Custom Website & Multi-Franchise E-Commerce Platform for Australian Sportswear Brand

Project Overview We are Icon Sports Australia, a custom sportswear, schoolwear and corporate apparel brand with a network of franchisees across Australia. We are looking for an experienced web development team or senior full-stack developer to build a completely new custom website and e-commerce platform for our business. This is not a simple brochure website. We need one central Icon Sports website that supports: * Our national Icon Sports brand * Multiple franchise locations * Approximately 150+ individual club/team online stores * Custom sportswear enquiries * Schoolwear * Corporate wear * Franchise opportunities * Online ordering and payments * Automatic allocation of orders and enquiries to the correct franchisee We currently operate multiple websites and want to replace them with one modern, fast and scalable system. We are looking for a custom-built solution, not simply a standard Shopify theme. ⸻ 1. Main National Website The main website will represent Icon Sports Australia. Customers should be able to visit one website and access: * Sportswear * Schoolwear * Corporate wear * Club/team stores * About Icon Sports * Contact/enquiry forms * Franchise locations * Become an Icon Sports franchisee The website needs to look premium, modern and professional. Our goal is to make local sporting clubs feel like professional teams. ⸻ 2. Club Shops / Team Stores This is one of the most important parts of the project. We currently have approximately 150+ clubs/teams that can have their own online merchandise store. For example: Icon Sports Website → Club Shops → ABC Football Club The customer can then purchase products specifically designed for ABC Football Club. Each club shop may contain: * Playing uniforms * Training apparel * Hoodies * Jackets * Polos * Shorts * Accessories * Merchandise We need a system where Head Office or authorised franchisees can easily: * Create a new club shop * Add/remove products * Change pricing * Upload product images * Update club logos and branding * Open or close stores * Manage orders The system must be designed to scale significantly beyond 150 club shops. ⸻ 3. Franchise Structure This is critical. Icon Sports has multiple franchisees around Australia. Different clubs belong to different franchisees. For example: Club A → Icon Sports Melbourne Club B → Icon Sports Western Australia Club C → Icon Sports Northern Territory When a customer places an order through a club shop, the system needs to know which franchise owns that club. We need orders, reporting and relevant information to be correctly allocated to that franchise. We also want to discuss whether each franchisee can have their own dashboard/login where they only see information relevant to their territory and clubs. Head Office must have access and control across the entire system. ⸻ 4. Payments & Order Allocation We need a clear solution for payments. Ideally, when a customer purchases from a particular club shop, the payment/order should be associated with the franchisee that owns that club. We need the developer to recommend the best architecture for: * Payment processing * Franchise allocation * Head Office reporting * Refunds * Order management * Accounting/reconciliation Please explain in your proposal how you would structure this technically. ⸻ 5. Customer Enquiry Routing Not every customer will purchase directly online. Many customers will contact us requesting custom uniforms or apparel. We need an enquiry system that can collect information such as: * Customer name * Club/business/school * Email * Phone * Postcode/location * Sport * Products required * Approximate quantities * Additional information The enquiry should then be automatically routed to the correct Icon Sports franchisee based on territory/location. Head Office should still be able to see and track enquiries. ⸻ 6. Franchise Opportunity Section This is a very important part of the website. Icon Sports plans to continue growing through its franchise network, so we need a dedicated and highly professional Franchise Opportunities section. Someone considering purchasing an Icon Sports franchise should immediately see Icon Sports as an established, professional and scalable national brand. This area may include: * Why become an Icon Sports franchisee? * Icon Sports business model * Franchise support * Available territories * Ideal franchisee profile * Franchise enquiry form * Calls to action * SEO-focused franchise landing pages This cannot be an afterthought. We want this section designed specifically to generate quality franchise enquiries and rank well for relevant franchise opportunity searches. ⸻ 7. CMS / Administration We do not want to contact a developer every time we need to make a basic website change. Head Office needs a simple administration system/CMS. We should be able to manage things such as: * Pages * Text * Images * Products * Club shops * Club ownership/franchise allocation * Pricing * Franchise information * Enquiries * Basic SEO information The administration area needs to be simple enough for non-technical staff to use. ⸻ 8. Performance Our existing website has had problems with slow loading speeds and poor performance. The new website must be built with performance as a priority. We expect: * Fast page loading * Mobile optimisation * Clean code * Good Core Web Vitals * Image optimisation * Appropriate caching/CDN architecture * Strong technical SEO * Reliable hosting architecture * Ability to handle increased traffic as Icon Sports grows Please explain what technology/framework you recommend and why. ⸻ 9. SEO & Website Migration Our existing websites already have pages indexed by Google. We do not want to lose existing SEO value when moving to the new website. The project should include a proper migration strategy including: * URL mapping * 301 redirects * Metadata migration where appropriate * Sitemap * Google Search Console setup * Technical SEO * Schema where appropriate * Avoiding broken links * Maintaining existing rankings wherever possible ⸻ 10. Mobile Experience A large percentage of our customers access our website through mobile phones. The entire platform must be designed mobile-first. Club shops and checkout in particular need to be extremely easy to use on mobile. ⸻ What We Are Looking For We would prefer a developer/team that has experience with: * Custom web applications * Multi-vendor or multi-location e-commerce * Marketplace architecture * Franchise systems * Payment integrations * Modern front-end frameworks * CMS development * API integrations * SEO migrations * High-performance websites * AWS, Google Cloud, Azure or similar infrastructure Experience building multi-tenant platforms would be highly regarded. ⸻ What We Need From You Please do not send us only a generic introduction or portfolio. Please answer the following questions in your application: 1. Recommended Technology What technology stack would you use to build this system? Explain why you recommend it. 2. Architecture How would you structure: Icon Sports Head Office → Franchisees → Club Shops → Customers Please explain this simply. 3. Club Shops How would you build the system so we can manage 150+ club shops today and potentially many more in the future? 4. Franchise Payments How would you handle payments/orders belonging to different franchisees? 5. Administration What CMS/admin system would you provide so our Head Office team can manage the website without developers? 6. Franchise Dashboard Can individual franchisees have their own login and only access their own clubs, orders and enquiries? Explain how you would implement this. 7. Performance How would you ensure the website remains fast as the number of clubs, products and customers increases? 8. SEO Migration How would you migrate our existing websites without unnecessarily losing Google rankings? 9. Development Time Please provide an estimated development timeline, including: * Planning * UX/UI design * Development * Testing * Migration * Launch 10. Development Cost Please provide either: * A fixed project price, or * A realistic estimated price range. Please clearly state what is included and what would cost extra. 11. Ongoing Costs Please explain expected ongoing costs after launch, including: * Hosting * Maintenance * Support * Security * Backups * Bug fixes * Software licences * Third-party services 12. Support After launch, what support do you provide? Please explain what is included versus what would be charged separately. 13. Similar Projects Please provide 2–3 examples of systems you have personally built that are similar in complexity. If possible, explain what part of those projects you personally developed. ⸻ Important We are not looking for the cheapest developer. We are looking for the right development partner who can build a platform that Icon Sports can use for many years. At the same time, we are working within a budget, so we are open to discussing a Phase 1 / Phase 2 approach if some functionality can be added later. We want the architecture built correctly from the beginning so we do not have to rebuild the entire platform as the franchise network grows. If you have experience with franchise systems, multi-location e-commerce, multi-tenant architecture or marketplace platforms, please make this clear at the beginning of your application. Please start your application with the words: “ICON SPORTS PLATFORM” This will show us that you have read the full project description.