Yes. This offer is 100% genuine. The website build and online setup is 100% free. Hosting is also free for the first 12 months, so you can test the waters online without the pressure of cost. This is a gift from our company to help Kiwi micro, small and medium-sized businesses cross the digital divide and thrive in the digital economy.

The free package includes:

• 100% of the build and setup costs involved with assembling, configuring and loading one of our GEM industry-targeted website packages - allowing you to get online quickly, and without the usual upfront risk associated with cost.
• 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.
• Registration of a domain name for you (if required) and access to a 1-year SSL certificate.

In addition to the website build and setup, there are other ongoing costs involved with supporting a website, usually covered by a hosting fee. These services are offered to GEM clients for free, for the first 12 months.

• Each GEM website is hosted in a professional-grade web hosting environment. This isn't 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 New Zealand 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 GEM website runs 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 and developers upgrading your underlying software and hosting infrastructure to keep pace - rolling out new features, dealing with potential security risks, resolving issues and deploying these upgrades to all our websites.

There are a number of costs to building and running a website, including:

• Initial build: the one-off setup cost - including the time required to build the site, configure all the various aspects of it, ensure it's compatible with Google and other search engines, load content onto it, and purchase any software licenses.
• 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 and 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 and from your website.
• Digital marketing and promotion: to drive targeted traffic to your website. There are a huge array of options available, and what is most effective at engaging target customers differs from business to business.

After 20 years in business ourselves, we had already been considering how we could use our ecommerce and digital expertise to have a greater social impact in New Zealand and abroad. Covid became a catalyst for this development at Zeald.

With Kiwi SMEs facing lockdowns, trading restrictions and ongoing, immense uncertainty, we felt compelled to help. We knew we were equipped to make a difference to businesses and individuals needing to digitally transform and upskill.

So we launched the Get Ecommerce Movement and our free GEM website initiative, along with other social initiatives under the GEM banner, designed to enable and support digital change in New Zealand and abroad in other developing economies.

We streamlined and optimised our workflows and processes, to be able to deliver GEM websites at volume and speed, with the ability to scale to meet demand.

Once digital transformation reaches high and consistent levels across businesses, individuals, and communities across New Zealand, our country will be in a strong to thrive in the post-Covid digital world.

We are committed to supporting MSME businesses to get started online, and to do digital well in these challenging times. To find out more read our history here.

Following the conclusion of the initial 12-month period, a hosting fee will apply.

For GEM ecommerce sites, this is calculated as 2% of the GST-exclusive value of sales made and transactions processed through your website each month capped at a maximum monthly fee of NZD $97+GST/mth.

For GEM charity and service-based (lead-generation) websites, a monthly hosting fee of $9.99+GST applies.

The GEM hosting fee will automatically be applied to your GEM website after 12 months, unless you make prior arrangements.

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.

We have committed to offering GEM websites free for an initial period (12 months) so that micro and small businesses can get started online without the usual upfront cost barrier, or the ongoing requirement of cost in that first year.

However, we also need to cover our own costs beyond that initial 12-month period.

We feel that charging a 2% success fee, capped at a maximum monthly fee of $97+GST/mth, on ecommerce websites, and $9.99 (+GST) per month for service-based and charity websites, is fair and reasonable after 12 months. It means that a business or organisation is only required to contribute to the cost of their website once they're up and running, and trading or operating successfully online.

If your business is making a lot of sales, then yes 2% can start to add up. This is why the monthly hosting fee is capped at a maximum of NZD $97+GST/mth. So you will never pay more than $97+GST/mth on the standard GEM ecommerce hosting plan.

No. There is no minimum term. You are never locked in with this GEM website offer.

If you are not happy with your GEM website, at any time you can give us one month's notice and 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 or provider.

Yes you can. If you do not wish to continue with your GEM website, at any time you can give us one month's notice and cancel your website. Please note, the GEM hosting fee will automatically be applied to your GEM website after 12 months, unless you cancel your website prior.

Following the conclusion of the initial 12-month period, a GEM hosting fee will apply.

For GEM ecommerce sites, this is calculated as 2% of the GST-exclusive value of sales made and transactions processed through your website each month capped at a maximum monthly fee of NZD $97+GST/mth.

For GEM charity and service-based (lead-generation) websites, a monthly hosting fee of $9.99+GST applies.

The GEM hosting fee will automatically be applied to your GEM website after 12 months, unless you make prior arrangements.

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.

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). You retain ownership of that domain name at all times. After 12 months, a domain renewal fee will apply and will be invoiced to you.

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. And beyond the initial 12 months, you pay a monthly fee to us to use our website hosting system.

If you have any further questions about this, or if anything isn't clear then you are welcome to email us at support@zeald.com

There are no charges associated with the standard GEM website package. However, if you would like Zeald to undertake additional work for you outside of what's offered in the standard website package, then we will need to charge for this work. 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, and the fees we usually charge (all prices exclusive of GST), are as follows:

• Change the logo in your website header - $25 p/update
• 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 p/change
• 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 (support@zeald.com) or contact us over live chat.

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 question "Are there any additional charges?").

Yes you can. If you want to customise your GEM website we can provide you with an estimate. If your customisation is reasonably simple then we will provide you with a fixed-price. If the customisation is complex or variable in scope, we will provide you with an estimate and charge you on an hourly-rate basis.

Yes. We do provide a range of digital marketing services, including Google and Facebook advertising packages, Search Engine Optimisation services, conversion rate optimisation and so on. Please enquire for further details.

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 New Zealand and global marketplace that you can use to help in the production of quality content.

Each industry-specific GEM website we produce is a full-functioned ecommerce website that contains the standard functionality 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 too if you want to (see 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, elegant, dependable, reliable. It is not a Rolls Royce, a 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 and 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 GEM website templates and packages, carefully designed for specific industries. The design templates are based on usability, conversion optimisation, years of experience, and thorough research into the specific industry areas. These templates form the structure and foundation of each GEM website, which we then personalise with the content you provide us with.

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 GEM website will share a lot of common elements to other websites, but it will uniquely reflect your business.

As part of our standard GEM package, we personalise your website to reflect your business and unique brand by applying your logo, colour choices, and the images and text you supply. We will load 25 products or content pages that you provide us with, to help you get online as quickly as possible.

If you require a custom design, you can make many of your own changes using the website management system, or 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 cost estimate).