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My Baby must go

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jacksun

jacksun

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 8, 2009
Messages
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Location
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Ok, this is really going to hurt me, no, scratch that, this is going to kill me. I have to sell my baby. You see, for the past 6 months or so I have been pursuing entrance to medical school. I am now down to the final grind with the MCAT only 10 weeks away and application and interview season shortly after that. So I have had to make a difficult decision and as I do not have the time nor energy to pursue anything more than a basic pet keeper role in the mantis hobby at this point I must part with my website.

For those of you who may be interested, you can see it here: http://amazingmantids.com

Here is a quick rundown on the site. Please, serious enquiries only.

- The site is built with a full content management system based on open source standards. This means adding articles, new products, updating inventory etc involves clicking your mouse and maybe typing some words, not programming a web page.

- The site has a built in backup utility just in case something goes wrong.

- The site has SEO/SEF (Search engine optimization/search engine friendy) tools installed

- Currently has about 50 articles

- Photo gallery with over 100 pictures (some with permission of Yen Saw)

- Fully ecommerce enabled including inventory management, ability for client to ask to be notified when product becomes available, related product functionality (put A in cart, shows "you might be interested in B"), customer rating system for your products, full SSL shopping cart (current cert expires May 7, 2010), accepts paypal payments, manages suppliers

- full user management system including billing and shipping information with secure login.

- completely database driven

- site is listed in google, google pagerank of 1, 1000 pageviews in the last month with no changes to site, marketing, banners, adwords or other efforts.

- site is using google webmaster tools and google analytics for data analysis/visitor analysis.

- I will regenerate a sitemap and submit to Google, bing, yahoo and alexa for you

- I will provide 4 hours of training to the purchaser (online live) on how to use the content management system and cart

- I will provide 1 month of support to you while you are getting your head around using the system

- I will provide you with 1 year of free web site hosting on the current host and plan. Any overages (disk space, bandwidth) or terms of service breaches are your responsibility and you will need to sign something indemnifying me. After one year you will be billed directly.

- The domain name amazingmantids.com is registered until April 11, 2011. I will transfer ownership of this to you.

I am asking $1,100.00 but all offers will be considered.

I will gladly answer any questions you may have. Please contact me by PM.

A very sad,

Wayne

 
What are the monthly fees associated with owning the site? If the new owner has to pay monthly fees why is it so much? Is that to purchase the domain name from you?

 
Hi Rick, the site can be hosted for around $6.00 - $10.00 a month, domain costs about $10.00 a year, SSL certificate is $25.00 a Year and dedicated IP required for the SSL Certificate is around $5.00 a month (SSL mandatory for the cart stuff). This assumes no disk overages (highly unlikely, uses about 20% of available space) or Bandwidth overages (again unlikely but if the site gets busy it may cost another 5 or 10 bucks a month). Paypal and shipping costs are unaffected. My 1 year of hosting offer includes the hosting which would be $6-10 a month, and the dedicated IP at $5.00 a month so that's about $132.00.

The site has a google page rank which helps (same rank as this site and Rebecca's) and indicates google's bots like the site. Basically all I'm saying is the site is somewhat established and is setup to become more so.

Overall I put that price up there for several reasons. The site is built, running, and can literally be taken over in a matter of days. I am prepared to provide support to the purchaser so they can get the most out of the site and learn how powerful and easy to use the site is for the administrator. I am also willing to go through the site and functionality with any prospective buyers so they can really understand what they are getting.

Also, the number of hours I put into the design, creation, and building of the site are significant and I have about $400.00 invested in templates and some graphic work (all rights transfer to purchaser). I'm not trying to make money on the site, just recoup some of the time and money I put in and hopefully help someone who would like a website, or a replacement website, get one for a reasonable price. As for the domain name value, I didn't really give it much thought. I guess maybe it could have some, but I doubt it would be worth more than a year or two's registration cost :)

Anyway, that's where the number came from, and as it says I am open to reasonable offers.

Cheers,

Wayne

 
I can vouch for Wayne and say that he is very generous with his time and very expert in his ability to teach people how to use websites. I've spent many thousands of dollars on websites and his offer is a good one.

 
Thanks for the explanation Wayne. This is something I have wanted to do for awhile. I keep looking at existing sites and maybe that is my problem.

 
Jacksun said:
Thanks Peter :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I admit I know little about websites. If Peter says it's a good deal than I am sure it is. It just seems like a lot to someone like me who knows nothing about it really. Thanks though.

 
Rick said:
I admit I know little about websites. If Peter says it's a good deal than I am sure it is. It just seems like a lot to someone like me who knows nothing about it really. Thanks though.
Click to expand...
Hi Rick, I completely understand that. There are many out there who are in the same boat. And there are many unscrupulous programmers and developers out there who will provide little or nothing for larger dollars, then say if you want X the cost will be Y. This is aside from the problem of deadlines, coordinating graphics creation, site structure and flow (how many clicks to get somewhere or buy product B say), the Search Engine Optimization factor (people charge huge money to do this stuff), and then this is extra, and this is extra, and that we don't do, or that wasn't in the initial proposal blah blah blah.

It is very difficult to do, because clients don't really understand what it takes to build this kind of thing, but on the other hand, the programmer needs to be much better at communicating so the client understands how things work.

Here's a good example. You want a gallery on your website. Ok, fine.

Do you want 1 page with all you pictures on it so a person can scroll down the page to see them all? When they click on a picture does it expand so they can see it better? How do you want that to happen? New window? Popup? Do you want the pictures sorted by different categories, display the categories, let the user choose the category, then show all pictures in that category on 1 page? Do you want to use some of these pictures elsewhere on the site in a one off fashion? Do you need categories, subcategories and even more granular grouping available? Now what about updating or adding or removing pictures from your gallery? Do you know web coding? Can you add them yourself? Can you learn to? Do you want to call me and pay me to do it? Or do you want to do it yourself, immediately, and easily?

Those are the questions that should be asked and maybe more. Likely one or two will be, and it is unlikely the "how will you update the pictures and add/remove pictures" one will be asked. So away goes the programmer, builds the gallery, shows you, it looks pretty, you like it so your happy. Then come some new pictures, or you want to add a picture to an article about something and use a picture in your gallery. You have no idea how to do this. Call said programmer (after all they did the site, right) and tell them what you need. They say no problem, add 10 pictures, add 1 to your article, will be 1 hours billing, say $30.00. Rinse, repeat over and over.

How do I approach this.......I provide all the above functionality by default. Period. What is left to do? Presentation such as changing the category display page to match the site. Maybe some other minor stuff. Then I show the client how to manage their own gallery. Add, remove, change, label, sort, create categories, subcategories. And all pictures are available throughout the site for use anywhere in anything such as an article, on the front page etc.

I'm not saying I'm perfect, or that all programmers are bad, but in most situations clients have no idea what they REALLY want. Which puts them on the short end too often. I like to keep everyone in the middle of the stick so it's a win-win every time. Want a new website? Search the web. Find sites whose design you like. Draw pictures of what you want your site and subpages to look like. Know what functionality you want. Want a Gallery, see questions to ask yourself above. Same goes for any other functionality - user accounts? How will the management interface look? password resets? etc etc.

It isn't easy, but a good programmer can really help. If they ask few questions, or don't want to listen, be wary. If they listen and ask questions, they should go away and then come back and show you some sample or mock up sites. Choose one you like, next step will add basic functionality (user login, maybe some graphics, menus, placeholder pages) and then another review with you for approval and then next step adds more etc etc until you get to content.

Anyway, I digress...

Wayne

 
You know your stuff. I wasn't trying to offend you or anything. If I could spare that, I would buy it from you. Good luck in selling. ;)

 
Rick said:
You know your stuff. I wasn't trying to offend you or anything. If I could spare that, I would buy it from you. Good luck in selling. ;)
Click to expand...
No offense taken, never thought you were :D

I want to see someone who loves the hobby, and wants to make this site all it can be take this over. I am aware price can be a limiting factor in getting there for many. However, reasonable offers does not necessarily mean agree on a price and then pay. For the right person I would consider alternative arrangements for the purchase.

 
You are right on making a site, it is hard and long process, especially if you never made one before and are not familiar with the inner working of one. I have been making a new one for over a year, so many things to put on and so much to decide on all the while working too.
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