June 07, 2004 | View Comments (20) | Category: Web Business
Summary: Why design has become a commodity and what you can do to combat it.
The client's nephew. A freelance designer on Elance.com. Now even Sam's Club has joined the, ummm, club. Web sites on the cheap. $5 a month. How do you compete against that?
I don't think Sam's Club (owned by Wal-Mart) is trying to drive professional web designers out of business like the lowballing designers are. They are just looking to get more small-to-medium sized companies on the Interent. The more companies with websites, the more potential for ad revenue. However, this still presents a huge problem for freelancers and small web design firms that target these types of companies.
More often times than not you might draw up a proposal for a potential client and I am sure in the back of their head they are thinking they could get a site for $200 so what would be the need to pay $5,000? I used to tell myself these are the types of clients you don't want anyways, but now we all must sit back and realize how crowded the field is becoming. It's amazing how many new freelancers jump into the market and they need to get clients to. In the not too distant future if you are not established with clients and are able to generate new clients through leads I think you might be in trouble (hell that's the case now).
You can pitch your services till you are blue, but there are many people who just won't care where their website comes from as long as they have one up. Now Wal-Mart (the world's largest retailer) has undercut everyone (even Yahoo!) and more than likely can generate a profit from this venture due to the volume of people willing to signup. The higher priced designers should be safe, but for all you new players out there, you really just have to work that much harder now.
Easy. Continue to improve your skillset. Eventually a large number of people who buy from these template sites will begin to look for designers that can help differentiate their site from all the others. Someone who can help produce sales for them. Someone who can get them up in the search rankings. The web is getting crowded and buying a template doesn't make you a superstar. It just makes you another site that people will ignore.
Again though the people who buy websites from Sam's Club are the types where the number one factor is price. If a potential client comes in with price as their first condition for a signed contract, maybe you should suggest they go to Sam's Club or another place. As a freelancer this is not the target audience that you wish to compete with (at least I hope not). Think of it like this. Food is a commodity, but how many of us go out to eat at nice restaraunts? There is more than just web design that can be offered and quality service is one of them.
You can get high quality web design cheap. Just because Wal-Mart is offering a low cost design service, do not make the mistake in thinking that the design will be of a cheap quality. So again, many of you will compete on service. If you are not so nice to your clients (no matter how frustrating they can get) remember who else you have to compete with.
It also goes back to the content on your site. Do you really want to sound like everyone else? You need to differentiate. Your design skills alone will not do this. Bowman's talent does not lie in the fact that he is a good designer because there are a lot of people who design well. His talent is being able to translate a company's vision into a visual idea that is both powerful and effective. Not too many people are capable of doing that.
Hopefully this will bring about the downfall of the bottom feeder designers.
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Yes, a "customer's nephew" is a great example. We have the very same problem here in Croatia. Everyone here know everything about computers in general, so it affects webdesign, too. What's even worse, these kids are all working on pirated software and our goverment is still not doing anything about that. They don't pay taxes, they don't pay software, they will make you -- a 'complete CMS, web shop AND desing' -- for approx. 100$. Damn, they're good!
Marko (http://www.maratz.com/)
Gordon, it's one thing to say content differentiates your site from others, but when you are doing a site for someone else many times they will provide their own content to save some money. So in that case you cannot rely on content alone. However, for you own company site, content becomes a huge differentiator, which is one reason to have a quality blog as part of your company's site. You need every edge possible.
And how many people can install some blog software for their clients for maybe an extra $5? This makes their content easily accessible and maintained so again there goes that differentiation.
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
Whether I'm in proposal mode or not - I always begin with a little discovery. I'm sure most people in this busines do something similar. During that discovery, one of the questions I like to ask the prospective client is: "What makes your business / organization different? Why should people do business with you instead of someone else?"
Almost 90% of the time, their answer includes some or all of the following: quality, experience, professionalism, effectiveness, efficiency. That sets the stage for me to do the same.
To me it isn't necessarily about web design, it's about business solutions. We work with many organizations that could easily get their solutions elsewhere. What we aim for is having them realize that they need our knowledge and experience to guide them through the whole process, not just our ability to design and code.
Those are the intangibles you can't buy. I'm not sure a nephew or Wal-Mart will be able to deliver on those.
Derek F. (http://www.boxofchocolates.ca)
Come on over to Krazy Larry's Web Design,for cheap Cheap CHEAP! We're k-k-k-krazy!!!
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
The one thing that is going to make this fail in the long run, from what I gathered it is an automated system. So what, the person can enter some text, and choose from several templates. Which is all well and fine, users can enter their information, and select a template.
You can also pay more to have a Sams Club designer create you a custom website. We'll see how well they are at that in the future. But in the end, this is no better than a person writing a text file and uploading it as index.html to their server.
Sure some people may be able to pull it off, but you are going from client to web, you are eliminating the middle man, the designer in attempts to reduce cost. But from my point, the client will eventually end up spending even more, because after they see the undesired results they get from that page, they'll want it done right.
The chances that the client who is entering their information into this over glorified template machine will soon realize that they, nor the system which they are using holds all the knowledge needed to obtain desirable results.
However if Sams Club can make the system understand all the elements of development, the one I'm concerned about, IA, then more power to them. Although, I doubt that was ever accounted for.
When this hits you are going to see a decline in the state of small and mid size business sites, even less accessible content, and a golden day for the freelancer and small design firms. Because someone is going to have to clean up the mess that this is going to create.
Ryan (http://www.worldoneweb.com)
BTW, the walmart one is (I think) for a basic business card site... maybe with some CMS built in.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
I don't think professional designers have anything to worry about from "the commoditization of web design."
High class clients will always want high class design. Its a matter of taste and style. If a client is willing to pay for a point-click-solution, I would worry about the image of that business and most likely not want to work for them in the first place.
In the long run most companies will eventually "get" the importance of the internet and effective web design else they don't have much of a future for growth.
Almustafa El-Said
I agree, Almustafa.
The kind of organisations I would want to work for are not ones where the marketing team are considering paying $5 a month for a website.
If the Wal-Mart scheme is successful in its bid to get more small/medium businesses online, then that is excellent news for web design freelancers. It will not be long until the businesses signed up to Wal-Mart realise they need to pay quite a bit more for a presence that will actually help their company.
Then it's party time for the rest of us! Bring a bottle.
Andrew Hume (http://www.thedredge.org)
Derek hit the nail on the head. The best thing you can do for yourself and the client is to ask them right at the beginning 'why would a customer do business with you?', 'what makes you better than your competitors?' and 'what are your business goals for this web site'? Force them to come up with strong, well thought out answers to each of these to get them focused on the idea that there are billions of web sites and businesses out there and they must have a real competitive strategy for both in order to succeed.
Part of our value as web professionals is that we can guide and focus their business strategy to incorporate the Internet. We can make things work better for them by designing not just an attractive site, but one that helps them do business better.
Kevin (http://www.infinitewebdesign.com/mt/)
Wow. Freakin' awesome article, awesome posts!
Derek - you are the MAN. BEAUTIFUL approach. It's art. I love it.
JC - Hilarious. :)
I wasn't at first, but now I'm leaning more towards "this is a good thing!"
Look at it this way - all these companies sign up for a cookie-cutter site, and six months down the road realize that Yes! You DO need a professional website!
Now that they HAVE a website, I think it'll be much easier for them to explore other options.
I think it was on the SitePoint Forums where someone said, "Besides, what do you think of a business who buys their website at Wal-Mart?" Hehe... I love it.
Rabbit
For the client that is strapped for cash, you can also look at ways of reducing the number of hours that you need to spend on the project.
Developing packages for vertical markets is a good strategy here. Often, the information architecture can be copied from one site to another, perhaps with minor modifications. CSS also shows its power here, as you can write stripped-down HTML that can be used as a starting point across all the sites.
Effectively, this is what these $5 packages do to the extreme. The further you push the package concept, the lower the price can drop, but the more generic the offering is. There's a spectrum of possibilities, the key is to determine where you want to sit.
You want to think critically about what really needs to be developed uniquely for each client. The question isn't: "will this be valuable for the client?" The question is rather: "will this be worth the extra hours and dollars it will take me to do this?"
Sam (http://www.silverstripe.com)
Let's not get carried away here.
Many, many, many companies already own very, very bad sites, maybe templated, maybe not. That doesn't mean everyone is in a hurry to get redesigned.
I can't for the life of me take this as a good sign for the business, it's another example of webdesign being devaluated.
Just recently, I was contacted by an old client, whom I worked for back when I was starting out, and I didn't charge a whole lot for sites in generel. He wanted me to do site redesign.
He offered me a f*cking grill.
You know webdesign is devaluated when people only want to pay a barbeque kit for something that requires a fair amount of time, skill and knowledge.
After seeing this 5$ thing, many people will only be strengthened in their view of webdesign as being something that requires very little investment. This isn't golden times to come, this is a blow to the gut, and only by educating people about the value of good design can we get out of this.
Long post, and it's 2am over here, so pardon any mistakes.
Brian Andersen (http://www.brian-andersen.dk)
hey, some weber grills cost several thousand bucks... that might not be such a bad trade if you like grilling, which I'm guessing you don't. :-)
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
Brian -
This isn't a blow to the gut anymore than lawyers who advertise on TV are a blow to practicing attorneys. Likewise, wine-in-a-box will not discredit wineries; buying real-estate for no money down will not be the demise of realtors, color inkjet printers are not going to ruin the offset printing industry, and tear-off Avery business card labels are not a threat to paper companies specializing in card stock.
The list goes on and on. You see this in every industry. You even have logo factories pumping out “brands” for $250.00 a pop. Industry standard rates start at 10 times that amount.
Sam’s Club and the like are filling a niche market – new business owners who either don’t have the budget to spend on a website done “right” and / or barely even know who they are in terms of vision yet. They are looking for a splash page to introduce themselves while conserving cash for more business critical expenditures.
Most know this is a temporary solution, and when they are ready they will seek out a freelancer or agency that’s capable of doing the job as should be done. If they’re not aware of this, then would you really have to second guess whether you’d actually want to take them on as a client or not?
For the record, I agree with JC, there are some damn nice grills out there – I wouldn’t get so down and out about it, unless of course if they were offering something along the lines of a Little Smokey.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
I've had worse offers than a grill. About 3 years ago I was offered a job by a friends uncle who owns a tattoo parlor. I was offered cash, or as many tattoos as I wanted.
I am not a tattoo type guy, I plan on getting one here shortly, but I am going to keep it at one. Had I took that offer I would have been doing it for one tattoo, which runs what $90?
You can make more than $90 by selling a piece of paper which you claim to be the rights to your soul on eBay.
Anyhow, Scrivs -
I think that would be a good non-scientific poll for you, or at the very least, rather amusing:
Worse offer you've ever received for your services.
Ryan (http://worldoneweb.com)
Well, in the case of working for an adult entertainer, she would trade you um..., nevermind...
Almustafa El-Said
Good point mark, I guess I got carried away as well ;)
But, this definetly means that everyone has to specialize to a higher degree. Because those sites for small/medium business that need a "brochure" site, don't add up to a market for anyone anymore, and it means that starting out will be even more difficult than it already is.
Sure, Zeldman isn't threated, or other high-profile designers (just like wine-in-a-box isnt not discrediting wineries), but you have to start somewhere, and for the majority of us, it will be designing those "brochure" sites for smaller clients. And that market is going to dissapear with these "boxed" solutions.
If you don't have a portfolio with some big guns, or real experience to boot, you wont get the specialized jobs, period - this could keep fresh blood away from the business, keeping them from gaining experience and building a portfolio.
About the grill, it was a low-end model, I loathe grilling, and from my experiences with that guy it would probably be a used one anyway.
Brian Andersen (http://www.brian-andersen.dk)
Great observation about commodization. Most templates are going to be good enough, and we all know that. Differentiation is going to come because lots of templates will be around.
I think web design is becoming more like fashion and clothing. Not every one is going to be able to afford haute couture ($5000 a piece). And if there are cheaper varieties around, I can seriously consider having more websites.
Perhaps one way to take this further is creating designer labels. Look at Blogger, where I can use a template designed by the Zeldman himself, or one of the cool ones from StopDesign.
I would definitely look to creating templates which are badged and the badge reflects the cost of the template. Worth a try. Doesn't even need to be complicated. A cK T-shirt still costs a lot of money.
Chui (http://teyc.blogspot.com)
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#1
But what of content? Surely that, as the ultimate differentiator, should be the target area.
Ensuring your client's content is easily accessible and maintained should be an easy pitch when you are going up against 'template design'.
No?
Gordon (http://www.gordonmclean.co.uk)