Hey there,

I've mentioned before that we are using the Magento platform for our eCommerce website and the marketing firm that got us involved with this is no longer supporting us (our contract ended in December....long "don't get me started" story...lol). Here's my problem...

They have yet to give us back the design files for our website. I've managed to perform some work arounds, but I'm a bit limited without those files. I've been expressing to my management that it may be time for us to start considering a redesign of our website in order to take back control, since we can't even seem to get a "kiss our butts" response from them.

Here's the 2nd half of our problem...

They host us on their server. Currently we've been paying nothing for this. I assume they just included it in our contract. I remember some discussion about $15/month after our contract ran out. Maybe they forgot about us. I dunno. Anyhow, since we're receiving absolutely no support from them at this point and they basically have us by the toe with our website and hosting, I think that it might be in our best interest to go to another host and, as I said, redesign our website from scratch in order to take back full control.

I'm not overly familiar with websites and hosting, but is it possible for us to retrieve those files another way? I don't think so because it's hosted on their server. Right? The way I see our situation is that this company has the ability to bring our website crashing to the ground at any second (not that they'd be that malicious, but it could happen). Am I way off base in my way of thinking?

How hard is it to change hosts when you can't even get anyone from the old hosting company to respond to anything (i.e. no support at all)? Do we just redesign our website and host it with another company and forget about them? As mentioned, we are using the Magento Platform and I think we may be using a Wordpress template (we may just be using this for our blog. I'm not quite sure yet). I just got an email from Magento that they are now offering hosting services. They have a 30-day trial and I'd really like to try it out since we use that platform anyhow.

I'm just looking for some advice here and to see if anyone else has had to jump ship because of a total lack of support...either with the website design or the hosting. How painful is it and is there anything I need to really keep in mind as we try to make this transition? Will we need to bring the website down for a period of time?

Thanks and I hope I'm not confusing anyone with my rambling...LOL

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy:

Hi Stephanie, I have to wonder what on earth went on between your company's management and the designer/host to create such a lack of communication, or refusal to communicate. It seems like it would be in the best interest of whoever is the contact point for your company to reach out to this marketing firm to solve the communication issue because without access to the site via FTP you're a bit out of luck. Especially if there are any databases associated with your site, you'll need all of that information.

I can see how it would be very frustrating to be in your position - you're not a part of whatever originally happened but are tasked with fixing it. I sympathize with you!

To answer your other questions: when you change webhosts your site will go down for a bit no matter what, but assuming you have the files to upload to the new server it can be as little as 12-24 hours.

If you had the website files you'd just go in to your registrar account (wherever you registered the domain name), and change the nameservers to the new ones (which you would get from your new webhost). And then upload your files via the new FTP account (also provided by the new webhost). You'd need to set up all emails again on the new account as well.

Moving hosting in and of itself isn't a huge deal, unless the website is really big then it can be a lot more work - but if you don't have access to the current site it's virtually impossible.

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Thanks, Tess. The information is a bit disheartening, but greatly appreciated

This gives me something to take back to management to get them to see (even though I've been telling them) the dire situation we're in here. I've spent the morning looking over the contract we had with this firm and, my belief, is that this is important enough for us to take it to a lawyer. First of all, we paid this company a sickening amount of money for promises that were never delivered (the actual scope of work was, IMHO, very ambiguous to say the least). Am I crazy or is $35k an extreme amount of money just for the website design? And not even a complete one or a very good one at that (the "prototype" they showed us was AMAZING, but none of it ever went live). I'll keep the rest of it to myself, but that's just the beginning. Also, it clearly states in the contract that this was a "Work for hire" partnership and that the "Company" (meaning us) has full rights to all files, images, coding, etc. and that everything would be turned over to us as soon as the contract was up. It's been four months and nothing has been done.

I just wish that I could have been included in this decision making at the beginning because I honestly believe that I could have taken a lot of what they were supposed to do for us (and in most cases never did) on as part of my duties and, for what I couldn't manage, I could have found someone much more...I don't know...caring, trustworthy, fair, reliable?...from VAF

We have been in discussion with a person that was going to help us with our website, but "she wanted too much money". Basically, she's a VA even if she doesn't know it...LOL I told my boss this morning that her price was VERY reasonable if not on the low end of the scale for what we were asking. But our marketing budget has been more than zapped and we can't afford outside help at this point. So....they get me

Again, thanks for the feedback and letting me vent (sorry if I'm offering up a little TMI)

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy:

Yikes, it sounds complicated - I can't really make a judgement on what another firm charges for a site, especially without seeing the product but it sounds like regardless of the cost, they didn't come through with their end of the bargain.

And no, I completely understand where you're coming from - it does sound like your boss would be wise to have you project manage the new website to make sure that things get done as they should.

Have you tried calling them yourself and asking for the login info so you can at least go in via FTP and download everything? Did they never give anyone at your company any info at all about how to access the account?

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No, Tess, I haven't. I approached my boss about that and specifically asked if we've ever asked for those files back (thinking I could just send them an email asking for them). She said that, no they haven't. Apparently, over the last few months, we have been in contact with them to "schedule a conference call", but it never happens. She also said that our Board President wanted to handle this himself. He's supposed to come up on Thursday and she told me to tell him how I think it should be handled and express the importance of getting those files back. So... hopefully, we can get this all resolved within the next month.

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy: