MicroPOS E-Commerce Website



The microPOS ecommerce proposal covers the design and build of an e-commerce website for a microPOS Store that will take the existing content from your existing web site and move it to a rebuilt Joomla and Virtuemart based website. The site would be built in a contemporary, user friendly style based on best practice guidelines for e-commerce websites and would provide a platform for future development as and when required. The site would be built using the Joomla Content Management System (CMS) with the Virtuemart shopping system providing the e-commerce functionality. Both of these are proven technologies used by thousands of online shops - and we have strong experience building e-commerce website based on these technologies.

A word on the Content Management System

We build websites using the Joomla Open Source CMS. Joomla is an extremely powerful CMS that is used by tens of thousands of websites and online stores. On a basic level it offers standard CMS functionality - the ability to quickly and easily update site content, add pages, news, images, blogs, products, etc. But it is the scalability of Joomla that stands it apart from most CMS solutions. There are thousands of modules that can be plugged into Joomla to extend its functionality that we can add on as and when required. This provides a 'future proofed' platform for your website so if you require additional functionality we can easily add this to your site.

Existing Store website

We would design and build a Joomla based website for a microPOS Store that reflects the nature of the business and your requirements. We are passionate about developing websites that punch above their weight for our customers and provide the functionality and ease of use associated with far more expensive websites.

The Design

The site design would be developed in conjunction with the retailer and signed off prior to development. If required we can quote for branding and logo design if not already established.

The Structure

We build websites that are based on accessibility and a sound user experience. We believe in simple and effective navigation and clean design to allow the content to do its work. The site would be designed to provide easy navigation for your customers and will meet standard accessibility and usability requirements. This includes structuring the products and categories to make them as easy to buy as possible.

Content and graphics

These are to be supplied by Store unless you would like us to develop the brand - if this is the case please let us know and we will quote for brand development separately. Please note included in the cost of this proposal is the development of website graphics such as banners, buttons, etc, if required.

Cost for the content managed website design: £2,000

The e-commerce platform

The key functionality of the site will be the Virtuemart e-commerce platform. This is a sophisticated e-commerce platform that offers extensive features and can be customised to match your requirements.

Using Virtuemart we can build a product catalogue with numerous images, add options such as product sizes, add taxes for different delivery addresses, differential shipping rates, bolt on various payment methods (from PayPal to payment service providers such as WorldPay and SagePay), etc, etc (for full details see http://virtuemart.net/)

The e-commerce aspects of the website will make up the vast bulk of the work and will take some time. As the products already exist this will speed up the process but the sheer volume of products will significantly extend the scale of this project.

Cost for the e-commerce platform and adding in products: £4,500

Standard Optimisation Package

We'd include a basic level of optimisation in the cost that is designed to cover the essentials of optimising your site.

This includes:
 »  Adding in key pages:
    - Privacy policy
    - Terms and conditions
 »  Dynamic website map
 »  Submitting your website map to the search engines
 »  404 error pages (so if somebody mistypes a web address they get a nice error message)
 »  Google analytics to track website visitors
 »  Canonical URLs (this means there will only be one URL - www.micropos.co.uk rather than also having http://micropos.co.uk as well - this stops duplicate content, something that Google frowns on)
 »  Search Engine Friendly URLs
Total cost for all the above: £6,500

Additional functionality

We can add in additional functionality at any point, although it's easiest to do this during the initial build phase. This includes email marketing, social media feeds, blogs, voucher systems, etc. Just let us know what you require and we will quote.

Search Engine Optimisation

We also offer a full Search engine optimisation (SEO) solution that will make your site visible to Google so you come up top in searches for specific keywords. The process is split into onpage optimisation (what we do on your website) and offpage optimisation (what we do external to your website).

The basic process is to identify suitable keywords that your customers will be searching for, make each page weighted for the keywords and then create a network of links pointing back to your site that include the keywords. All this has the effect of pushing your website up the search engine rankings so you get found for your keywords.

Please note that SEO is an optional extra and can be carried out at anytime. Just let us know and we will provide full details.

Hosting, Email, Training and Support Hosting

We can offer hosting or can use whatever hosting solution you have already (it will need to be a Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP environment).

We include the first year's hosting in the website cost. After this it is £20 per month paid annually upfront in advance. The hosting is extremely robust and offers at least 99.8% uptime (at present it's running at closer to 100%).

Our hosting also includes regular back-ups of your website so we can set up your site from scratch if anything goes horribly wrong. This also includes errors that may be made when updating content using the CMS.

Also included are updates to the Joomla CMS. This is important as there are regular security and functionality updates that come out as the nature of the internet changes or as new threats are detected.

Hosting is included in the cost of the website build for the first year and is then charged at £20 per month per site paid annually in advance.

Email

We offer five email addresses per site but are happy to add more if required. There wouldn't be any additional cost as long as it's kept within reason. Email is included in the hosting cost.

Training

We provide training on using the CMS which usually only takes a couple of hours as it's extremely simple to use. We also provide a 'cheat sheet' tailored to your site to explain standard functionality. We're always on the end of the phone to help you out with problems and questions.

Support

Joomla is an extremely robust CMS and we don't expect you to have any problems with it. However we are available for phone support during business hours (Monday - Friday, 9am - 5.30pm) and will react to any emails sent outside of these hours as quickly as possible.

Support issues relating to the website build are covered for the first three months. After that point we can either quote for a support contract or provide ad hoc support at our hourly rate of £50 per hour.

Changes to the site

We run three rounds of changes to the website content after we've had sign off on the design and functionality. If more are required we will either do these at our discretion or will charge at our hourly rate of £50 per hour.

Total cost and payments

Cost for the website design: £2,000

Cost for the e-commerce platform: £4,500

Total cost for the project: £6,500