MEETING THE WEB DEVELOPER

Pixelcraft

kenbrady wrote: »

I've have never really seen a truely "disruptive" company in action. See it here. It has confused and scared other people in the industry.

Let's get real here. What they are apparently offering for free is a populated template. It's hardly earth shattering. Any custom work they require money upfront it seems. The only people this would scare are template resellers.

suey71

I met the with the rep today, nice guy, as they nearly always are.

The meeting lasted approx. 2 hours and he was very open.

I asked him if it was a template and he said it was, but it was designed by the WebDevelopement company in question and took years to develope. There calling it BANG. as apposed to their D*shop which it was previously branded as, only difference is the €50 a month deal.

It will cost me a lot less than I expected to have my site built.
Pricing is as follows.

1. Logo Design. €150.

2. Graphic Design (optional). €225.

3. xhtml. €90.

4. Training €180 for 2 hours training.

5. SSL Cert. €100+- or €15 up front and €7 per month.

This works out at €745. Plus the €50 per month.

He offered me an Adwords Campaign but said that it was optional, and if I wanted I could either learn to do it myself or get someone else to run it.
Same with the SEO and Facebook.

If I go with this company I can have my site built in about 2 weeks.

I have all of the photos and product descriptions I need already.

Also, if I decide to hire my own designer I can, so I can save some extra money.


I'm going with this company.

joePC

OP If this is your first venture into ecommerce then I would recommend you look at http://www.bigcommerce.com

They offer a hosted solution with excellent templates and is very easy to customise etc...

Give it a look - as little as €20 per month.

Should break it down:

1. Logo Design. €150. - I recommend 99designs.com for your logo you will not be disappointed.

2. Graphic Design (optional). €225. - Great templates etc...

3. xhtml. €90. - All changes are done through a GUI with access to the full source if you need to edit - €0

4. Training €180 for 2 hours training. --> Bigcommerce has extensive tutorials / Videos / Guides / Full User Guide etc...

5. SSL Cert. €100+- or €15 up front and €7 per month. --> SSL Cert included for €55

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Hi Suey71,

Sounds like your happy and for the 2 hour meeting, plus all that work it sounds like €1,345 for the first year is a good, scratch that, great price for any sort of e-commerce site.

Hopefully the rep explained the other recurring costs so you have the full outlay on the venture (cash is king after all), Merchant account, payment processor, Hosted payment page Vs PCI compliance and PCI scans.

It would only be right to post a link when they get the site up for you.

tomED

I've just caught the end of this thread.

There are a few major issues here. The first one that I spotted was a comment from Ken. Ken, you clearly don't work in this industry, if you do, you must work for this web development company.

Comparing a website with a piece of software is insane. If you want a website to perform for your business, it cannot be treated like a piece of software. For a website to be truly successful it takes time, care and a great depth of knowledge.

I have absolutely nothing against companies offering solutions like this, there will always be a market for a cheap and nasty solution. But are you giving your business the best chance of success online? No.

What I find most shocking is that (suey) you are willing to spend €1,375 (+VAT I assume), plus €600 per annum to get a templated website!

Why didn't you just buy a templated store from template monster for as little as €120 and pay a student to get it running on some cheap hosting??? You would have saved a fortune and had a site that is just as useful!

For what you are getting, you are paying way over the odds. Just look around the web at the moment you will find plenty of companies offering to build templated e-commerce sites for as little as €1,200.

Don't that web company outsource to India or something? Why didn't you do what they are doing? You could have got it for even cheaper!!!!

The most hillarious of all this is that you are being charged for "xhtml".... only a gangster would charge you that!

From what I've heard, a lot of the "big boys" in terms of web development have been selling these cheap and nasty sites to keep cash flow ticking over. There is clearly a demand.

For me, it reminds me of when I stated in the business. The company I was working for was charging £15k for a brochure website. When the site did nothing for that client, they completely lost faith in the web. I expect this to happen again.

The web is there to be exploited - anyone that tells you not to go the "templated" route, is telling you this because they know the potential a website can have if done correctly!

I wish you all the best with the site! But next time round, take advice from those that know what they are talking about, they're only trying to help you!!

suey71

As I said yesterday the meeting went well, and when asked about any ongoing charges, they said none apart from the €50 per month.

WELL. I got an email with the Terms & Conditions, and there IS a hidden charge.

They want 3% of my websites turnover.

But they say this is capped at €50 per month.

Then they say, (terms are subject to change, and notice will be provided of changes in writing within 30 days prior to change).

What I take from this is that at a later date, they will notify me of an increase in the cap of €50 to an amount of 3% of my turnover.

As one poster said " if it sounds to good to be true.." etc.

The rep obviously knew this but conveniently never told me, even when I asked about hidden charges.

I take back what I said about me using this company to build my website.

I WILL NOT BE USING THIS COMPANY.:mad::mad::mad:.

joePC

Hi Suey,

May I ask what you will be selling? How many products & or Variations will be available online.

The reason I ask, there are a lot of simple solutions that will provide excellent functionality and impressive look for your website - The word template is being used a lot here but just to be clear.

There are loads of great ecommerce systems available, CS-Cart / Interspire / Magento etc... These offer 100's of features that would cost Tens of thousands of Euros to get developed bespoke.

I would recommend you trial a few of these systems and get familiar with the workings and processes at the backend. Choose one you are comfortable with,

Then approach a company to design a template (Frontend) or take a standard template and modify to suit your needs. (99designs.com have a great system to get custom templates / Logos / Print work etc... created)

This needn’t cost €1600+
I am not taking away form the web "development" companies, some of them have truly amazing talents (I have worked with four and can highly recommend them) but given your budget I think you fall into the category of website "creators" - Very little development skills - basic template stuff.

I wish you the best of luck with your website.

Atlas_IRL

Hi Suey,

the commect above is sound advice, you will be running the store so should pick what you think is the best for you.

Check this link for some examples.

http://blog.webdistortion.com/2008/05/03/9-kick-ass-open-source-e-commerce-platforms-reviewed/


Check out all their demos and research more and if you decide to use one, then research a company to design the site for you.

demo examples

cs-cart [url]http://www.cs-cart.com/demo-item.html[/url]

Magento [url]http://www.magentocommerce.com/demo[/url]

Evil Phil

3% isn't too bad if they're going to handle all the CC processing for you. If you go with paypal for CC you'll be paying between 2.9 and 1.9% + $0.30US per transaction, dunno what realex charge at the moment.

Something I'd be concerned about is how to decouple from them at a later date. Their proprietary ecommerce solution means that if you do move from them you're going to have to start from scratch essentially. Unless they offer migration tools for your data. (Note: I think what suey means by template is actually their ecommerce solution, not something downloaded from monstertemplates or what not.)

Again, check how long they're in business for. If they go bust you may loose your site overnight with all its data.

<edit>
Now that I've written this I think the big thing you need to consider is your data. As I've said, if they go bust, or you decide that you no longer want to business with them how easy is it to get to your data? Will you have to cut and paste each customers details before you say goodbye or can you export it at anytime? Ask them about exporting your data and how easy it is.

tomED

Evil Phil wrote: »

3% isn't too bad if they're going to handle all the CC processing for you. If you go with paypal for CC you'll be paying between 2.9 and 1.9% + $0.30US per transaction, dunno what realex charge at the moment.

They're talking about taking 3% of turnover - I seriously doubt they have covered credit card charges in there.

If they haven't, when you take credit card charges into account, Suey is most likely going to have to give away 4-6% of turnover depending on credit card charges being applied.

God, you'd need some margin to make that project worthwhile!

Evil Phil

Yeah, that's a bit of a cut all right.

You could hire a good Irish dev company to put the site together for 2 grand and pay them a monthly retainer to provide support. Host it with a good company and get a hosted payment page until you start making money. Then you wouldn't have to worry about any of this.

tomED

Evil Phil wrote: »

You could hire a good Irish dev company to put the site together for 2 grand and pay them a monthly retainer to provide support. Host it with a good company and get a hosted payment page until you start making money. Then you wouldn't have to worry about any of this.

+1

suey71

Exactly tomED, 3% of turnover would take a hefty chunk out off my profit.

And no Evil Phil the 3% doesn't cover cc processing, its just their ongoing fee.

As I said in an earlier post, at no stage of our correspondence did this company tell me about the 3%.

I have emailed the rep and told him that I would not be dealing with his company, as I found it very underhanded of him to leave out mentioning the said 3% until I recieved the T&C's 4 hours after our meeting.

I have since got a reply stating that he did tell me about the 3%, and that he finds being called underhanded offensive.


They are a very reputable company and I like their websites but I can only deal with upfront, honest companies.

This is the way I will deal with customers and I expect that from the companies that deal with me.

Call me naive.

Evil Phil

suey71 wrote: »

Call me naive.

No, I'd call you very smart.

pontovic

Some very interesting reading there and a great example of how the web industry in this country is almost going down the toilet.

Suey71, you have to understand that web design and development is not a commodity, it is a service which should be provided by professionals with several years experience and education, as with anything else.

That's the ideal situation, but because the barrier to entry is very low for web design, anyone with a computer and access to a website selling templates can call themselves a professional web developer.

People in Ireland now equate websites with computers, in that they can be mass produced in a number of days at a very small cost.

The reality is that a good website takes a lot of thought in terms of making it look good, function well and change easily as and when needed. Knowing how to do this, as has been said before, takes years of learning, practice and training.

Picture it like this - if you went to a new dentist and they said they would give you a check up for a few euro, would you use them? If someone was selling a car at a quarter the normal price, would you buy it?

You might think that the prices quoted are excessive, but you truly do get what you pay for. I want to point you to this thread which you should read from start to finish and which I think should be mandatory reading for all entrepreneurs starting up an online business.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055601122

Good luck with it, and I hope you make the right choice.

ps: Mods, can I create a list here of some web design/development agencies I would recommend? In fact I really think something like this should be made a sticky.

suey71

pontovic wrote: »

Picture it like this - if you went to a new dentist and they said they would give you a check up for a few euro, would you use them? If someone was selling a car at a quarter the normal price, would you buy it?

I remember going to a dentist in Castleknock a number of years ago(I went to Castleknock because I wanted the best dentist I could find, even though I really hadn't got the money), well this dentist told me I needed to have 19 fillings.

I went to a less reputable one and he said I needed 2.
Who would you believe, the expensive one or the cheap one?
I still have those 2 fillings after 21 years and all the rest of my teeth are in good nick.

I only need a basic ecommerce website, nothing amazing, but the difference in the amount of money being charged by these guys is beyond belief, €3000 from one and €10,000 from another.

I believe some companies are out to take you for a ride, or else have too much work on to take on a simple job so frighten you off with a crazy quote.

Thanks for the link, I read it before but I'll read it again.

kenbrady

pontovic wrote: »

You might think that the prices quoted are excessive, but you truly do get what you pay for. I want to point you to this thread which you should read from start to finish and which I think should be mandatory reading for all entrepreneurs starting up an online business.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055601122

More crap.
He could have spent 1 million on a website and it still would have failed.

Read back through the thread. All you see is so called professional web developers, insulting the company mentioned. Not one was able to sell on value, but instead resorted to attacks on the competitor.

If you are going to start an online business do the website course run by the enterprise boards. It will teach you the basics about web development and setup. You will then have the knowledge to manage the whole process yourself. And outsource the development and design to people who offer good value. These people will usually be based outside Ireland.

tomED

kenbrady wrote: »

More crap.
He could have spent 1 million on a website and it still would have failed.

He would have been crazy to spend a million in a market the size of Ireland, so yeah, probably would have failed. It's all relative.

If you go to a web developer who tells you that by investing 1 million into a website to target a country the size of Ireland... well then they're aren't a very good web company are they?

kenbrady wrote: »

Read back through the thread. All you see is so called professional web developers, insulting the company mentioned. Not one was able to sell on value, but instead resorted to attacks on the competitor.

I would be interested to see those "attacks" on the company mentioned?? I didn't see any???

kenbrady wrote: »

If you are going to start an online business do the website course run by the enterprise boards. It will teach you the basics about web development and setup. You will then have the knowledge to manage the whole process yourself.

Absolute nonsense!

Do you seriously think you can learn how to compete with businesses online in a course that's held over a few days or weeks??

Sure hold on, I'll go to one of their book-keeping courses and sure maybe then I'll be able to do without an accountant.

Courses like this give you a good grasp of what is required to get you on the road to success. They don't teach you how to do it. Like everything else, if you want it done right, get someone who has experience in it.

I personally find that the worst thing about these courses is it gives it's students a false sense of what it takes to do what they have covered. There's nothing worse than a client who has read all the books on forums, the majority of which are years out of date.

kenbrady wrote: »

And outsource the development and design to people who offer good value. These people will usually be based outside Ireland.

Another ridiculous comment. Have you ever tried outsourcing a web project?

BangEcommerce

Hello all,
Seán Kirwan here, from Bang Ecommerce. I thought I might clear up some of the points made in this post and provide some more information about what we are doing. This is not a sales pitch, so moderator please remove anything you feel inappropriate.

This is a one off post; I won’t be able to monitor the activity because of work commitments.


About Bang
Bang Ecommerce is a new business we’ve just launched. It comes from Denobi, a web design company that I ran for the last 6 years before stepping down as MD in 2009. The idea behind Bang is to provide a low cost ecommerce platform for both end users and designers to allow them to get up and running quickly with minimal risk.



As Atlas IRL correctly assumed, we can create these sites extremely quickly. All the stores are built off the same platform allowing us to add new features to all our customers. Any web developer who’s been around the block can tell you that wire-framing, design, development / modifications and testing (in particular regression testing) either a new web app or a modified one can be very expensive. By leveraging large numbers we plan to eliminate this and provide an online store that covers 95% of what our users need.


Regarding the off-shoring comments - Bang was developed in Ireland. I’m not knocking off-shoring or trying to start a debate about it. I just think our developers deserve the credit for their work.



My thanks also the Ed, who rightly caught on to the disruptive marketing approach we hope to take.



Bang will be sold principally through resellers. We’ve already signed up one in Dublin (excluding Denobi) and one in Belfast. The idea being that Bang provides a low cost entry solution and then an agency would provide all the additional services. Anyone interested in learning more can contact me offline.


Pricing confusion
Bang’s pricing model is simple 3% transaction on every sale made. If you sell more than 1500 in a month we cap the transaction fee at €50. We do have some extra hosting charges for websites that have a large amount of traffic. These charges are very tame and are there as protection against large hosting bills.


The extra work Denobi quoted for is Denobi’s business. I would however like to take issue with the remark about ‘paying for XHTML’. The poster claimed you should not have to pay for it! Denobi has a XHTML team who might be a little upset to hear that they shouldn’t be paid for their good work. Clean code (like in the site mentioned early), is vital to the success of a website.



It’s worth pointing out that 70% of items sought online by Irish people are not available from online retailers in Ireland. According to AMAS this problem is compounded by the fact that 70% of orders fail because cross border online retailers will not accept orders from other countries. The result leaves a very big opportunity for Irish retailers looking to increase sales.


If anyone would like more information they can contact me directly at sean(pleasedelete)@bangecommerce.com

tomED

BangEcommerce wrote: »

I would however like to take issue with the remark about ‘paying for XHTML’. The poster claimed you should not have to pay for it! Denobi has a XHTML team who might be a little upset to hear that they shouldn’t be paid for their good work. Clean code (like in the site mentioned early), is vital to the success of a website.

That was me who said that.... and I think this is an even more hillarious response.

If you think, and I quote, "clean code is vital to the success of a website", then why aren't you doing it regardless, instead of charging a premium for it???????

kenbrady

tomED wrote: »

I would be interested to see those "attacks" on the company mentioned?? I didn't see any???

Cowboys, can't run a business that way, I think this is an even more hillarious response etc... - read the thread

tomED wrote: »

Sure hold on, I'll go to one of their book-keeping courses and sure maybe then I'll be able to do without an accountant.

Now you are misquoting me.
To use your analogy
Fact
If you know nothing about accountancy. You can do a course, which will enable you to do the basic day books. Then you can outsource the other stuff to an accountant. This will save you thousands.

tomED wrote: »

Another ridiculous comment. Have you ever tried outsourcing a web project?

I have a company that does all my front end web work. Another that does all my graphic design.

tomED

kenbrady wrote: »

Cowboys, can't run a business that way, I think this is an even more hillarious response etc... - read the thread

They never "attacked" the company, they attacked their approach. You're sensationalising it now.

kenbrady wrote: »

Now you are misquoting me.

Not at all - you are suggesting that this guy goes off and does a course and should be able to do it himself. Which is ridiculous. You're simply throwing your money away.

kenbrady wrote: »

I have a company that does all my front end web work. Another that does all my graphic design.

Why not post the URLs and we can see how you've been getting on and see if what you've done is a testament to the approach you are suggesting.

kenbrady

tomED wrote: »

Not at all - you are suggesting that this guy goes off and does a course and should be able to do it himself. Which is ridiculous. You're simply throwing your money away.

I never said that, clear for all to read.

kenbrady wrote: »

You will then have the knowledge to manage the whole process yourself. And outsource the development and design to people who offer good value.

tomED wrote: »

Why not post the URLs and we can see how you've been getting on and see if what you've done is a testament to the approach you are suggesting.

I post here with my personal opinions. It has nothing to do with my business and I don't want to involve it. Plus I couldn't care less what you think

tomED

kenbrady wrote: »

I never said that, clear for all to read.

I don't think it is.

kenbrady wrote: »

I post here with my personal opinions. It has nothing to do with my business and I don't want to involve it. Plus I couldn't care less what you think

Well why voice such an opinion if you can't back it up with facts?

The guy was looking for advice, if you believe so much in your approach, why not show the proof in the pudding?

kenbrady

tomED wrote: »

I don't think it is.

It's written in black and white, do you have a point to make on this ? Try and make it clear and concise.

tomED wrote: »

Not at all - you are suggesting that this guy goes off and does a course and should be able to do it himself. Which is ridiculous. You're simply throwing your money away.

kenbrady wrote: »

You will then have the knowledge to manage the whole process yourself. And outsource the development and design to people who offer good value.

tomED wrote: »

Well why voice such an opinion if you can't back it up with facts?

The guy was looking for advice, if you believe so much in your approach, why not show the proof in the pudding?

I'm happy the customers are happy. That's a fact. Stop obsessing with me.

exsitingisinit

Not sure if this was said but is to OP getting creamed on hosting?

OP: what are you been charged for hosting per year??????

tomED

kenbrady wrote: »

Stop obsessing with me.

Hahahahahahahaha - "you even think this THREAD is about you".... :rolleyes:

The Corinthian

Interesting thread.

I've been in the business for a long time now and found the business model presented in the original post unsustainable, on the face of it. I say on the face of it, because the Devil is in the detail, and that detail is often overlooked by clients until it is too late and the OP may have omitted such details here, leaving us to scratch our heads as to how anyone could turn a profit, after all.

I don't remember ever seeing a 'free' Web site contract, but it is not unusual to get low-ball quotes, that effectively act as honey traps. Once signed in, the client gets what they paid for, except what they paid for is not exactly what they want or need.

To do that you enter the World of change requests. And only from the one supplier (because you are tied into them contractually and often through software licences, etc) who can effectively charge you what they want. These extras may not look expensive, but they add up fast. They're designed to.

Of course extras are not the only way to gouge a client. Promotional prices that get hiked after a few months or a year are another (check your renewal conditions) are another method. Hosting costs or bandwidth caps are yet another.

So assuming that the developer is not some naive freelancer who hasn't worked out what billable hours really mean, my guess it that it would likely be a honey-trap. Looks like a good price now, until the extras come in.

exsitingisinit

I had a bad experience with a web company and decided to look into a website which would benefit all so i bought the url with the intention of giving a form option for the user to fill out for quotes.
The idea is simple

• give information based on what you need to own a website.
• tell the user where to get the service.
• hosting providers
• explain what things mean like SEO, CMS, CRM.

then the job description is sent out the all the members of the site.

I have read treads like this for months and i think its time to get the site up and running..

kenbrady

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