Website Design Detroit, MI: The Anatomy of a Supplier Site, Plus a Storefront Strand

Updated November 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

A sourcing buyer has your company name, a part drawing to quote and ten minutes before the RFQ list closes. What that buyer finds on your site decides whether you get the drawing. Good website design Detroit MI suppliers can rely on answers those questions one page at a time, and this guide walks through each page, from capability to quality to defense wording. A shorter strand then covers storefront owners opening in the city through Motor City Match. Progression is a New York City firm that works with Detroit clients remotely, and each project begins with a free proposal and a written scope.

Website design Detroit, MI suppliers need for a ten-minute RFQ visit

An illustrative visit written for this page: a buyer at an assembler is working through a list of suppliers to quote a bracket. Your name is on the list. The buyer opens your site and wants to know, in this order, whether you can make the part, where, to what quality system and how to send the drawing. Website design Detroit Michigan suppliers commission should be judged by whether each of those questions has an answer on a page of its own.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation says 96 of the top 100 automotive suppliers to North America have a presence in Michigan. A buyer in this market therefore has choices, and a supplier that is hard to read in ten minutes gives the buyer a reason to move to the next name. Nothing on this page is a measurement of buyer behavior. It is a way to organize a site around the questions a buyer has to answer quickly.

What does a sourcing buyer open first?

Usually the page that says what you make. A home page full of plant photographs does not answer that, and neither does a PDF buried in a menu. Put the capability page one click from the home page, and make the RFQ route visible from every page, so a buyer who has seen enough can act without searching.

Detroit, Michigan web design: the capability page a sourcing buyer opens first

Detroit Michigan web design for an industrial company is mostly a writing and structure job. The capability page lists what you make, from what, to what tolerance and in what volumes, using words you can stand behind in a quote. Done well, it has more in common with a specification sheet than with a brochure. Our manufacturing website design page covers the industrial template in general.

• Processes, such as stamping, machining, molding or assembly, each named in the buyer’s vocabulary.
• Materials you work with, and the ones you do not.
• Tolerances and finishes you will stand behind in a written quote.
• Press tonnage, bed size or an equivalent measure of capacity.
• Volume ranges, from prototype quantities to production runs.
• Secondary operations you perform in-house and the ones you manage through partners.

Part families, not a list of machines

Buyers think in parts, not in equipment. Sort what you make into families with a name, a photograph you took, the materials and a sentence on the typical application. A list of machines tells an engineer what you own, while a part family tells a sourcing buyer whether you have made something like theirs.

Plant locations and what each one makes

If you have more than one plant, give each its own short section: the city, the processes, the certificates held at that site and the people to contact. A buyer who needs a source close to an assembly line wants to see that at a glance. If a customer portal for orders or drawings is part of the picture, our automotive software development page covers that side.

The quality page: what you can say about IATF 16949

The International Automotive Task Force describes itself, on its website, as an ad hoc body of automakers and their trade associations. Its history of the standard says ISO/TS 16949 was created in 1999 to harmonize assessment and certification systems across the automotive supply chain. IATF 16949:2016 cancels and replaces ISO/TS 16949:2009 and, in the task force’s words, has a strong orientation to the customer, with a number of consolidated customer specific requirements. The site also publishes those requirements and a list of certification bodies.

None of that tells a supplier what its own website may say. That depends on the certificate you hold, so state only that, and check the wording with the certification body that issued it. The task force’s site lists a certificate validity check, which suggests a buyer can verify what you claim. This page promises nothing about audits or compliance.

Stating a certificate without stretching it

Name the certificate exactly as issued, the site or sites it covers and the body that issued it. Do not write that a plant is certified if only another plant holds the certificate, and do not describe a customer’s requirements as your own. Customer specific requirements belong in the sales conversation, where the customer tells you which apply. If you are not sure how to word a line, ask your registrar before the line goes live.

• The certificate’s exact name and edition.
• The site or sites it covers.
• The body that issued it, and the date it is valid to.

Defense work: what ITAR leaves room for on a public site

Some Detroit suppliers make parts with a defense use. The U.S. export regulations treat information about defense articles with care, and a public website is the widest possible release. What follows quotes the regulation’s wording, it is general information and it is not legal advice. Ask export counsel before you publish any drawing, any photograph of a controlled part or any spec sheet.

Marketing description versus technical data

Under 22 CFR 120.33, technical data means information required for the design, development, production, manufacture, assembly, operation, repair, testing, maintenance or modification of defense articles, including blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, instructions or documentation. The definition does not include information in the public domain, and it does not include basic marketing information on function or purpose or general system descriptions of defense articles. A short description of what a part does is therefore a different thing from the drawing that shows how to make it.

Can a public page show a part?

That is a question for export counsel, not a web designer. The regulation at section 120.34 defines the public domain through listed routes, and one of them is public release, meaning unlimited distribution in any form after approval by the cognizant U.S. Government department or agency. Publishing something first and asking afterward does not fit that route.

• Do not publish a drawing, a photograph of a controlled part or a spec sheet until counsel has read it.
• Describe what a part does, not how it is made.
• Keep a record of who approved each page that mentions a defense use.

Saying you are registered

Under section 122.1, a person in the United States in the business of manufacturing or exporting defense articles, or furnishing defense services, is required to register with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. Paragraph (c) says registration is primarily a way to give the Government information and does not confer any export rights or privileges. A line on your site that says you are registered can be true, but it should not read as approval or as a right to export.

The RFQ form: taking a drawing without creating a problem

The RFQ form is where the website turns into a business process. It should ask for what a quoting engineer needs and nothing else, and it should treat an uploaded drawing as a document with an owner. Web design in Detroit for an industrial supplier is mostly decisions about where those files go and who sees them.

What should the RFQ form ask for?

Company, contact, part number or description, material, quantity and the date the quote is needed. Let a buyer attach a file, and show the accepted file types and size. Send a confirmation that says who will reply and by when, if you can keep that promise.

Where do controlled drawings go?

Not through the public form. If a part is subject to export controls, set up a separate route with your export counsel, and say on the form that controlled files should not be uploaded there. An NDA-first option, where the buyer asks for terms before sending a drawing, gives a buyer a way to start the conversation without a file. Decide who can open uploads, where they are stored and how long they are kept, and write that down.

Suppliers that need more than a form, such as a logged-in area where buyers check order status or download drawings, are in portal territory. Our web portal development page covers that, and our web development services page covers the platform behind it. A supplier asking for website development Detroit teams can maintain after launch should ask who will own the logins.

Audit your own supplier site in ten minutes

Before you hire anyone, open your own site as the buyer would and time yourself. The table gives a pass mark for each page, and you can check every one without help. Write down what fails, because that list becomes the brief.

• Run the test on a phone as well as a desk computer.
• Ask someone outside the company to try it, and watch without helping.
• Keep a dated copy of each page you change, so you can show what the site said and when.

Keeping a supplier site current

A supplier site goes stale quietly. Certificates expire, plants change what they make, and a person named as a contact leaves. Treat the site as a document that has owners, and give each page one.

• Put every certificate’s expiry date on a calendar, with the page that mentions it.
• Name an owner for each page, and a second person for each owner.
• Review the defense wording whenever a program or a part changes.
• Test the RFQ form each quarter, from outside the network.
• Remove people who have left from contact lists and from site accounts the same day.
• Check that every listing and directory entry still points to a page that exists.

Our WordPress maintenance services page covers updates, backups and monitoring for sites that run on WordPress.

Web design companies in Detroit, sorted by the strand they serve

A search for a Detroit web design company or a Detroit website design co turns up firms of every size, and a supplier and a storefront do not need the same thing from them. Sort by strand first, then by evidence. When you compare web design companies in Detroit, ask each for work like yours, and do not accept a portfolio of a different kind of site as an answer.

Which strand are you?

A supplier sells to buyers who read drawings, and a storefront sells to people who walk past. The table sets out what to ask for in each.

Neither strand is better, and many Detroit owners are both: a supplier with a small retail counter, or a storefront that sells to businesses. If your buyer is another business and you also need to be found, see the marketing agency in Detroit page for the marketing side.

Web design Detroit, MI budgets for both strands

Someone who types “web design Detroit MI” into a search bar will see firms of every size, and scope, not the city, explains the spread in price. A supplier site with a capability section, plant pages and a handled RFQ route costs more than a one-page storefront, and the published bands below reflect that. The figures sit here, between the two strands, because they apply to both.

Our prices for supplier and storefront sites

These are the fixed-scope prices published on our website design and development page. Each price is a starting point, and the written scope sets the final figure.

Published bands for each strand

The figures below come from other providers’ published pages and run from the typical low to the published high. None of them is a Progression quote, and none is specific to Detroit.

A grant or a loan does not change what a site costs. Ask the program before counting website costs in any budget, and do not assume a program covers them.

Website design Detroit storefronts need when opening through Motor City Match

Motor City Match, on its website, says it connects new businesses with services and space to grow. Its tracks are Plan, Develop, Design and Cash, plus a Building track for property owners. Website design Detroit storefront owners need at opening is small, and it can sit comfortably inside a budget that is mostly about construction.

What does the program say about grants and costs?

On its Cash Track page, the program lists gap funding grants of up to $100,000, with a requirement of 10 percent owner equity and grants that generally do not exceed 50 percent of total project cost. The average Cash Track grant is $50,000, according to the program. Its About page adds that winners must remain located within the City of Detroit for at least three years and verify the jobs created or retained. The pages do not say whether the cost of a website counts toward a grant budget, so ask the program.

The About page also says the program connects awardees to business services from qualified professionals, with web and digital services among those listed. That is a program benefit, and it is not an endorsement of any firm, ours included. Progression has no tie to the program.

The one-page site for opening week

A new storefront needs a page that answers six questions before anyone walks in. The cards list them. A single landing page is where most owners start, and the published bands put one at $1,000 to $15,000. Pages can be added after you open, when you know what customers ask.

• Write the hours as they will be in your first month, not as you hope they will be.
• Use your own photographs, taken in the space.
• Test the phone number and the map link before opening day.

From awardee listing to your own pages

The program says open awardees are listed on its website and promoted through its own channels, the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and Detroit Means Business features. A listing is only useful if it points somewhere. Make the link lead to a real page with your hours, your address and a way to reach you. For a shop that sells online, our ecommerce website design page covers ecommerce website development services for Detroit sellers and others, and our web design for small business page covers the smaller site.

Related services and guides

More pages on the services around this work:

• Website design and development
• Manufacturing website design
• Marketing agency in Detroit
• Web design for small business
• Manufacturing SEO
• Web portal development

Frequently asked questions