don't know the first thing about me or what I would or wouldn't do. I've done alot of work for free for people before for the experience (mostly poster work or web graphics).

One of the posters I designed for free, including the logo: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c281/omoplata1/poster_final-1.png?t=1260883812

Free t-shirt design: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c281/omoplata1/black_shirt.png?t=1260883920

Another for a UFC after-party: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c281/omoplata1/bader2copy.png?t=1260883865

I certainly wouldn't have charged nearly 2600 to install Zencart, and I wouldn't have told the user that the cert costs 390 to renew, when it appears that he's using a free cert service.

It's people like this who are ruining the web business, and not me who does a few odd jobs here and there for free for the experience. I'd certainly never rip anyone off for my work - and would feel guilty to charge for something that wasn't really professional work (which this site in question obviously isn't).

Shzm

The biggest problem that I have with this is the fact that they havent even bothered to set Zen Cart up properly for the customer!

You add a product to the cart and go to the shopping cart page, you get this: You may want to add some instructions for using the shopping cart here. (defined in includes/languages/english/shopping_cart.php) at the top.

The 'weight' is showing 0lb. If weights aren't entered on products then they should turned off so they don't show.

The 'more information' box on the right has a link called 'PAGE 3', which should be called 'about us'.

If whoever 'designed' this actually put in some effort to customise the cart and set it up correctly, then i'd just call it expensive. However they haven't, and for that reason it's a complete and utter rip off.

dlofnep

Yup, it just looks like a default install with a quickly hacked template. Certainly not worth the cost.

CamperMan

eastcoastkayak wrote: »

I had a ecommerce site designed (well actually modified from a template) for €2599+vat earlier this year. I have complete control over the shop but have no administrative access to the rest of the site whatsoever. Now when I want to add in some more details, specifically a photo, google map and modified about us and contact details (we've moved) my web designer is looking for an additional €349+vat, minimum. I've also now been informed that the site domain also needs to be re-registered and a new ssl security cert installed at a cost of €390+vat. Is this pretty standard? I have no experience of web design before this and don't personally know anyone who is involved. Should I have to fork out hundreds of euro every time I want the site modified in any way? Am I being taken for a ride? The site is www.eastcoastcanoeandkayak.ie. Thanks

how many products do you have on your website?... looks like alot to me,

I do think that not letting you ammend any other part of the website yourself and charging you €349+vat to do it is a rip off

Liam Byrne

dlofnep wrote: »

I've done alot of work for free for people before for the experience (mostly poster work or web graphics)

As have I - stuff for charities, etc. But the fact remains that people doing lots of stuff for free in order to gain experience will end up not having an industry in which to use that experience, as the next generation of inexperienced people will do those jobs for free.

dlofnep wrote: »

I certainly wouldn't have charged nearly 2600 to install Zencart, and I wouldn't have told the user that the cert costs 390 to renew, when it appears that he's using a free cert service.

It's people like this who are ruining the web business, and not me who does a few odd jobs here and there for free for the experience. I'd certainly never rip anyone off for my work - and would feel guilty to charge for something that wasn't really professional work (which this site in question obviously isn't).

Look, I agree with most of what you said; I didn't look at the site, and based my opinion solely on what should be charged based on the amount of work involved.

Include the flaws that were highlighted and it seems that even the work I would have done for the €500 wasn't done, so it DOES appear to be a rip off, especially when combined with a free SSL.

My ONLY objection was your statement where you said you'd have done it for free.....people who don't know any better will compare this to realistic prices and see a massive discrepancy.

By all means, mention a realistic price to assist the OP (as I did) but don't go claiming it "can" be done for free.

Brain surgery "can" be done for free too.

cormee

No. You got a somewhat professional looking ecommerce website for €2600, s/he didn't rip you off.

Still don't believe it? Ring an agency and ask them for a price. You'd be looking at €8k or so.

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.. if someone says they could do it for you for what seems like a very small amount you can be sure the price will be reflected in the quality.

In the same way your customers can't expect to spend €100 on a sea-worthy kayak, you can't seriously expect a professional looking site for anything less than a professional price, which is what you paid.

You should however expect full server access - FTP details etc. at no extra charge. And those recurring charges and maintenance fees while being on the high side are not completely unreasonable.

Gordon

OP have you got a contract detailing your agreement with them?

Liam Byrne

P.S. Who sourced / supplied product photos, prepped them for the web, populated the online product database and sorted out the product IDs, etc ?

CuLT

Liam Byrne wrote: »

My ONLY objection was your statement where you said you'd have done it for free.....people who don't know any better will compare this to realistic prices and see a massive discrepancy.

To be fair Liam, free market economics will determine how much people pay for websites. And basic stuff is being automated out very nicely at decent prices by places like Squarespace.

The low end of the web design industry is simply being commoditized.

eastcoastkayak

In answer to a couple of earlier posts, the developer installed the first 40 products. I did the rest myself.

dlofnep

Did you clarify the SSL cert issue?

eastcoastkayak

dlofnep wrote: »

Did you clarify the SSL cert issue?

No, I'm waiting for his completed quote before I confront him

skelliser

are you happy with the site? have you had much sales?

Dirk Gently

Anyone else think he might have priced the site in an opportunistic way, based on the price of items for sale. What I mean is, there are a lot of high end items for sale. web master might have thought, a handful of sales off the site and the client will have his money back. Easier to get away with an inflated price than if the client was selling a lot of items for €5 or so.

just a thought.

dlofnep

eastcoastkayak wrote: »

No, I'm waiting for his completed quote before I confront him

No problem, hope it all works out for you.

dlofnep

clown bag wrote: »

Anyone else think he might have priced the site in an opportunistic way, based on the price of items for sale. What I mean is, there are a lot of high end items for sale. web master might have thought, a handful of sales off the site and the client will have his money back. Easier to get away with an inflated price than if the client was selling a lot of items for €5 or so.

just a thought.

I thought that too, but it doesn't justify charging €2600 to install a premade script and adding a few items. Opportunistic is probably the most accurate word.

skelliser

in fairness this is what most web developers are charging, even at the low end. Iv seen other threads here and elsewhere of people charging more.
Makes me wonder who are the cowboys here, the low end joomla template you pay what u get guys, or the people like above.

All in all im pretty dissilusoined with this industry. It looks to me the the established lads have been fleecing people for years and now with the advent of new free technologies coupled with more tech savvy customers this industry could be in for a bit of a shock.
im sure iv irked alot here with the above but this needs to be addressed.

what would the above posters charge for this site? 500, i doubt it, bearing in mind most brochure sites start at that.

DrivingInfo

Sorry to hammer another nail into the coffin but the site looks good and is doing the job from what i can see BUT the SEO is very bad.

SEO is mother of all successful sites.

2600euro to have a business online is not bad but the recurring payments and the update payments is where I think your getting ripped off. Those recurring prices are more around a custom CMS and not an open sources one.

SEO of pages and products is a must.

Hope this helps...

eastcoastkayak

skelliser wrote: »

are you happy with the site? have you had much sales?

For the most part I am happy with how the site looks, or will be when the final updates are up. The site has not been live for that long, as the actual store is'nt open until January, so there have only been a couple of sales.

eastcoastkayak

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.

TitoPuente

eastcoastkayak wrote: »

Given the pretty overwhelming opinion, has anyone any opinion on how to approach the webmaster.

Just ask him if it's okay if you can take administrative control of the hosting a/c, domain, etc. If he's a cowboy, he may put up a fight. If I were him/her, I'd be glad to be rid of you. Then again, I'd never build such a rubbish website.

Sorry, not trying to be harsh. I just pray for this industry sometimes.

Seth Brundle

Was the OP ripped off?
I would have presumed that they received a few different quotes for their specification and went with the best offer. Does this mena that the spec was more than we realise or that all web designers/developers are rip off merchants?

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.