Web site redesign, please give opinions on it. I feel we are being ripped off

[qualitymachinetools]

Hi There,
We hired a web site designer to build us a complete web site, and I feel that they are not doing a quality job for the amount of money that they want to charge.

Our current web site is here: Quality Machine Tools Home (I know, needs serious help)

The site they were doing is here: Quality Machine Tools | Just another WordPress site

The look of the site is OK but there are so many things that they said would now be extra, like being able to click on images to enlarge them, having the site mobile friendly, etc.

I was also told by someone else that there are a lot of programming errors. I am not a web designer, but I am looking for some help here. This is also after 7 months of them working on it, and taking half of the money up front.

And they say that the site is now complete, and want paid.

Please let me know what everyone thinks of this site, and if you can see any problems with the programming and things.

They wanted $16,000.00 for this work, and say they have over 180 hours in to it. I just do not feel that this is a $16,000 Site at all, when I first met with them I told them I wanted the best site that they can build.

I did not think that I would have to specify things that ANY web site can do, like clicking on pictures to enlarge them, having it mobile phone friendly, etc.

I also wanted to make sure I do not lose any links from the old web site, but they never gave me an answer as to how that would be done, but that was one of the first things I asked, and they said it could be done, but never did anything about it. We get a ton of hits from online forums for machinery.

Any help would be appreciated, so I have some information to back me up.

We are also looking for another designer, so feel free to recommend someone. We need a site built badly, and have been trying for quite a long time.

Thank you!

[Fireproofgfx]

$16,000 WTF man I need to start charging my clients that much and throw together a wordpress site wow. I am really undercharging Anyways, it's not a horrible job, its definitely better than what you had and they seemed to utilize what you already had in place like the colors. I ran the code through the W3C code validator and it came back 6 errors and 3 warnings. I just don't think its $16,000 worth. At 180 hours that would be $89 an hour and seven months is a LONG time to flip a website. I would recommend removing your log-in information from your post, that is something you don't want random people messing with, then you would really end up with mess on your hands.

[TheGAME1264]

I'm not sure what login information Fireproofgfx is referring to, but it looks as if it's gone.

Now, I'm not going to approach this from the standpoint of a designer (because I'm not really one), but from the standpoint of an e-commerce programmer (because I am one). To put this both as objectively and brutally as I can, you hired people who don't know what they're doing. WordPress is not an e-commerce platform, and putting WooCommerce in and claiming it's an e-commerce website indicates a significant lack of knowledge and experience in terms of what goes into making a website in the first place.

This is magnified by what you're trying to sell...high-end industrial machinery. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest the vast majority of your customers are not going to purchase your products and pay with a credit card from an e-commerce website. Most are going to want a PO and probably some form of terms (net 30, net 45, net 60, possibly 2/10 or 2/15). I can "sort of" understand the idea of making a shopping cart for a site like this, but not even including a PO option...never mind not making it the primary option...is completely ludicrous to me. Feel free to correct me if your customers tend to pay mostly by credit card, but the general B2B rule is "terms. We want terms".

The shipping and handling in the cart doesn't work as well. It looks as if residential and liftgate delivery are mutually exclusive shipping options when they clearly aren't. You have to add the $50/$45 charges to the shipping charge itself.

They forgot a privacy/refund policy...or at least didn't clearly indicate one. Your terms and conditions (which should be spelled out as most people won't know "T&C") indicates a restocking and cancellation fee, but it should be labelled as a privacy/refund policy.

I'm guessing you only ship to the contiguous 48 states, given the size and nature of the machines. If you ship to other countries, you may want to see what happens when you ship to Canada. I can get residential delivery for $50. I have car parts shipped to me from the States and customs charges for much smaller parts cost more than that. You're asking for trouble if you go live with that.

Now, as Fireproofgfx said, it's an improvement. I cannot and will not objectively say it isn't. But if you want the value of the improvement, I suggest taking the last 2 zeros off of the final total and you'll get a ballpark figure.

As far as a designer goes, that may be where you have an issue. If you want a new site with the information on your machines that you can update yourself, a designer with sufficient WP skills would do the trick. If you want the e-commerce parts as well or any other custom programming, you need a developer as well as a designer, or at the very least a developer with some design skills.

Fireproofgfx: that $16,000 might not be a straight labour charge. It might include the cost of any plugins and things such as SSL certificates that needed to be purchased, although I don't see the latter in the staging area.

[qualitymachinetools]

I removed the password and user name just to be safe. Thats why it isnt there. I can send them in a PM if you wanted to see it.

OK Online ordering with credit cards is what I wanted, no problem there. Believe it or not, most people do order that way.

The $16,000 is for everything you see there, plus a logo design. (Which I thought the logo design was also pretty bad, never got to where we wanted it at all)

I agree, if they were charging $2500 for this, it would be one thing. But at $16,000 I had expected so much more than this.

They are trying to take me to small claims court now for the remaining balance. They are so confident that they will win, and are very rude about things too. Pretty much how they had been since we did not get anywhere with the logo, ended up skipping it for a while, and going to the web site.

Its a shame, we really just need a web site done, but I also got the impression that they did not know what they are doing.

Is there anyone out there thats willing to write a letter for me stating that this web site is not worth anywhere near $16,000? And explain the problems in a little bit more detail?

I would pay for this service, no problem there. And you'd never be asked to show up or do anything more than that. Just looking for a letter from someone who is a professional at this, so I have back up.

Any more comments would be greatly appreciated. I really feel like I am being ripped off here, and I do not know exactly how to explain to someone if we go to small claims court what the problems with the site are.

[TheGAME1264]

If you're willing to accept a letter from a Canadian and it will hold up in a US court of law, feel free to PM me. I could probably have one done for you Thursday or Friday. It would take me a few hours to cover the major issues with the site, including what appear to be two "companies" working on it, but I think I can come up with something.

[Fireproofgfx]

What is the name of the company that did this for you or their website? You can PM me the information is you would like.

[Cris_Hooker]

Your getting taken to the cleaners they are taking advantage of your naivety. The Solution Associates in Tampa Florida is an honest group of folks I had the pleasure of working with

[qualitymachinetools]

Yes, it is called Blue Tomato Design Pittsburgh Web Design | Blue Tomato Design I do not mind posting it.

I think the biggest problem is that they are not doing the work themselves, they are having one of their designers do it, as they put it. Which is fine, I did not know that at first but that would not be an issue.

I can't believe they have the guts to actually take me to court over it for the remaining balance. We have set for next Tuesday. I gave them 50% down to start it (On a credit card) and have also disputed that charge, we will see where that ends up. But they are taking me to small claims court next Tuesday. What a joke.

They claim that they are proud of the work they have provided me, and that its an excellent site, etc. Hopefully the judge understands web sites, but thats hard, they hear all sorts of cases I'm sure. We will see what happens I guess.

If anyone else has any other comments, I would really appreciate it, anything I can use as points here and the more people who comment the better.

I think it is just absolutely ridiculous that not only did they not come through and do what they promised, they are taking an unhappy customer to court, demanding that the remaining balance be paid.

Everyone I have talked to who knows anything about this, says the should really have 10-15 hours at most in to the work that was performed on the site.

And the best part is that if you look at what you guys can see in the link, most of the pictures were added AFTER she said she was going to take me to court, probably to make her look better in court. But I took screen shots of the work that was complete when I said I wanted a refund, none of the stock photos were in there, and it had a bit of a different look.

I am so frustrated with them, it makes me want to fill out all sorts of online reviews on their company so that other people see them and do not get taken by them. I am not one to do those kinds of things, but they have me so mad that I even have to deal with this, I really want to do that.

I would appreciate any more comments that anyone has, both ways, good or bad, just trying to get as many opinions as I can get. If there is anyone who says that the site is worth the money they wanted to charge and is great, please also post that, I am looking for all opinions.

[TheGAME1264]

In case anyone wants to verify what qualitymachinetools is saying, Blue Tomato left their calling card in this CSS file.

http://qmt.gmmstaging.com/wp-content....css?ver=4.1.3

However, they're likely not the only company involved. A whois of gmmstaging.com reveals this:

GmMsTaging.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools

glassmoonmedia.com leads to a browsable folder and no content; however, some more digging leads us to this:

EricFuller.net WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools

I suspect this is the person who ultimately built the site, or at least had a hand in it. Either way, he's involved as well.

I'm also one of the people qualitymachinetools has asked for assistance on this matter, and I'm one of the people who made the 10-15 hour estimate. He not only paid me promptly, he paid me more than what I asked for. The idea that someone is suing him is almost beyond belief to me.

[Fireproofgfx]

Looking through blue tomatoes portfolio it seems like all of their sites are custom designs/coding where your website site is a WP theme, which would explain Games theory of someone else possibly making it.