Free* Ecommerce Websites for Small to Medium Sized Businesses
Achieve Rapid Digital Transformation & Join the Digital Revolution!
Free Ecommerce Websites (GEM) |
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GEM Production Capacity
Free Websites Per Week
First In, First Served! Get Your Ecommerce Website Underway.
785
Website Applications Accepted
The total number of GEM website requests that have been accepted and approved for production once the applicant provides us with the necessary information.
508
Initial Client Tasks
The number of GEM websites that are waiting on information from the applicant before moving to production.
15
In Production
The number of GEM websites that are currently being produced. GEM websites at this stage are currently being built, configured & loaded.
Average Time in Production: 3-4 Working Days
43
Final Client Tasks
The number of GEM websites that have been produced and deployed - ready to launch. The business is completing final preparations before launching their new website.
168
Live
The number of GEM websites that have been launched and are now live - helping those businesses to now transact online and start the critical journey of digital transformation.
Gather Information
You complete our information gathering form. This provides us with the information we need. If you need help pulling together the required information, then let us know and we will do everything we can to help!
Build & Load
We build your website, configure it according to your requirements and either transfer the initial content and products from your existing website or load the initial content & products from the supplied information.
Deploy Stage 1
We will launch your website and provide you with access to the website administration system so that you can process orders, change and refine your content and manage various other aspects of your new website.
Promote & Evolve
You can now start promoting your website to the world! If you need help one of our Digital Business Strategists will meet with you and help you put together a plan to promote your online business and rapidly evolve your ecommerce operation.
Don’t Get a Toy Website! … And Then Have to Start Again!
Build on a Powerful Full-Featured Ecommerce Engine That Can Scale With Your Business!
Enterprise-Capable Ecommerce
Start simple and rapidly build from there! Our ecommerce engine scales with your business. From simple ecommerce consisting of a couple of products through to highly sophisticated websites with tens of thousands of products that are doing 10's of millions of dollars in transactions. We've got you covered!
Free Website Setup & Configuration
We will rapidly deploy, for free, a robust ecommerce website that allows you to sell your products and services online. You can offer a wide range of payment methods, shipping options, sophisticated products and services (including electronic goods). It's up to you!
12 Months 'No-Sale-No-Fee' Hosting
We will host the website for you for 12 months from the date of deployment with the monthly hosting fee reduced from $49 to $0. The only cost is a 2% Success Fee (unless you elect to go on one of our hosting plans optimised for higher volume). Please see terms and conditions below for further details.
Free Domain Name & SSL Certificate
If you don't already have one, we will provide you with a domain name and an SSL certificate, free of charge, so that you don't need to worry about funding these critical components. A domain name provides your business with a unique online name (like 'zeald.com') that can be used to access your business online and an SSL certificate is used to create a secure link between your website and your visitor.
Free Website Transfer and/or Content Loading
We can transfer your product and content information from your existing website or alternatively we can load initial content and products from the information supplied by you. The information can be in the form of product brochures, MS word documents or even a spreadsheet. Get the information to us, or point us in the direction and we will take it from there!
Free Google My Business Listing Setup
Google My Business (GMB) is one of the most powerful tools available for connecting and communicating with your local market. Every business should have a GMB to let customers know where they are, their phone number and when they are open. We will set up a free Google My Business listing for your business to assist your website to be found in Google Search so that buyers can rapidly find your products and services.
Free Google Analytics Configuration
Google Analytics is a tool provided by Google that helps you to better understand your online customers. You can then use those insights to take action and improve your website. We will set up a free Google Analytics account and integrate it into your website so that you can use it to refine and improve.
Free Google Shopping Integration
If you are selling online then you need a Google Shopping advertising campaign, this is your way to show customers what you have for sale when they are searching for your products. If relevant (& subject to availability) we will integrate your Ecommerce site with Google Shopping so any campaign you run has up to date product data.
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I am not a savvy computer whizz, so was really apprehensive about the whole website setup. My experience with Zeald has been really positive. I liked the fact that they are NZ owned and I can have assistance whenever I require it, and I am speaking to a real person! Stacey - www.mahurangihoney.co.nz 
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Zeald helped us launched our website just right in time for Level 3. Their support is very professional and helpful. The entire process is very easy and convenient. We are very happy with our website. Roxanne - www.noralutongbahay.co.nz 
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We have just been through the process with the website setup and the Zeald support team have been really great. Totally recommend them. Robyn Parker - www.robynscottage.co.nz 
Due to COVID-19, Businesses Of All Shapes, Sizes & Types Must Now Urgently Go Online
Join The Movement
The situation is extremely dire for small to medium sized businesses. Some businesses have already permanently shut down. And a huge amount of others are rapidly heading in the same direction. Many SME businesses simply won't survive unless they rapidly transform themselves digitally and start trading effectively online.
As NZ's largest and most experienced SME website development agency, we are in a very unique position to help. In March 2020, we launched the Get Ecommerce Movement (GEM). The purpose of GEM is to de-risk the process of getting online for SME businesses by offering to build as many ecommerce websites as we can for free*.
Our goal with GEM is twofold: to transform SME businesses digitally and to create a massive digital revolution so that we can cope with the effects of COVID-19 (and future pandemics) as best as possible. Digital resilience is key to the survival of businesses both now and in the future.
Since March 2020, we have been ramping up our GEM production capacity to meet the need. Our current GEM weekly production capacity is listed at the top of this page along with our current GEM production schedule. If needed, in the coming months, we can ramp up our GEM production capacity to a 1000 ecommerce websites per week and beyond.
To help deliver the volume required, we have pre-designed and pre-developed specialised website packages for a range of specific industries. The industries that we currently have packages for are listed below. More industry packages are being developed by our team as rapidly as we possibly can. If your industry is not on the list below and you have an urgent need, then please email us at pkrequest@zeald.com and we will do everything we can to help.
Time is short. Speed of change is everything!
David Kelly
Chairman - Zeald
*Free generally means no setup fees and no monthly fees for 12 months except for a 2% Success Fee (unless you elect to go on one of our hosting plans optimised for higher volume). Please see the relevant terms and conditions with the associated package for further details.
Choose a Package
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FAQ
Is this a scam?
No. This offer is 100% genuine.
We've put together this FAQ to provide clarity around common questions you may have - but please feel free to email us directly on getonlinehelp@zeald.com if you feel any information is missing!
Is it really free?
The website build is 100% free. It is a gift from our company to help Kiwi small and medium sized businesses, in specific industry segments, survive and thrive through COVID-19.
When building a new website there are a number of areas of investment you want to be aware of:
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Initial build: the one-off set up cost - this is the time required to build the site, configure all the various aspects so it will work with your business, ensure that it is compatible with Google, load content onto it, and purchase any software licenses.
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Digital marketing & promotion: to drive targeted traffic to your website. There are a huge array of options available & what is most effective at engaging target customers differs from business to business.
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Monthly running expenses: to keep things simple we bundle these up into a single monthly subscription package which covers professional hosting of the website; phone, email and live-chat support to help you get things done; and paying for a team of developers to make continual upgrades to the underlying software & hosting infrastructure that the website runs on.
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There are often other costs like registration of the domain name and an SSL certificate to encrypt all traffic to & from your website.
The free package includes:
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100% of the build & setup costs involved with assembling, configuring and loading one of our GEM industry targeted website packages - allowing you to get online quickly and without upfront risk.
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Initial digital marketing initiatives with a free Google My Business listing, and if relevant, integration with Google Shopping (subject to availability). In addition your website will be compatible with the search engines, and you will have direct control over most things that are important to them.
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Some of the ongoing costs associated with the website (see next question).
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Registration of a domain name for you (if required) and access to an SSL certificate.
Why is there a 2% Success Fee?
In addition to us bearing all of the costs of the website build, there are many other ongoing costs involved with supporting a website.
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Each website is hosted in a professional-grade web hosting environment. This isn't some cheap hosting where your site is thrown on a single server with hundreds of other sites. It is a scalable, load-balanced, clustered environment consisting of a group of servers with multiple layers of redundancy.
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Ongoing phone, email and live-chat support. Inevitably if you're using a website, you will have some questions or need some help. We have a team available during extended NZ business hours, and 24/7 emergency help available if something critical is not working.
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Ongoing development and maintenance of the underlying software. The software your website will run on is continually upgraded behind the scenes without you having to do anything (or incur any further cost). Technology evolves at a huge rate in this area, and we have a team of designers & developers upgrading your underlying software & hosting infrastructure to keep pace - rolling out new features, dealing with potential security risks, resolving issues and deploying these upgrades to all websites.
Our ability to give away free websites isn't limitless, and we've considered many options of how to cover some of these costs. While we would love the free offer to extend to all areas of ongoing cost for a period of time, this is not feasible in the longer term without us having to rely on donations ourselves to operate.
Ultimately we decided to waive any fixed fees associated with our monthly subscription for 12 months to keep the barrier to getting started as low as possible.
However, we decided to retain our success fee. We felt a win-win success fee was a reasonable and fair approach. It means there is no risk to a business getting started, and a business has to be earning through the website before any sort of contribution is required to the ongoing costs listed above. We can then use any contribution in this area to extend the industry segments we can support, and the number of free websites we can offer. For businesses that are doing a high volume of sales, they can move to one of our higher volume hosting plans to take advantage of lower success fees (see "Can I change hosting plans" question for further details).
2% can start to add up!
If your business is making a lot of sales, then yes this 2% can start to add up. Our basic hosting plan is not cost-effective for higher sales and higher volume businesses. We have other hosting plans that are far more cost effective if you find yourself in this situation. You are welcome to change to one of these plans, at any time, if you prefer. See options below.
- Professional Hosting - NZ $99+GST p/month + 1% Success Fee
- Premium Hosting - NZ $499+GST p/month + 0.5% Success Fee
- Enterprise Hosting - NZ $1,499+GST p/month + 0.15% Success Fee
Remember, regardless of what hosting plan you are on, a 0.15%-2% Success Fee is still a lot less than what you pay for other sales channels like:
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Affiliate marketing. In an affiliate marketing relationship an affiliate typically earns a 20% commission for marketing another organisation's products or services.
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Distributors. A distributor who provides your goods to retailers will typically take 30-50%.
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Retailers. A retailer can take anywhere from 30-70% for selling your products and services depending on whether or not a distributor is also involved.
What's in it for you? Why are you doing this?
We believe New Zealand needs a digital revolution. Digital revolution means that every business that can get online does. Communities need to transform. Towns need to transform. Regions need to transform and cities need to transform. The revolution is achieved when community by community, town by town, city by city, 90% of all businesses are trading online. When this occurs, New Zealand will be in a very strong position economically to cope with the ongoing challenges of COVID-19.
We can help. We are in a unique position to help. And we believe that we must help.
Zeald can deliver websites at volume. With hard work, we believe we can deliver 100's of websites every week - possibly even 1000's of websites (with time, more smart thinking and refinement). And we can deliver fast. Our target is to deploy your new website within 2 working days (subject to you providing us with the information we require).
We are on a mission to save SME businesses, to help them to transform themselves digitally, and to help NZ achieve an incredible and rapid digital revolution. To find out more read our history here.
If you provide me with a free domain name, who owns the name?
You do. We register your domain name for the first 12 months for free using whatever name you provide us with (either your personal name or your company name). So you retain ownership of that domain name at all times.
Am I locked in for 12 months?
No. There is no minimum term. You are never locked in with this website offer.
If you are not happy with your website, then at any time you can give us one months notice, and can take your website content, domain name and any other information included in your website such as your history of orders and customer information and go to another web design agency/provider.
If you want to pay a smaller Success Fee, then at any time you can elect to go on one of our higher volume hosting plans to get access to a lower Success Fees (see "Can I change hosting plans" question for further details).
Do I own my website?
We own our website management and digital marketing system and our pre-designed and pre-produced templates that we have created for specific industry segments.
You own your website content, domain name and other information included in your website such as your history of orders and customer information.
From an ownership perspective, the Zeald system works very similar to how Xero works. Xero owns its accounting system. You own your information that is within their system - but you don't ever own Xero itself (or a copy of Xero). You pay a monthly fee to Xero to use their system.
If you have any further questions about this, or if anything isn't clear then you are welcome to email us @ getonlinehelp@zeald.com
What are the ongoing hosting charges after 12 months?
It depends on what hosting plan you are on. You can select from any of the hosting plans below (both during and after the initial 12-month period).
- Basic Hosting - NZ $9.99+GST p/month + 2% Success Fee
- Professional Hosting - NZ $99+GST p/month + 1% Success Fee
- Premium Hosting - NZ $499+GST p/month + 0.5% Success Fee
- Enterprise Hosting - NZ $1,499+GST p/month + 0.15% Success Fee
Can I change hosting plans before the initial 12 month period is finished?
Yes you can.
The free website offer comes with a modified version of our basic hosting plan where we have waived the NZ $49+GST monthly fee for 12 months. However, we have retained the 2% Success Fee. A win-win Success Fee means there is no risk to a business getting started, and a business has to be earning through the website before any sort of contribution is required.
If you would like to upgrade to our Professional, Premium or Enterprise Hosting plans at any time (including during the first 12 months) you are welcome to.
- Professional Hosting - NZ $99+GST p/month + 1% Success Fee
- Premium Hosting - NZ $499+GST p/month + 0.5% Success Fee
- Enterprise Hosting - NZ $1,499+GST p/month + 0.15% Success Fee
Are there any additional charges?
There are no charges associated with the standard website package apart from the 2% Success Fee (see terms and conditions and this FAQ for further details). If you would like Zeald to undertake additional work for you outside of the standard website package, then we will need to charge for this work. However, we will do everything we can to keep our fees to you as reasonable as possible.
Using our website management system, you are able to complete many tasks yourself. However, if you want us to complete tasks for you then we are happy to help in whatever way we can. Some examples of the types of additional work that we do along with the fees we usually charge are as follows:
Examples of simple tasks/changes (all prices exclusive of GST)
- Load content from a document (or a page on your old website) to your new website - $25 p/page
- Load a product from a document (or from your old website) to your new website - $25 p/page
- Change the logo in your website header - $25 p/page
- Update text on a website page or order email etc - $25 p/update
- Styling change to a web page (colour, alignment or font change) - $25 p/update
- Change the label of an existing form field. For example: change the title "Delivery Details" to be "Shipping Details" - $25 p/change
- Change the responsive view of a web page - e.g. Hide one element or change the way the hero image displays etc. - $25 p/change
- Change the default setting for "Sort by" on category pages. For example: From Recommended or Alphabetically to Lowest Price or Most Popular. - $25
- Add a new field to the check-out form and have this information come through with each new order and store it in the website management system - $150
Please note that we reserve the right to decline to provide additional services at the prices indicated if your requirements are significantly more complex than what we have assumed with our standard pricing. If you have any further questions regarding our pricing or additional services, you are welcome to phone, email (getonlinehelp@zeald.com) or contact us over live chat.
Can I get my website customised to my unique requirements?
Yes you can (subject to our team's availability).
If you want to customise your website then we can provide you with a quote. If your customisation is reasonably simple then we will provide you with a fixed price quote. If the customisation is complex or variable in scope then we will provide you with an estimate and charge you on an hourly rate basis. We have recently reduced our hourly rate in response to COVID-19 to $147+GST p/hour to assist businesses in this regard.
Can you create content?
Yes. We can produce a range of content. From copywriting to video production. Please talk to our team for further details. There is also a wide range of high-quality third-party content providers in both the NZ and the global marketplace that you can use to help in the production of quality content.
Are you able to help in the marketing of my website?
Yes. We do provide a range of digital marketing services. Google & Facebook advertising packages. Search Engine Optimisation services. Conversion rate optimisation and so on. Please enquire for further details.
Am I able to change the content on my website myself?
Yes. You can change the majority of the content on your website yourself using the website management system. For those few areas you can't change, we can update them for you for a small charge (see the question "Are there any additional charges?" for further details).
Are there any plugins, add-ons or extensions that can be enabled on my website?
Each industry website that we produce is a full-functioned ecommerce website that contains the standard functionality that we believe most businesses in that industry will require. There is also a wide range of extensions that can be added to your website depending on your specific requirements and we can completely customise your website for you if you want to also (see the question, "Can I get my website customised to my unique requirements?").
To borrow a car analogy, we have worked hard to build a Toyota. Strong, dependable, reliable and (hopefully) will never let you down. It is not a Rolls Royce, Range Rover or a Bentley and it is not a custom built Hot-Rod (nor does it come with the cost). There are other agencies that specialise in these types of websites. You can modify your Toyota. You can extend it and trick it up if you want to. You can make it extra, super-duper awesome if you want to invest more in it. But if you leave it just as it is, it should still be strong, dependable and reliable. It should serve you really well.
If you are producing websites that fast, does this mean they're cookie-cutter, template websites?
We have developed a range of website packages that are carefully designed for specific industries. The design templates within each industry package have been developed based on usability, conversion optimisation, years of experience and thorough research, specific to your industry. These templates form the structure and foundation of your website.
All websites share a lot of similar elements. High-quality, ecommerce websites, generally work in a similar way to other ones - intentionally so. Users expect certain elements to be in certain places and for websites to follow a specific process from the homepage through to completing an order. It would make little sense to build every element from scratch for every website.
Zeald has a huge array of elements that we assemble for different websites based on the unique requirements of each business. Yes, your website will share a lot of common elements to other websites, but it will uniquely reflect your business.
As part of our standard package, we will personalise the website to reflect your unique brand by applying your logo, your colour choices and the images and text that you provide us with. We will also load 25 products or content pages that you provide us with to help you get online as quickly as possible.
You can update most of the text on your website, and add and replace images to personalise it further, using the website management system. Our support team are on hand to help you find the answers if you get stuck at any point. If you prefer, you can request one of our team to make changes for you to free you up to focus on running your business (additional charges apply - see the question "Are there any additional charges?" for further details).
Once the website is loaded with your text, images and products, it reflects your unique brand. The website management system is flexible and powerful, making it quick and easy to update important content when you need to, but it is also structured to reduce the chances of accidentally breaking the website design.
If you require a custom design you can request small design changes to your website from as little as $25+GST or step up to your own fully customised design (please enquire for a quote).
Terms & ConditionsWe are offering a limited number of free ecommerce websites, for specific industries, for no setup fees and no monthly hosting fees for a 12 month period (from the date of website deployment). The only cost is a 2% monthly Success Fee. The Success Fee is calculated as a percentage of the GST exclusive value of sales made and transactions processed through your website each month.
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About ZealdZeald was formed in 2001 by three young guys from the small New Zealand town of Mangawhai Heads. Now, Zeald is the largest SME website design and digital transformation agency in New Zealand and has clients throughout both New Zealand and Australia. This is the Zeald story … 
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