The commoditisation of websites

I have felt for many years how ridiculous it is that many people feel that a website should cost less than a quarter page ad in this week’s local newspaper.

By next week that ad will have been tossed into the recycling bin along with the rest of the newspaper, but the cheaper website will be expected to live on indefinitely and perform wonders for the business!

So how did we get to this point, and what impact is it having?

I have heard questions like How much is a website? and What’s the best price you can build me a website for? but I have NEVER heard anyone look at a website and say Hey, I've got that website too!

That would be absurd!

Every website is unique... some in more ways than others, of course.

So whilst people might look for the best price for identical items, whether it be a specific model of a TV, the latest book by their favourite author, or even breakfast cereal, websites should not be treated as commodities which can only be differentiated by on price alone.

At time of writing, I have been involved in website design, development and management for over 28 years, with more than 2o of those years spent in global eCommerce for the large multi-national car rental company, Hertz.

Hertz 100 year celebrations

Pictured here in 2018 with former President of Hertz International, Michel Taride, and colleagues from marketing and e-commerce

To have played a significant role in the development of a hugely interactive website in 28 different languages which allowed people from all over the world to book car rental from any one of more than 800 locations worldwide was no easy task.

Besides vehicle availability at the time the customer needs it, along with the ability to add a number of options, whilst complying with international rules, age restrictions, different payment methods and associated cancellation and amendment terms, etc., we had specific customer journeys for members of the loyalty scheme, corporate clients, and far too many other variations to list here.

We had to cater for:

• vehicle availability at the time and place the customer needs it.
• payment options at pre-paid and pay at location rates, and their associated cancellation and amendment terms.
• the ability for the customer to select options including insurances, child seats, and other ancillaries which could differ based on the vehicle selected and the country of rental.
• market based pricing in multiple different currencies.
• time and location based promotions, etc.

There were international rules to comply with, age restrictions, and we had specific customer journeys for members of the loyalty scheme, corporate clients, and far too many other variations to list here.

We also had system integrations with a number of airline companies, including Air France, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Ryanair and many others which enabled their customers to book Hertz vehicles as part of the airline's booking process.

So when I left Hertz post-covid to start TargaWeb in early 2021, I was amazed to find that I was competing in an almost saturated market of relatively low experienced web designers who were building websites with WordPress, Wix, etc., as quickly and cheaply as they could manage.

Potential clients would begin by asking How much will you charge to build a website? or I need a website. What's your best price?

It would have made sense to be asked something like I need a website for my XXX business which needs to be able to do YYY. Is this something you could do, and could you let me know what information you need so you can give me a rough cost?

But no… the primary decider was price, and if the guy round the corner could give them a better price, they’d stand a better chance of getting the job!

Web design had become commoditised!

I had returned to a market that I had previously excelled in before I joined Hertz, only to find myself competing with many web designers who were in a price battle where the cheapest wins because they have no other way to differentiate themselves.

But unfortunately in the 4+ years since I founded TargaWeb I have seen that the practice of undercutting on price has led to a wide range of problems for clients and web designers alike.

Websites aren't commodities... they should all be unique in however ways necessary to cater for the unique requirements of the business they represent.

In reality, as a customer you’re unlikely to want a commoditised website. At the very least you’ll expect the web designer or agency to spend time discussing with you what you need, what your goals are, what your business offers, the areas your cover, and some things about your business which would make people choose you.

And then you’ll expect the web designer to create a website for you which truly reflects your business, provides information about what you do and where you do it, and helps to generate leads and sales.

You’ll also rightly expect that the web designer will have discussed (and perhaps even researched) the most relevant keywords which you want your website to be found for in search engine results, and a level of ongoing support after your website has gone live.

That, I’m sure you’ll agree, isn’t a commodoty. However, here’s a practice that many web designers use in order to keep costs down... using pre-built templates.

In order for many smaller web designers to compete on price, they’ll use pre-built website templates.

Many WordPress users, for example, are likely to select from a library of website styles and layouts which have already been pre-built by third party web designers.

And as they build subsequent websites, they will often re-use an existing template and simply swap the original images for new ones, replace the original content with new content which is relevant to the business they’re building the new website for, and they’ll change some of the colours to suit the branding of the business.

Is this a bad thing?

Well no. Not every business is able to afford or justify having a website built entirely from scratch. So if the customer likes the look and feel of the website, regardless of whether they realise that it is a copy of an existing website which has been tweaked, they can still be happy with the result wothout feeling cheated.

Understandably, this method of producing a website can save time and money, but it’s also very important that the web designer pays sufficient attention to some of the pre-built elements within that templated website.

A real live case

Here is an example of an existing website I recently audited for a client, which had been built for him by a local web designer. I found a number of common problems which, if resolved, could help with how the page loads and displays on mobile and desktop.

But the more concerning was the lack of attention to detail, and clearly very little testing done...

The web designer had used a pre-built templated website (presumably to save time, and maybe to also save the client money), and had swapped images, content and colours to make it suitable for the client’s business.

However, there several problems which can only attributed to carelessness:

Don't let your potential customers discover your problems for you!

Fix your problems before your customers find them!

Surprisingly the client wasn’t aware of these issues, but I wonder how many of his potential customers found the problems before he did! Disappointingly, the web designer took several weeks before he corrected some, but not all of the problems.

As you’ll no doubt be aware, AI is playing an increasingly significant role in many industries. It is being used to automate process in many sectors, and website production is not exempt.

I’m sure that after this article has been written and published, I’ll need to revisit this section about AI to keep it as up to date as possible. But for now I’ll keep this simple…

You will find people offering to automate some of your business processes with AI, and some of those people will offer to use AI to build you a new website or refresh your existing website. They might be using tools such as Wix ADI, Duda AI or some other tool to achieve this.

Amazing, yes... but who's in control?

Whilst this technology is nothing short of amazing, bear in mind what I have written above. I think that it’s worth considering the amount of control required, the attention to detail needed throughout the entire process, and the subsequent management and maintenance of your AI generated website.

I could be wrong, but I predict that if the use of templated websites as described above has led to a the rise of low skilled web designers who don’t exercise enough control over the platform they’re using to produce websites on, AI could potentially make the situation worse.

So we should prioritise human oversight and quality testing over automated content and layouts, but before we know it, there will be very few people capable of adding to an existing website, or fixing problems which they or AI has created.

Who will own an AI generated website?

Another important consideration will be the ownership of any AI produced code and design.

The ownership of AI generated code and design can depend on several factors, but whilst it is generally considered that the user of the AI tool is the owner, in reality it can depend on the terms and conditions of the specific AI tool which has been used.

So the best advice I can offer at this stage if you choose to have AI build your next website, please check the legal aspects of copyright, ownership, liability, etc., before you find yourself vulnerable to subsequent legal problems.

We all can and do make mistakes from time to time, but the important point I’m trying to make here, is that when price is the determining factor in choosing who should build your next website, don’t be surprised if corners are cut and that the web designer might be lacking the skills, aptitude and commitment to do the job to the standard that you expect.

Website templates can be a great way of saving time and money because it means that the web designer doesn't have to start from scratch every time they build a new website.

Remember that to build a new website from a pre-built template means that much of the hard work has already been done, and this can suit those web designers who lack any knowledge of code.

But this also means that although many of those web designers might not understand what's under the bonnet of the websites they build (which can be a problem when things go wrong), a certain level of care and attention still needs to be applied when making the adjustments to convert an existing website template into a customised solution for their client.

Clearly this doesn't happen in all cases!