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!

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:

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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:

• 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.

• 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.

• Some of the ongoing costs associated with the website (see next question).

• Registration of a domain name for you (if required) and access to an SSL certificate.

In addition to us bearing all of the costs of the website build, there are many other ongoing costs involved with supporting a website.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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.

• Standard Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $97+GST/mth;
• Professional Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $125+GST/mth;
• Premium Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $499+GST/mth.

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:

• Affiliate marketing. In an affiliate marketing relationship an affiliate typically earns a 20% commission for marketing another organisation's products or services.

• Distributors. A distributor who provides your goods to retailers will typically take 30-50%.

• 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.

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.

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. After the initial 12 months, a domain renewal fee will apply and will be invoiced to you.

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).

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

Following the conclusion of the initial 12-month period, a hosting fee will apply. This is calculated as 2% of the GST exclusive value of sales made and transactions processed through your website each month. Alternatively, you can elect to go on our hosting plan optimised for higher volume at $97+GST/mth, or any one of the following:

• Standard Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $97+GST/mth
• Professional Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $125+GST/mth
• Premium Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $499+GST/mth

We register your domain name for the first 12 months for free, and provide a 1-year SSL certificate at no charge. Domain and SSL renewal fees will apply after the initial 12 months which will be invoiced to you.

The free website offer comes with a modified version of our basic hosting plan where we have waived the monthly fee for 12 months. If you would like to upgrade to our Standard, Professional or Premium Hosting plans at any time (including during the first 12 months) you are welcome to.

• Standard Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $97+GST/mth
• Professional Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $125+GST/mth
• Premium Ecommerce Hosting - NZ $499+GST/mth

There are no charges associated with the standard website package. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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 (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.

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).