Tyre kickers - rant

the Guru

I work for a large Web Development company and the amount of calls I get from tyre kickers is unbelievable and Indian design companies seeking info to adjust their pricing. I make the effort to write proposals for potential clients and they disappear of the face of the earth. Now I have put this down to a few different options

1, They're getting the information they need from me and going to another design company for the Development.

2. Pretend they're big time and suggest they can afford our services. We charge up to $150 per hour. Then let me know at a later stage after writing as 50k custom solution proposal they went with a turn key design company.

Do any of you that work for development companies have the same issues clients just plain wasting your time.

I now only take about 20% of the enquiries that come to me as my time is better spent with clients with realistic budgets.

mneylon

It's not just web developers that have to put up with that

ripe.ie

I'm a spammer.

Laslo

ripe.ie wrote:

Would you like a website for only €595

check out [url]no link for you [/url]

Template Monster resellers, eh?

Unfortunately many designers today will provide their clients with an excellent service but their prices are totally unreasonable.

...whereas we charge nothing and provide an incredibly poor service by using teamplates, ignoring standards and best practice.

To those at Ripe - if you want to be cowboys then be my guest. But do yourself and favour and remove your 'competitors' section. Baiting your betters in public is 1) unprofessional and 2) leaves your shoddy work open to vitriolic critcism.

mneylon

"Ireland's leading web design company"

Huh?

According to who or to what?

Laslo

I'd say quite average by Irish standards to be honest. On a realistic measure, I would say appalling, shameful, incompetent and unprofessional.

ripe.ie

www.spam.spam

the Guru

Isn't there some type of law in Ireland about quoting competitors pricing,(Maybe Michele you can take this one as your quite knowledgeable in this area).

I remember when I worked for a certain telco in Dublin we could not quote any pricing unless we new it to 100% true.

I'm sure this is the same for ripe. Surely not all web design companies in Ireland charge €2,200 for a full site. This is very misleading and untrue I know companies that will do sites for less and companies that will charge 10 times that figure.

Who are these companies you speak off? let them be known!

mneylon

As far as I know you can mention other people's prices, but you would have to be specific (have a look at any of the comparative ads from telcos or airlines). Saying that "x costs y normally" is vague and misleading unless you show where that pricing is true.

Talliesin

Hah. The twat above thinks that blacknight was (or even could) remove his Spam.

Let's all point at the incompetent Spammer and laugh everyone.

Asok

Gordon

Jaysus, 500k for the flash header menu. Took ages on dialup. Interestingly Eircom logo too!

forbairt

Classic Asok ... I laughed outloud

Laslo

HAAAAAAAAhaaaaa @ Asok

ethernet

ripe.ie wrote:

I'm a spammer.

More like TRIPE looking at that website.

the Guru wrote:

Do any of you that work for development companies have the same issues clients just plain wasting your time.

Customers will shop around. If you didn't make any effort for them at all, they'd definitely go elsewhere and rightfully so. Just a pity that time is lost in dealing with it.

mneylon

ethernet wrote:

Customers will shop around. If you didn't make any effort for them at all, they'd definitely go elsewhere and rightfully so.

Agreed

ethernet wrote:

Just a pity that time is lost in dealing with it.

The problem is when they're simply using you to get a better rate from their current supplier and have no serious intention of actually buying your services

breadmonkey

Why not charge something for the design which is then deducted from the final cost? I worked in a company that designed/installed kitchens and they did this. Maybe it wouldn't work for this kind of work.

the Guru

I have considered that for proposal over 100k, Charge 5k for writing the proposal which will be taken of the final fee if were successful with the bid.

you cant really get away with that allot of times, I have found that companys will just move on to another vendor, then you have no chance of the business.