Allchorn Design

Lately I’ve had a lot of blog-worthy material rattling around in my brain. Some of which will have to wait, so I’ve filed them all under drafts in my cerebral cortex. Today however I experienced something that personally marks a point at which I believe the website design industry is starting to be irreparably damaged.

Lowballer
Someone that sells products or services for drastically less than what it’s worth.

This isn’t meant to be a rant, but more an expression of my concern over what seems to be seriously effecting the industry. Not just my pocket, but the quality of the web in general and that effects the website owners themselves. The people I affectionately call clients.

I never used to worry about lowballers much as I always gave prospects the benefit of the doubt that they’d be discerning enough to choose a website creator based on what the output is likely to be rather than solely on price.

A little cheaper or more expensive is natural but…

Sure I used to lose the odd project to a competitor who was maybe 10% or 20% cheaper than me and that didn’t phase me a bit. If someone gains a project by being cheaper… well, good for them. Now it seems as if people are bidding about a third, a quarter even a fifth of my price.

I used to pride myself on the fact that I only ever lost deals to less experienced website designers with lower prices, and I’d often be awarded projects despite the fact that my quote was higher. Not that I bid higher out of greed, but I know what it takes to design and develop an effective web presence created according to web standards and best practice. The time it takes, and the knowledge that can only be acquired through real world experience or extensive studies, or both.

I don’t deal in “cookie cutter” sites, and in my 9 years working on the web, I’ve never sold nor used a “template” (templates as in Template Monster, not Smarty Templates) in the creation of a site.

My “mate rates” are more than somes full client rates

Today I had a conversation with a client, who happens to be a good friend of mine. I gave him an exceptionally low price for my standards, but also lessened the deliverables (fewer design concepts etc.) and we got the project off to a good start. We’re on the tail end of the project now, and while we remain good buddies and we share mutual respect for each other’s professional ethics, he questioned me on my costing as he had been told that I had “ripped him a new one”.

To be honest, he was well within his rights to question me when there are people out there charging so little. He was kind enough to tell me who was so besmearing my name to him, and I went to look at their own site. I now understand why they are so cheap. Leave that be.

I managed to explain to my buddy that he has to compare apples with apples and that the quality of their work was so low and their criticisms so subjective and exposing of their lack of experience, that their criticising me is not only bad business (slinging mud), but also shows me what I have to contend with.

He chose me despite my lowest rates being higher than the competition

My friend actually told me that he chose me over them initially besides the fact that I was (much) more expensive than them. He values my experience and is aware of my successful track record. Note that they were much cheaper than my reduced price! I wouldn’t even go that low for a non-friend client, and I didn’t even make profit on the job aside from my restricted design time?! How could they make money on it cheaper than me? They live in the same country, have the same petrol price, don’t live in a shack, surely they drive cars too…

Web designers and web design shops need to look at their expenses. Rent, insurance, hardware, software, the value of their time, profit etc. Also, have some goddamn pride in your work! Learn your trade. Stop polluting the web with your crap and wasting your client’s money by “generating” rubbish that your client’s visitors laugh at and struggle to use.

Spending £200 on a website where established professionals are charging £1,500 for the same specification is more of a waste of money than spending the larger fee. At least it won’t need to be re-built a month after it’s launched, and you can rest assured that the job is done properly, your visitors can use the site, it will look good, the search engines will index you and other sites might even link to you!