This is a sample of a website design, development and hosting proposal I did for a mattress retailer looking to expand their eCommerce sales. All identifying information has been removed. Feel free to use it as a basis for your own website proposals!
Date:
1/3/2013
Project Title:
Website design, hosting, online business develop and service for REDACTED.
Project Description:
The project will involve designing and hosting a website for REDACTED, developing its online business, creating a social media presence, and handling all of the sales and customer service for its online customers.
The website will be design to the very highest standard and reflect REDACTED’s established identity.
The bulk of the costs of running the website will be handled by us. These costs include the server (hosting) costs, the administrative costs and the customer service costs.
You will continue to own the domain name of the website (www.REDACTED.com), all sales will be processed through your PayPal account and orders will be automatically emailed to you for fulfillment as soon as they are processed.
Project Technology:
We will use Drupal (www.drupal.org), an open source content management system (CMS) which will allow us to easily add content such as products, text and images to the website, within a tightly defined design framework. Drupal is very secure and used by a number of high-profile websites including but not limited to: www.whitehouse.gov, www.911memorial.org, www.economist.com and www.ubuntu.com.
The website will be hosted on the server we currently rent from TekTonic (www.tektonic.net). TekTonic is a leading server provider based in the United States. Renting our own server from TekTonic gives us full control over all software aspects of it, while TekTonic takes care of the hardware.
We will design the site with Google in mind and search engine optimize (SEO) it to generate organic web traffic from searches through all leading search engine websites such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! Search. Furthermore, all website traffic will be tracked by Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) and the website’s keywords will be optimized using Alexa’s tools (www.alexa.com). Alexa is an Amazon.com company that specializes in website metrics.
Sales through the website will be transacted through the Ubercart module (www.ubercart.org)–a highly secure e-commerce add-on for Drupal–and processed by your PayPal account. Customers’ credit and debit card transactions will be protected using industry standard SSL encryption, which places the padlock icon and HTTPS prefix in the web browser’s address bar. SSL encryption prevents anyone from intercepting personal information (card numbers, names and addresses) submitted through the website. Using Drupal, Ubercart, Paypal and SSL encryption will allow customers to order through the website and they will not be directed to PayPal’s website to complete their orders. The entire order process will be securely handled on www.REDACTED.com.
Scope:
We would perform the following:
- Complete website redesign and hosting.
- Full implementation of the e-commerce system.
- Weekly blog posts to generate organic traffic through search engines.
- Creation and administration of a Facebook page to promote REDACTED.
- 3 day & 30 day phone follow-ups with customers who purchase a product through the website.
- 7 day email surveys of customers.
- Email and phone support for customers.
You would do the following:
- Upgrade the PayPal account you use for REDACTED to a PayPal Websites Payment Pro account ($30 a month, no commitment: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/paypal-payments-pro) and provide us with the applicable API access information (we will provide information on how to do this). This allows us to process transactions from the website through your PayPal account (note: this only gives us access to process transactions, not to access your account).
- Provide us with all applicable marketing materials you use.
- Fulfill the orders as they are emailed to you and then enter the applicable shipping info and date for each order via the back-end of the website. The website will have an easy to use order fulfillment control panel that you login to and enter the shipping information into after you ship each order; it then would email the information to the customer automatically.
- Set your website domain (www.REDACTED.com) to point to our server (we will provide information on how to do this) and renew it each year.
Financial Info:
Your costs:
- Maintaining ownership of the website’s domain name (www.REDACTED.com)
- Approximately $12-20 a year
- Monthly PayPal Websites Payment Pro account fee
- $30 a month
- PayPal’s fee per transaction
- 2.9% + $0.30 (decreases after maintaining $3,000+ a month in sales for 3 months and again at $10,000+ a month sales for 3 months)
- Our percentage of each purchase through the website
- 20% gross
Timescale:
We anticipate the website creation process and payment processing implementation taking 2-4 weeks to complete from start to finish.
The Team:
Our team consists of:
Mont Cessna, Jr., Designer/Server Administrator/Blogger
Mont Cessna, Sales
Joseph Brady, Senior Developer
Websites we have designed and host:
www.izensoftware.net
www.bethelreformed.com
www.thedoctorsdietplan.com
Legal Information:
This proposal is valid for 1 month from the date at the top.
This proposal is for information purposes only and does not form a contract. Upon agreement, we will draw up a formal contract valid for 1 year, after which we can renegotiate based on the website’s performance and the satisfaction of all parties involved.
Mont Cessna, Jr. and Joseph Brady are currently in the process of forming an LLC (iZen Software LLC) in Pennsylvania as co-owners. After it is formed, the contract will be transferred to that company.
