Ridiculous price-war and undercutting in Web Design

IrishExpat

Maybe it's just me, but I have noticed a steep decrease in prices of late with 'designers', particularly on Irish classified websites. From €200 down as low as €25 for web design.

I have to ask; what is their business model, if this amounts to a sustainable income? Or is it a high number of part-time designers or template-merchants?

If I begin work with a client it involves a number of time consuming steps:

• initial networking, or email or call
• initial consultation
• organizing domain name / hosting (if they're not tech minded)
• negotiating timelines and deadlines, and being extremely flexible
• sourcing assets (if any)
• beginning design process, including client along the way
• rendering initial sketches etc to vector
• possibly user testing
• beginning to code (HTML5, CSS3, PHP)
• Installing the chosen WP/Joomla platform
• SEO and Analytics
• Competitors Analysis
• client training on using the WP platform
• the list goes on ...

That's only one possible formula of the steps.

This, including continuous development in any number of software packages (Adobe, SEO workshops), never mind marketing myself and customer support amounts to a full-time job - and I price myself accordingly.

To see others then clearly re-selling templates or sub-standard design for €25 ... it 'must' be damaging this industry.

Am I missing something?

Open to discussion on this one.

Kenny Logins

€25? That's crazy. Where did you see this?

OU812

I used to work in web design when a simple HTML site would cost thousands.

Made a comfortable living off it too.

Prices came down & I got out for a couple or reasons, but mostly because I could see the direction it was going.

It should still have a reasonable cost attached for something decent, but people are prepared to pay very little for anything these days

As an example but unrelated.

I was trying to give away a CRT portable TV on done deal & got loads of calls from people who wanted to know would I deliver it to them too.

Zamboni

It is like taxi drivers in Dublin. Low entry requirements.
There's thousands of teenagers/students out there who have these skills.
I'm not doubting your professional service but the simple fact is that there too many providers now.
Many customers requiring web development may not even understand what their business require are and might base their purchase decision purely on cost.
There is oversupply leading to a reduction in price.
This isn't 'damaging' the industry. It is just business.

IrishExpat

Kenny Logins wrote: »

€25? That's crazy. Where did you see this?

Gumtree.ie, if I remember correctly.

I'll try to track it down, but here's another one, offering for €70. Not 'as' bad, but still far too low. Once again, I'd love to see their business model.

http://www.gumtree.ie/cp-media-design-creative-in-dublin/web-developer-designer-available-at-a-low-price-464284291

Yes I agree the prices of old - several thousand for simple HTML markup - were overblown and ultimately unsustainable, and I'm all for clients shopping around for the best ROI, but there has to be a line.

I now receive work on nearly 100% referrals, but I've had clients bring this up before - "oh we saw a student offering a website for €50." or "we're thinking of going with Wix."

The best I can do is count to 10 and give the analogy of IKEA vs. commissioning a carpenter for a long-lasting, unique item.

Time to get out of this game and focus on upskilling for pure marketing/branding?

robfahy

I used to freelance, but got out and opted for full-time employment when I had to compete with "Irish" web design firms that had no clue what they were doing and outsourcing all their work to freelancers in India they had sourced online. They were easily able to undercut me and many clients just compared price, without taking any of the advantages of working with a professional into consideration. One client in particular, who I had worked with for years opted for a new local design firm over me, who offered to do an e-commerce website for him for €500. A few months later he came back to me when everything went pear-shaped. They told him they could no longer reach the web designer in India that was working on his website.

If you're really lucky, you'll get a student who has enough talent to cover for lack of experience, and is willing to do sites for really cheap in order to build a portfolio.

Usually the service will involve

1. Install a CMS via control panel (customer pays for domain and hosting)
2. Add a free theme
3. Upload a logo through theme control panel

A portion of our client base comes from people on the rebound from these cheap site providers. I met one coming into work this very morning - he'd been in to me (twice), bought the cheap option elsewhere. Now he needs something that actually works and shows up in the search engines, from someone who will return his phone calls and reply to his emails.

Kenny Logins

Just had a peep at one Gumtree advertiser offering website design services for ~€99, has 5+ years experience, but is only 12 (or 13) years old. Fair play to him.

IrishExpat

Deleted User wrote: »

If you're really lucky, you'll get a student who has enough talent to cover for lack of experience, and is willing to do sites for really cheap in order to build a portfolio.

Usually the service will involve

1. Install a CMS via control panel (customer pays for domain and hosting)
2. Add a free theme
3. Upload a logo through theme control panel

A portion of our client base comes from people on the rebound from these cheap site providers. I met one coming into work this very morning - he'd been in to me (twice), bought the cheap option elsewhere. Now he needs something that actually works and shows up in the search engines, from someone who will return his phone calls and reply to his emails.

You're right, this is the 'one' advantage of the cheap option, but it can also 'burn' the client, who now doesn't trust designers after receiving the 'cheap' option.

Luckily I'm getting out of this line of work soon to focus on a very different industry, but in recent months I've re-positioned myself as 'the' go-to designer/consultant for a particular sector in a specific geographical area, and there's enough work to keep me occupied.

So a strong option is niche web design, but it takes a 'lot' of networking and relationship building and knowing the industry and its challenges.

pcardin

WordPress can do wonders nowdays and simple to understand and use therfore cheap prices. :pac:

smash

If someone tells you they can get it cheaper, then let them. A race to the bottom is not a race I want to be in.

devildriver

smash wrote: »

If someone tells you they can get it cheaper, then let them. A race to the bottom is not a race I want to be in.

Nail on the head right there!

Usually if a potential client questions my pricing and says they can get it much cheaper elsewhere I'll say "Great, give me his name I'll hire him".

The reality is there are some providers out there that can provide quality at low cost - but they are very rare. Most lowcost designers are poor quality and provide poor support simply because they have to produce high volume to make their pricing sustainable.

As a designer you must be able to convince your customer that you are offering value and quality and that does not come cheap. If they are prepared to sacrifice the professional image of their business for the sake of saving a few quid then it's best to let them go elsewhere.

off.the.walls

I find the fact that you're all targeting students as the problem with this rather offensive, I'm a student, I charge accordingly for my time. Not saying I can produce amazing websites but I can produce good quality either from scratch, templates and or wordpress themes depending on what it is that my clients want done.

But the fact is if people like me want to get the clients we can't be charging them thousands for a site that we can easily make with the skills we have learned and only by doing these cheap jobs are we going to have a portfolio impressive enough to get into the industry in order to be able to charge the higher prices.

Sonnenblumen

Spending lots or little on designing a site is no guarantee of value. It is easy to point the finger and point out the risks of a race to the bottom, but in my experience, the designers are hardly exclusive innocent victims? Why would any prospective client accept a poor pitch, no matter what the fee may be?

The sooner some of them realise they are not masters of life and quoting for open heart surgery the better. As for the ones that never reply in a reasonable time, well the bottom is probably nearer than they realise.

Another poster made a very valid point about young designers offering very competitive rates because they are building experience as well as a portfolio.

Wide ranging pricing is not unique to this industry, responsive better proposals/project pitches would be a step in the right direction to helping clients see the real value of professional design in practice.

Graham

IrishExpat wrote: »

Gumtree.ie, if I remember correctly.

I'll try to track it down, but here's another one, offering for €70. Not 'as' bad, but still far too low. Once again, I'd love to see their business model.

http://www.gumtree.ie/cp-media-design-creative-in-dublin/web-developer-designer-available-at-a-low-price-464284291

Looking at the other Ads from that advertiser he can also supply you with:

Avon consultation
Satellite TV (no license required)
Scratch cards
Porn/lingerie
Personal shopping
Personal training
Child minding/Nanny/Au-pair
Cooking steamer
Counselling (but only without pills).

gctest50

Kenny Logins wrote: »

Just had a peep at one Gumtree advertiser offering website design services for ~€99, has 5+ years experience, but is only 12 (or 13) years old. Fair play to him.

"....where at age 10 he enrolled at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland. He graduated cum laude with a degree in mathematics and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and five other honor fraternities.

Humanitarian aid efforts are benefiting orphans in East Timor and youth in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Smith is helping people in Rwanda build their first public library.

He has met with presidents, including former President Bill Clinton and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as Nobel Peace laureates, such as Ireland’s Betty Williams and South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu. His efforts have brought him before the United Nations Security Council and several state legislatures."


You'd never know sure - could be this lad gathering up a few euro to finish the library in Rwanda.

KonFusion

Gumtree?

Seriously? Anyone getting their web guy off gumtree deserves whatever ****e they end up with :pac:

These people are not web designers. They do not drive prices down, and they most certainly do not pose competition to me, or any other legitimate web designers/devs/companies etc.

Do they damage the industry? No. They're not even in the same industry. They are not selling design, and the customers are certainly not buying it.

Do they damage an outsiders perception of the industry? Perhaps. But as already mentioned, that is not unique to our industry, and it's nothing new.

You can buy do-it-yourself eye surgery kits, but that isn't damaging the eye surgery industry

In a recent blog post by @Paddy, one of my colleagues, he was talking about the cost of a website and competition with services such as Squarespace etc, he mentioned a blog post by Eoghan McCabe talking about 99designs, which I quote part of below as it's pretty apt:

But I don’t advise people against using 99designs as long as they know what they’re buying. They’re buying their pick off the rails in T.K. Maxx. They’re buying their choice of sandwich filling in Centra. They’re buying LASIK@home. They’re buying a half-hour off a cheap hooker. They are not buying design.

So worry not lovely denizens of the design industry, these cowboys are only competing amongst themselves.

B1gft

My main business is web development but I am also involved with another unrelated business. The two business's are under pressure from people selling at major reduced prices. I find (not saying all) that the money goes into the back pockets, in other words, they do not pay tax. This alone, straight away, makes it hard to compete.

I think that developers or any small business person, has to find a niche, that is not over competitive. You have Google, the enterprise board and I think Blacknight giving free websites for one year, I think I heard someplace that they have giving 10,000 sites.
I had a pub as a client. A young girl, who was working part time in the pub, told the owner that he could get a free Website on WordPress.Com. He phoned me in a rage, thinking I had robbed him for hosting and support. I lost his business and God knows how many more from him talking.
The days are gone that the most expensive is the best (or people use to assume that)
There was a programme on Bloomberg called App nation, all about the App business. There was two 13 year olds who had made a successful maths App. 13 years old!
This business is changing.
Just for the record I thought myself WordPress when I was 43, imagine the kids who are computer savey in primary school. The competition is just going to get worse.
You can tell anyone the advantages of paying hundreds over little money, but the realistic situation is business's are, in the norm, cash strapped.

OU812

Anyone copped the banner on the page

smash

off.the.walls wrote: »

I find the fact that you're all targeting students as the problem with this rather offensive, I'm a student, I charge accordingly for my time.

You charge too little!

The Corinthian

Most Web sites are not rocket science any more. It's not 1999, when you'd have to build a CMS from scratch, design the DB and write all the stored procedures, or do the designs separately, then cut them up and embed them in your code. The reality is with the range of CMS's out there nowadays, you can produce a full site, with a new design template, a surprisingly varied number of features and functionality (including fully functional eCommerce shop-fronts) and the whole thing won't take you more than a day or two at most. And that covers probably 95% of Web sites.

Of course, there's more to it like that; undeclared nixers allowing lower prices, desperate Webdev firms trying to get some cash-flow - any cash-flow - to survive a little longer, and also cluelessness on the part of suppliers who underestimate how long a project will take.

However, for 95% of sites in the SME sector, a monkey with a few spare weekends to figure out how to set up Wordpress and apply a template is all that's needed and this ease of entry along with Irish clients always looking for something for nothing (or at least close to nothing) and have no issue with substandard work, means that the Webdev market is a bit of a turkey nowadays.

Except for that 5%. That's where you get your rebounds, when they've realized that the bottom-feeder they've hired can't actually do the job, even at a substandard level. Where you actually need to code or design from scratch and understand what you're doing rather than cut 'n paste. But those projects tend to be with larger firms (who have special requirements) or the public sector (as they have to show they did due diligence when awarding the contract).

There be money there still.

KonFusion

The Corinthian wrote: »

Except for that 5%. That's where you get your rebounds.

That makes it sound like only 5% of people are getting professional work done, and only after they go with some idiot

I disagree with you on the 95% of SME's remark. I don't think it's that high. There's plenty of SME's out there (and startups) who have a brand, and need a site that maintains and/or reflects that brand accurately, where a scraped together wordpress site just won't cut it. But yes, I do agree that for a majority of them this is the case, but these people should never be one's target in the first place, so does it really drive down prices for bespoke web work? I would say no.

There's plenty of work out there (if not more so than ever? I need an infographic or something :P), and still plenty of people who recognise the value over some guy off gumtree. I know a number of firms so busy with projects that they're turning down work (albeit this is only in the past 6-12 months), or referring it on elsewhere to smaller firms.

You can compete on price, or you can compete on quality. If you're selling a homogeneous product, such as wordpress with an off the shelf template, then you can't compete on quality, and you're in a race to the bottom.

So we're competing on quality, selling a completely different product. These guys/gals doing the off the shelf sites "for 95% of sites in the SME sector" have no true bearing on us, other than I mentioned in my previous post.

If the thread is about them, then yeah sure, it's a price war where they undercut each other in a race to bottom of the bargain bucket.

But if it's about us, I don't feel there's a 'ridiculous' price war, or major undercutting. No more than there is in any open market.

The Corinthian

KonFusion wrote: »

I disagree with you on the 95% of SME's remark. I don't think it's that high.

The percentage wasn't exactly scientifically derived, it was meant more for illustrative purposes. My point is that nowadays, it's pretty clear that a significant, if not overwhelming, majority of Sites are built on the back of such CMS's, and the skill required in managing, modifying (all but low level) and installing them isn't exactly rocket science.

If the thread is about them, then yeah sure, it's a price war where they undercut each other in a race to bottom of the bargain bucket.

I understand that, but as I said, they're able to do what these clients want at a level that the clients are willing to accept. Why pay a more expensive firm to do something that is so easy to get into that a monkey who charges a quarter the rate will do quite adequately?

In short, stop chasing brochureware and other simple site contracts.

CelticRambler

It's not just the bottom drawer designers that damage the reputation of this sector but high-price, high-profile projects too. Think of the new-look Irish Times, the EU Presidency, Discover Ireland - all big-budget, professional designers and severely criticised (rightly) on this very forum. That encourages SME owners to question the value of paying 000s when there's no obvious correlation between price and quality. So they think 'why not risk 50 or 100 on "some student" effort?'

There's also the problem of what to do with a website, or what to expect from it. I'm old school - I love hand-coding and keeping file sizes to the absolute minimum (a side effect of learning in the days when 16k RAM was massive) - so I appreciate sites that have a "handcrafted" feel to them much more than a collection of widgets and applets and two dozen calls to third party sources.

redman85

The Corinthian wrote: »

Why pay a more expensive firm to do something that is so easy to get into that a monkey who charges a quarter the rate will do quite adequately?

Can I ask what experience you have in web design / development?

The Corinthian

CelticRambler wrote: »

It's not just the bottom drawer designers that damage the reputation of this sector but high-price, high-profile projects too. Think of the new-look Irish Times, the EU Presidency, Discover Ireland - all big-budget, professional designers and severely criticised (rightly) on this very forum. That encourages SME owners to question the value of paying 000s when there's no obvious correlation between price and quality. So they think 'why not risk 50 or 100 on "some student" effort?'

Those costs tend to be bloated as a result of non or extra developmental costs. Doing any kind of IT project for larger orgs is a very different beast to doing one for an SME, and unless you're willing to suck up the extra hours that are often imposed by the internal bureaucracy, politics and due diligence demanded by such projects, then they add up, I'm afraid.

redman85 wrote: »

Can I ask what experience you have in web design / development?

Over fifteen years. You?

devildriver

KonFusion wrote: »

You can compete on price, or you can compete on quality. If you're selling a homogeneous product, such as wordpress with an off the shelf template, then you can't compete on quality, and you're in a race to the bottom.

So we're competing on quality, selling a completely different product. These guys/gals doing the off the shelf sites "for 95% of sites in the SME sector" have no true bearing on us, other than I mentioned in my previous post.

If the thread is about them, then yeah sure, it's a price war where they undercut each other in a race to bottom of the bargain bucket.

But if it's about us, I don't feel there's a 'ridiculous' price war, or major undercutting. No more than there is in any open market.

Exactly. I think this is one of the most important dictinctions on these types of discussions.

We're simply not comparing like with like.

When these araguments break out (regularly in my experience) about design being too cheap or too expensive we find that everyboy from the lowly Wordpress hack flinging together nasty templates right through to huge agencies that charge hundreds of thousands is bundled together as if they were the same thing.

They are not. And their clients are not either.


They have different requirements, expectations, audiences and budgets.

That encourages SME owners to question the value of paying 000s when there's no obvious correlation between price and quality.

No obvious correlation - well that's questionable but for the sake of argument if we can see two sites that "look" exactly the same does that mean the process of creating them was exactly the same?

Trojan

It's become a bifurcated industry - this a natural development of the industry life cycle, and trying to prevent it is futile. Instead, be aware and embrace it.

Aaron Wall (SEObook - great blog) writes about this issue in SEO:

Aaron Wall wrote:

This is why it is so hard to find a great SEO to recommend for small businesses. If that SEO really knows what they are doing & understands the market dynamics, then they probably won't serve the small business end of the market very long, or if they do, they will do so in a way where their continued flow of payments is not tied to performance.

The issue in web design is very similar. Our market is becoming polarised with more and more low end services coming online.

You can optimise, scale and replicate in order to service the cheap web-design-as-a-commodity end of the market, or to go for the opposite end with high quality, customised services - provide something different that only you can provide.

It's also possible to use segmentation to attempt to service both markets with different brands (even with identical products: Old Navy vs. The Gap vs. Banana Republic).

Another option is product creation - apps, software-as-a-service, elearning, etc. (This is something I've done myself - creating SelfAssemblySites to service the web-design-as-a-commodity market.) SEOmoz abandoned SEO consulting and created a membership site that provides tools instead - far more scalable.

As web design customers become more experienced and educated, they will start to see the value of higher quality services. I've seen an interesting pattern - I've found that a typical startup business will be happy with their 3rd website.

The first they've usually paid too little for (seeing it as a commodity) and the site is unprofessional. The second time around they've paid too much for, but the site is still not good enough as they didn't plan and spec it out properly. By the time they get to the third attempt at it they have their ducks in a row: they are far more educated in what they need the site to do, and about how to manage the design and development process.

Actors often talk about the "5 Stages of Fame":

(Actor) Mary Astor wrote:

Supply the name of any well-known player, and the producer/director/casting office says,

1. Who's Mary Astor?
2. Get me Mary Astor.
3. Get me a Mary Astor type.
4. Get me a young Mary Astor.
5. Who's Mary Astor?

The same applies to being remarkable and building a brand and reputation in our industry. If you want to service the high-quality end of the spectrum, you want the customers saying "Get me Mary Astor".

The competitive advantages the marketplace demands is someone more human, connected, and mature. Someone with passion and energy, capable of seeing things as they are and negotiating multiple priorities as she makes useful decisions without angst. Flexible in the face of change, resilient in the face of confusion. All of these attributes are choices, not talents, and all of them are available to you. -- Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

maccored

This thread makes me wonder if web design in itself, as a standalone business model, isn't really just dead. It's being swallowed up by web development work, where you supply VP web servers and look after everything for the client, including their design. Most SMEs Ive met dont use their sites to it's best abilities, mainly because it was designed like a printed brochure, and not like a shopfront to a digital world. Thats where most low cost web design focuses itself and as a result their clients WILL be happy enough, as thats all they have come to expect from a website. Many SMEs have to be approached with a solution to how a website will improve business, and thats outside the remit of low cost designers.

B.A._Baracus

Graham wrote: »

Looking at the other Ads from that advertiser he can also supply you with:

Avon consultation
Satellite TV (no license required)
Scratch cards
Porn/lingerie
Personal shopping
Personal training
Child minding/Nanny/Au-pair
Cooking steamer
Counselling (but only without pills).

That is insane!!! :pac:
I put the sellers mobile number into google and all the above came up. lol.

What a chancer. lol.

Sonnenblumen

Perhaps he's another example of a budding well diversified entrepeneur whose name might remind you of something sweet?

Oh Lord, it can't be?:D

The Corinthian

maccored wrote: »

This thread makes me wonder if web design in itself, as a standalone business model, isn't really just dead.

Which business model? Both the market and how it's catered to has changed dramatically over the last twenty years.

In the 90's Web development was better known as Web design. The first to get into it were the desktop publishing outfits producing static HTML sites, using WYSIWYG packages such as PageMill or FrontPage. Back then you didn't have designers or developers, you had Webmasters, who spanned both diciplines.

Between 1998 and 2001, the landscape had changed; as technologies such as (classic) ASP, ColdFusion, Flash and PHP began to appear and clients began to demand dynamic and more attractive sites, the Jack-of-all-trades Webmaster didn't fit the bill any more in most cases and so you started seeing more sites built by designers and programmers working together.

Project managers and business analysts began appearing to deal with larger projects (at the start most were really just glorified account managers). And SEO specialists followed soon after.

Then blogging took off and with it you began to see 'out of the box' CMS systems. It was inevitable that CMS's were going to end up productised; even when we had to do each one as a bespoke project, it didn't take long before code started being reused in large chunks, and soon after would be modularized into SSI's or server objects.

The dotBomb also necessitated this; VC money had vanished and with it the start-ups that many Web design firms were overly reliant on. What remained had smaller budgets, so being able to roll a site out with fewer resources became a commercial necessity - I remember seeing quotes in 2002 that would have literally been ten times larger three years earlier.

Maintenance agreements also suddenly became sought after - during the dotcom, you avoided them as new projects were far more lucrative and maintenance agreements would only use up resourced you might need for them.

So the business model changed.

By 2008 these CMS's had matured - prior to that a small-time developer would still have little trouble selling a bespoke site to an SME, but since then your only chance of doing so is increasingly when the SME needed something that simply cannot be done 'out of the box'.

The SME market is such nowadays that it is possible to provide a pretty flexible range of designs and functionality in a Web site using such CMS's, and these are so easy to set up (most are click and install, and adding modules or customizations can be done entirely via a control panel) that a basic site can be knocked up in two hours at most and to become relatively competent at doing so requires only a free weekend.

This is also true for SME's because they're far less likely to seek anything that cannot be done with an 'out of the box' CMS and also tend to prioritize price over quality. Due diligence isn't even a factor.

So between easy of entry into the industry, ease of production and an SME market that favours cheap and functional, probably has killed the business model of a decade ago. And all that means is that the industry should thus adapt to find a new one. Or go after the big fish.

BostonB

Its like a restaurant. you can get food anywhere but you need to create something customers see as worth paying extra for.

There's no point competing on price. It has to be a sustainable income.

skimpydoo

IrishExpat wrote: »

Gumtree.ie, if I remember correctly.

I'll try to track it down, but here's another one, offering for €70. Not 'as' bad, but still far too low. Once again, I'd love to see their business model.

http://www.gumtree.ie/cp-media-design-creative-in-dublin/web-developer-designer-available-at-a-low-price-464284291

Yes I agree the prices of old - several thousand for simple HTML markup - were overblown and ultimately unsustainable, and I'm all for clients shopping around for the best ROI, but there has to be a line.

I now receive work on nearly 100% referrals, but I've had clients bring this up before - "oh we saw a student offering a website for €50." or "we're thinking of going with Wix."

The best I can do is count to 10 and give the analogy of IKEA vs. commissioning a carpenter for a long-lasting, unique item.

Time to get out of this game and focus on upskilling for pure marketing/branding?

He has 2 images of "so called work that he has done". He did in his hole design a site for the EBS.

pfurey101

Looks like he hasnt got €70 to make his own website. I googled his mobile also - but gave up on SERP #7.

B.A._Baracus

Probably a good place to ask
Whats the best way to learn how to create good, decent web sites these days? Any courses in Dublin?

I was told alot of web design stuff these days are self thought - but wouldnt you pick up bad habits with being self thought?

KonFusion

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Probably a good place to ask
Whats the best way to learn how to create good, decent web sites these days? Any courses in Dublin?

I was told alot of web design stuff these days are self thought - but wouldnt you pick up bad habits with being self thought?

That's pretty OT, and there's a whole other discussion in there. Better to start a new thread.

ChRoMe

The Corinthian wrote: »

Except for that 5%. That's where you get your rebounds, when they've realized that the bottom-feeder they've hired can't actually do the job, even at a substandard level. Where you actually need to code or design from scratch and understand what you're doing rather than cut 'n paste. But those projects tend to be with larger firms (who have special requirements) or the public sector (as they have to show they did due diligence when awarding the contract).

There be money there still.

AKA "If you think its expensive to hire a professional... wait until you hire an amateur"

SME web development (like SME desktop/application support) is a razor thin margin business that frankly is just not worth it, at any level. If you don't see this, its because you dont have enough experience.

(I'm using you in the general sense, not referring to Corinthian)

KonFusion

ChRoMe wrote: »

SME web development is a razor thin margin business that frankly is just not worth it, at any level. If you don't see this, its because you dont have enough experience.

That's not the case at all though?

What about those with plenty of experience working SME web design & dev that are, and have, been making plenty?

The Corinthian

KonFusion wrote: »

What about those with plenty of experience working SME web design & dev that are, and have, been making plenty?

Depends on the business model. If we're talking development, then I'd be hard pressed to see how anyone can be making 'plenty' in the current market, unless they are literally churning out multiple sites a day; if you're in a market where a site can cost as little as a few hundred, are paying tax, rent, for equipment, electricity and salaries, how many sites a day, week or month do you think you need to cover this? Even if you're a one man show, working from a home office, you're still going to want to pull in a few grand per month to cover your costs, taxes and be left with an income you can live on (and if all you're doing in that situation is getting an income 'you can live on' you should just go out and get a real job, FFS).

And once you get into the volume game, that adds additional costs and resources in terms of sales and marketing, which further complicates things.

From what I can see the SME Webdev business model has changed and the money isn't really in the development any more. Hosting 'lock-in' deals and SaaS set-ups are not uncommon. Ongoing SLA's and SEO contracts are another. Other's have given up on development altogether, instead acting as sales/PM consultants, running dozens of projects simultaneously and farming them out to the developing World. But 'development'? Not really.

As I said, you'll still get a small number of even SME's who will require functionality that they won't be able to get from the bottom feeders, and there is money there. But it's a very, very small market and can also be easily filled by full-time developers willing to do a nixer.

Larger organizations, some still technically SME's, albeit on the larger end of the scale, are where the market can still support Webdev houses. They're more amenable to due diligence and process (telling a small firm that you're going to charge them for the time to spec out and design a solution will often get you a stare like you're crazy) and less likely to compromise quality for cost, because you'll be dealing with a middle manager who's neck is on the line if it goes wrong - small firms you're dealing with a CEO who answers to no one, so they'll wing it.

They're also more likely to seek functionality that you can't get out of a box and thus requires actual development, rather than installing modules via a CMS control panel. Or will be more particular about branding. Or look for other Web technologies, such as extranets, intranets or mobile solutions.

They're much harder to land as clients though. You have to demonstrate, not only skill and experience in the creative and technological side of things, but also professionalism and business knowledge. But that's good, because it helps to keep the bottom feeders out.

Anyhow, that's how I'd see it.

KonFusion

The Corinthian wrote: »

I'd be hard pressed to see how anyone can be making 'plenty' in the current market, unless they are literally churning out multiple sites a day.

I know, personally, three one man shows, both of which are the sole supporter of their family, both of which take on 1-3 sites a month, and live very nicely indeed. I also know two companies who've been making consistent supernormal profits over the past 3 years.

Naming how many I know making a nice living I guess is probably irrelevant though, as I guess it'd be just as easy to illustrate how many are failing.

But I just feel that saying SME web design/dev is worthless and you're inexperienced if you don't realise is simply not true.

I agree with most of you're other points, and yes there is little to no money in smaller SME's seeking brochureware as we've all established, but I thought we'd gone beond that discussion. These companies seeking functionality that you can't get out of a box, that's development. That's design. That's the industry we're in. Anything smaller than that isn't really design or dev.

I feel there's money money out there is being given credit for.

They're much harder to land as clients though. You have to demonstrate, not only skill and experience in the creative and technological side of things, but also professionalism and business knowledge. But that's good, because it helps to keep the bottom feeders out.

They are much harder to land, but also (perhaps paradoxically), much easier at times if you can get just get a toe in.

I've found the saturation of bottom feeders is quite handy in a pitch. It can help in easily distinguishing yourself in the market, and if you can close & consistently deliver on the quality you're charging at the higher end of the scale for, Ireland is small & word gets out there. As Trojan pointed out, the "Get me Mary Astor" effect.

I feel there's another discussion in here somewhere, particularly one unique to Ireland on building a brand and reputation, that Tojan mentioned somewhat in his post.

On a side note; there are several people here who I always look forward to hearing (or more accurately; reading) their opinions on, and The Corinthian would most certainly be one of them, as I'm sure others would agree. Good thread.

sheesh

KonFusion wrote: »

I know, personally, three one man shows, both of which are the sole supporter of their family, both of which take on 1-3 sites a month, and live very nicely indeed. I also know two companies who've been making consistent supernormal profits over the past 3 years.

Naming how many I know making a nice living I guess is probably irrelevant though, as I guess it'd be just as easy to illustrate how many are failing.

But I just feel that saying SME web design/dev is worthless and you're inexperienced if you don't realise is simply not true.

I agree with most of you're other points, and yes there is little to no money in smaller SME's seeking brochureware as we've all established, but I thought we'd gone beond that discussion. These companies seeking functionality that you can't get out of a box, that's development is it not? That's design. That's the industry we're in. I feel there's money money out there is being given credit for.




They are much harder to land, but also (perhaps paradoxically), much easier at times if you can get just get a toe in.

I've found the saturation of bottom feeders is quite handy in a pitch. It can help in easily distinguishing yourself in the market, and if you can close & consistently deliver on the quality you're charging at the higher end of the scale for, Ireland is small & word gets out there. As Trojan pointed out, the "Get me Mary Astor" effect.

I feel there's another discussion in here somewhere, particularly one unique to Ireland on building a brand and reputation, that Tojan mentioned somewhat in his post.

On a side note; there are several people here who I always look forward to hearing (or more accurately; reading) there opinions on, and The Corinthian would most certainly be one of them, as I'm sure others would agree. Good thread.

Interesting (and good to hear) I suppose if you knew stuff and had a couple of contacts you could keep most of the opportunities that come your way as regular clients.

IrishExpat

I was very happy to see this discussion take off. And I should have made that distinction from the original post - between the cheap freelancers and actual high-end design and development outfits, who work with clients to find a solution to a business problem.

The reason I didn't belabor this point is, as was pointed out - that it's the potential clients that don't get it. And this highlights another issue of educating the client (in a professional manner) of the difference. And a perfect example the poster who lost a client as one of his employees showed him wordpress.com, which led to mistrust.

Thanks for all the points. Good to know I'm not alone in my frustration, but I also see these 'bottom-feeders' (thanks for that) are a selling point in itself if it's brought up in a pitch.

The Corinthian

KonFusion wrote: »

I know, personally, three one man shows, both of which are the sole supporter of their family, both of which take on 1-3 sites a month, and live very nicely indeed. I also know two companies who've been making consistent supernormal profits over the past 3 years.

Well yes, you can be a 'real' company, consultant or outfit and still make a decent living from SME business, but as I said, the business model has changed, just as it changed after the dotcom bubble burst and just as it will eventually change again.

My own feeling is that you can't survive unless you're leveraging something else other than development, as if that is all you have to offer, SME's will go for a cheap alternative unless they fall into that small minority who can't because they need something special.

They are much harder to land, but also (perhaps paradoxically), much easier at times if you can get just get a toe in.

It's a different mindset. It involves being much more formal and businesslike. Of approaching any project with due diligence - I've repeated this term a few times because it is so important in this market.

IrishExpat wrote: »

The reason I didn't belabor this point is, as was pointed out - that it's the potential clients that don't get it.

That's largely a small business mentality. As they tend to be managed by the owners, they are very direct (to the point of arrogance at times) and looking for the best possible deal at all times, because at heart, they're wheeler-dealers.

Larger organizations will have professional managers, who are less interested in how much they spend and more in what they get, which is the reverse of the above. They also, as I mentioned earlier, are not owners, so they answer to someone and thus have to be extra careful not to screw up when they take on a supplier.

In addition to this, there's the Irish factor, and regrettably in Ireland everyone's a horse trader - at least where it comes to small businesses. My experience is that the very ones who'll hammer out the best deal for themselves and go for the cheap option are the one's who'll not pay the last invoice. I've done business in a good few countries and Ireland's actually the worst in this regard; even Italy is better (although you still could literally be waiting 18 months to get paid).

And this highlights another issue of educating the client (in a professional manner) of the difference. And a perfect example the poster who lost a client as one of his employees showed him wordpress.com, which led to mistrust.

That's always been around - the old "but Ryanair got two students to do their site" line was already being used long before there was Wordpress. You can educate them, but it's often just easier to move onto another sales lead - they'll come back to you anyway in a year after the two students they employ don't work out, after all.

Cianos

My own view is that as CMSs advance and become easier to use, and the development side of things in general becomes easier to manage, the value of design will go up and the distinction between those who invest in good design and those who don't will be very obvious.

The average bottom feeder isn't going to spend ages getting the layer effects for your buttons just right, or choosing the best typeface for your brand, or giving sound advice on the user process etc.

So with all other things being equal, a site built by someone who cares about good design and a site built by someone who doesn't will be worlds apart.

And the good thing is, you can't really learn design, you either have it or you don't. It's the design that sells the site, that makes the first impression and that communicates to the audience as well as future clients.

There'll always be a market for dirt cheap, but the types of businesses that will only hire someone based on price aren't the types of businesses most here would want to work with anyway. Further, they aren't the types of businesses likely to do well in their field; their sites won't rank, their brand will look ****, and their market will choose their competitor whose site looks the part. Meanwhile those who had the sense to actually invest in their site will be around longer to rehire and refer.

Also, look at it this way...if someone isn't impressed by a site they aren't going to ask "who did your site, can you give me their number". Referrals only come from good quality and professionalism where the referrer is proud to stand behind their recommendation. If a significant % of your business isn't coming from referrals, then you've got a big problem.

So bottom line, provide quality and you'll be grand.

Trojan

IrishExpat wrote: »

And this highlights another issue of educating the client (in a professional manner) of the difference. And a perfect example the poster who lost a client as one of his employees showed him wordpress.com, which led to mistrust.

That potential client may not have been a good fit for their services. If the client has that little trust for them to begin with, then they either need to work harder to build the trust, or they let the client find a solution elsewhere. The client could be back to them in a month or two, with a new appreciation for quality of service.

I much rather work with referred customers who I have established a two-way trust with, and who see me as a partner on their projects, not a provider.

This is not how business works

ChRoMe

The Corinthian wrote: »

That's always been around - the old "but Ryanair got two students to do their site" line was already being used long before there was Wordpress. You can educate them, but it's often just easier to move onto another sales lead - they'll come back to you anyway in a year after the two students they employ don't work out, after all.

This is a core point relating to my previous post, the cost of customer acquisition is disproportionately high in the part of the industry we are discussing.

The Corinthian

Cianos wrote: »

Also, look at it this way...if someone isn't impressed by a site they aren't going to ask "who did your site, can you give me their number". Referrals only come from good quality and professionalism where the referrer is proud to stand behind their recommendation.

You'd be surprised; getting something done dirt cheap is a major point of pride in a lot of small Irish businesses - I've heard phone numbers being asked for after someone mentioned that they got their site done for €200. The buttons being 'just right' is nice, but a distant second in consideration - presuming they can even tell the difference.

ChRoMe wrote: »

This is a core point relating to my previous post, the cost of customer acquisition is disproportionately high in the part of the industry we are discussing.

Small firms? I agree, they're too much trouble, which is why I generally avoid them. Private banks in Lichtenstein are more fun; no horse trading once they've decided you're the supplier and absolutely no concept of budget

KonFusion

The Corinthian wrote: »

You'd be surprised; getting something done dirt cheap is a major point of pride in a lot of small Irish businesses - I've heard phone numbers being asked for after someone mentioned that they got their site done for €200. The buttons being 'just right' is nice, but a distant second in consideration - presuming they can even tell the difference.

It's true alight.

At a recent networking thing, I was talking to a guy who, after telling him what I did, kept pushing me to check out his website as he wanted me to give him a price on how much I would have done it for. Whipped out the phone and opened up the site (it was completely broken until I zoomed way out).

He stood there grinning, asking me to guess how much he got it for.

20 quid.

He was so happy. The website was deplorable.

The guy in question sold machinery, which if you've ever been in the airport you will have probably walked by countless times.

I asked how he took orders, presumably not through the website as it didn't have a contact form or email listed etc.

He said people just rang him. There was no phone number on the website either.

Boggles the mind :pac:

The Corinthian

KonFusion wrote: »

He stood there grinning, asking me to guess how much he got it for.

20 quid.

I had a very similar experience, years ago, although he paid more.

I told him, with a deadpan face, he'd been robbed. He stopped grinning.

Cianos

The Corinthian wrote: »

You'd be surprised; getting something done dirt cheap is a major point of pride in a lot of small Irish businesses - I've heard phone numbers being asked for after someone mentioned that they got their site done for €200. The buttons being 'just right' is nice, but a distant second in consideration - presuming they can even tell the difference.

Cheap is always attractive in and of itself. But my point was more that not many people would hit a cheapo site and think "Hmm, wonder can I get in touch with whoever did this." Thankfully the bottom feeders haven't slapped "This site was built for €200!" badges in the footer although I shouldn't be giving them ideas