When setting up an ecommerce website, should you use a self-build tool and design the website yourself, or should you hire a professional developer?
By Jason Hesse
There is no “right” answer to this question, as it depends largely on what you want from the website and what your budget is.
Build it yourself
The first option is to build the website yourself, from scratch. This can be done, but the results are often poor.
There are advantages of using the DIY method (cheap and totally flexible), but unless you have the tools and experience, the site is likely to look cheap and unprofessional. Anyone can put some text on a page and call it a website, but could anyone put up a fully-automated ecommerce solution? No.
Website builders
The next – and more reasonable – option is to use a website builder.
In recent years, a crop of self-building tools have emerged in the market to help people create their own websites. These have become increasingly sophisticated while their price has fallen. Indeed, many now offer the option of creating an online shop, too.
The advantages of website builders are that they are easy to use and very cost effective. It is possible to buy a domain name and set up a decent website in under 30 minutes for a small amount of money (and sometimes even for free). This often allows you to roll your entire website into one package (hosting, domain registration, billing, design, payment gateway, etc).
Most ecommerce websites will need to be frequently updated with new content/products to sell, so it’s important to have a content management system which allows you to update the content with an easy web interface (ie without having to dive into the code).
But don’t forget, you often get what you pay for. When using website builders, you are usually given a range of templates on which to base your site’s design – you cannot change these very much.
Professional developers
Finally there is the option of hiring a professional developer.
Many businesses turn to professional developers for their website needs. The main advantage of doing so is the flexibility and uniqueness that it gives you – with a developer, it’s entirely up to you what your website will do and look like. You do not have the limitations of a template, and they have the skills and knowledge to make a good website.
But, of course, there is a cost involved in this. You can expect to pay a minimum of £30 per hour for a UK-based developer (and often a lot more). A distinction must also be made between web designers and web developers – the former are more focused on visual impact and layout, whereas the latter focus on functionality.
There is no golden rule for creating a website, but it is extremely difficult to do it entirely yourself. Think about what functionality you want from your website and how much you are willing to pay – this will dictate how you should have it built.
Hi Jason
An old question, not so relevant at midmarket level or beyond into Tier-1 where self-build is rare – although I still come across the odd company that’s built from scratch – but still very relevant when considering the SME market.
It’s an interesting question; some bits are simple to address but I think the use of professionals aspect needs to be dissected a little further.
First off, the self-build option…
It’s tempting for a SME owner to want to ‘have a go’ him or herself due to limited financial resource but more often than not it’s a false economy. Results are often poor as you say, but if there’s a good grounding in ecommerce scoping, user experience and technical aspects then this can be a reasonable option.
Having said that, I think mobile and the growing number of ecommerce touch points make this a less viable option now,
I’m not sure I agree with you about the efficacy of website building tools: these are built down to a price, or free, and often just add-on’s offered by a domain registration or hosting company. Results are rarely good with these, in my experience; they’re rigid, inflexible and poorly thought out in general and they should be a last resort for those with the smallest of budgets.
I’d say the ‘hosted solution’ route is a viable one for a start-up with no capital, and very popular, but I’d like to focus on the use of professionals aspect.
I’ve always been firmly of the opinion that retailers/brands should stick to the knitting and be retailers, and not ry to run a website company too.
Hiring professionals to scope, spec, design and build their ecommerce website would be my number one option, but hiring professionals to work in-house is a popular and widespread option.
This is a really fundamental decision a retailer or brand has to make when starting out.
Later in the journey of the business, experiences will influence this decision, but to begin with there’s none of that to draw on.
I think there are 2 really important things to note here:
Outsourcing is no guarantee of success. The word ‘Professional’ is key: the fact an agency or individual can build websites does not necessarily mean they really understand ecommerce. I can show you many a poor website produced by agencies at all levels with little idea about how to best implement features.
Secondly: don’t forget it’s a marketplace, and an ecommerce agency will charge what it thinks it’s worth. Detail will be commensurate with the cost.
At the lower end of the market it’s most likely that a retailer or brand will be fitted into the software rather than the other way around. The more budget available, the more time can be spent on planning user journeys and creating a great user experience. Even when technical considerations have been handled well there’s often little attention paid to contextual good practice implementation of features.
It’s about much more than just design: scoping a project and subsequent feature specification is hugely important, but I think that as long as the out of the box feature set fits the business this shouldn’t be too much of an issue for small SME’s with a sub £10k budget, especially with some of the platform software and front end themes and templates out there at the moment.
If there’s customisation involved this may well rule out the hosted app and site building tool options and force you to opt for the professional route.
I’ve experienced retailers self-building and attempting to scale with disastrous consequences, especially when dealing with complex stuff like Magento. I’ve also experienced agencies having trouble with Magento too – some with ultimately terminal consequences, so caution should be exercised here. I’ve written a little bit about Magento agencies on my site, here: http://theecommercenetwork.co.uk/ecommerce-agency-selection/ecommerce-agency-models/
Choosing an ecommerce agency is a whole subject by itself, a subject on which I posted recently on my site too. It’s not an easy process, but at least if a site is put together and hosted by a professional there’s an SLA and support if needed.
So:
- if you haven’t got any/much money your options will be limited to hosted, self-build or a website building tool.
Otherwise, I think it’s all about understanding where your strengths lie –
- if you haven’t got a clue about ecommerce development don’t try and build it yourself
- if you haven’t got a clue about ecommerce design and user experience, don’t design it yourself
- if you haven’t got a clue about ecommerce implementation then hire someone and just get on with running your business and being a retailer or brand.
If you hire someone, it’s all about the quality of the person or people hired. It’s difficult to find the right balance there where money is tight, so that will be your challenge.
Cheers,
Mark.