There's more to web design than you might realise

“You don’t need to ‘design’ web sites any more” – that was a statement made to me recently by a business owner. A real eye-opener in the way the web design industry is perceived by some people.

I was having a look around a local independent designer fashion store at the time and happened strike up a conversation with the owner. I mentioned I was on my lunch break, he asked where I worked and thus we got onto web design. His claim was that, for example, e-commerce solutions can now be simply bought off the shelf and little work is needed to be done to them in order to be ready to go.

Of course at Kyan we have used pre-built e-commerce packages, they certainly have their place, however I mentioned to him that our preference is to build bespoke solutions. His response was dismissive of that idea, and rebutted that web agencies always want too much money for a tailored solution.

I explained to the owner that I could go round the corner and buy a cheap pair of jeans from a budget retailer or I could buy a pair of these heavy weight Japanese selvedge denim jeans he had on the shelf for over twice the price. The penny dropped. Once I’d put it in his terms he instantly understood.

I found this interesting because you would think that a key part of his business is convincing potential customers that the clothes he sells are worth their price tag, similarly we have to prove to our customers the value of our tailored solutions. He must surely subscribe to the idea that “you get what you pay for”.

It got me thinking about how we sell our services. Although we know exactly the benefits of a bespoke solution over an off the shelf package and why it will inevitably cost more, we should clearly not take this for granted.