e-skills UK Guide

Buying a website

How to buy an off-the-shelf website

It is possible to buy a website that has already been built and simply needs to be customised to your own content and branding. The idea of these sites is to try and save you time and money in developing your website presence.

By carefully buying an off the shelf web site you can save your business time and money.

What is an off-the-shelf website?

Most web sites follow a standard construction model. If you browse the web you will notice that web sites will have a home page, which introduces the company and then other pages such as “products”, “pricing”, “about us”, “case studies” and “contact us”. Web site developers soon realised that they could build a reusable website model that could use templates to change the precise content on each of the pages. That way a website could be developed very quickly and, hopefully much cheaper.

Suppliers of off-the-shelf websites

You might come across a number of off-the-shelf options, and which one you take up depends on what you want to do with your website. Below we explore the more popular alternatives which you might consider. The examples are intended to show you the type of product which is available, and their inclusion should not be interpreted as a specific endorsement.

Basic off-the-shelf-website

This will provide you with a small online website which you can easily edit yourself.

How it works

Either uses a tool you download, or a special web-page that you can use to set-up your site.

Some examples

Yahoo SiteBuilder
BT Website Creator
Site2You

Comments

Probably the simplest option, although the different systems do vary greatly. If you already have an ISP for broadband or dial-up or an existing web host, they may offer a service like this, so check with them first.

Customised Off-the Shelf site

Your website is designed for you, and then you are given the ability to edit the content within those templates.

How it works

The website has a private area that you use to arrange your content.

Some Examples

Hobo Internet
Clever Websites

Comments

This option is typically offered by independent website design companies and is based on a technology called a Content Management System (or CMS). It is something of a hybrid between contracting out your website and maintaining it yourself.

The example companies here are fairly small-scale concerns, and it is likely that you would be able to find a company offering a CMS-based package locally to you.

It is often useful if you have content which you wouldd like to update frequently, like news, technical support and product information. Due to the greater degree of customisation, you can expect this system to be more expensive than a basic off-the-shelf website.

Online shop via a merchant or auction service

You can set up an area in an auction or merchant site that enables you to group your products together in a single shop with a custom look.

How it works

You use the web-based tools provided by these companies to list your products and develop the shop.

Some examples

eBay shops

Amazon zShops

Comments

This can be a cost-effective and simple way of setting up an online shop. Ebay in particular simplifies the process of online transactions with its Paypal system, which means you can take payments without credit card merchant status.

Your products will also be indexed and searchable through the standard interface offered by your hosting site. This, may give you more exposure; for example with Amazon zShops, if your item is sold by Amazon, visitors will be offered the option to buy it ‘used or new’ from your shop.

However, this will also set your products alongside those of your competitors, which will tend to favour those selling most cheaply. Also, your store is an inseparable part of the service-provider’s website.

Payment is likely to be by commission rather than subscription.

Online shop via a Content Management Service

A hosting service which you use to list products within set templates.

How it works

You would usually use a private part of the host website to add your products, product descriptions and the costs.

Some examples

Actinic Products

EKM PowerShop

Monstercommerce

Comments

In this option, you would use a service provider to create your own store independently of the major merchant sites. This store is likely to be more visually customisable, and not part of the host’s website.

Payment is most likely to be by subscription rather than commission, although if you use a card-merchant service, you are likely to need to pay a proportion of each transaction for payment services.

Costs of off-the-shelf websites

There are a number of charging models offered by the providers of off-the-shelf web services. Many of the services favour low, or even free start-up costs, with comparatively high ongoing hosting and maintenance costs. This is the opposite of having a consultant develop your site and placing it with a comparatively cheap commercial host.

The main benefit of off-the-shelf systems is that their costs are likely to be fixed and predictable. How much that cost is depends very much on what you want to buy. As a guideline, you might expect to pay:

• For a basic, flat site of 20 pages to be compiled by you using an off-the-shelf tool, the annual hosting can be up to £150. In many cases it is under £100.
  • For example, the BT package which includes Website Creator costs just £60 per year to existing BT Business subscribers
  • Xilo’s SiteStudio-enabled packages start at £35 per year, plus domain name registration costs.
• For a customised off-the-shelf system, like those provided by Small Biz Websites, or Clever Websites, the going rate is much higher. For a similar website, expect set-up costs from £100-£500 and monthly subscriptions of £25-£50.
• For an online shop through a merchant or auction service, you should expect to pay only a modest subscription, with the bulk of payments being a commission based on the sale cost. For example, a basic eBay shop costs £6 a month, each product insertion costs 5p, while sale cost commissions are 5.25% for products under £30, and less for more expensive products.
• For an online shop through an independent host, the costs are more variable, starting at around £50 setup and £20 monthly ongoing charges, for the most basic offering.

Evaluate your options for off-the-shelf websites

After deciding upon which type of website you require, you should research the available options and decide on the one that has the best balance of features you require and gives you the best value for money. The following bullet points outline some of the key concerns:

• Since you are buying a core business application from the service provider the long-term prospects of the provider are of significant interest. You should favour companies you figure to be financially robust and ‘in it for the long-haul’.
• Remember to account for the total costs of services, and pay attention to prohibitive hosting fees. Some companies load their development costs on to the subscription, which can make a site which looks good value over six months merely OK over a year, and a bad bargain over three years.
• Analyse the quality of the pages produced on the example sites. Do they look professional? Is there sufficient scope to customise them to produce a distinctive site? What kind of company is using the service already?
• You should research your prospective hosts’ treatment of Accessibility for compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act. Sites based on ‘Flash’ or which use features unique to a particular web-browser are particularly prone to problems here.
• You should enquire about the host’s technical support services. For instance, how easy is it to get somebody on the end of the telephone line if you ring their support department (as opposed to their sales department).
• Finally, you should check your host’s policy on updating the underlying software for your website. A good provider will ensure that known vulnerabilities in the software are quickly patched.

Once you have made a decision to go with a particular provider, signing-up is likely to be a fairly straight-forward process. You may need to select a web domain-name to operate from if you do not already possess one, but the company you select should support you in this.

Further information

For further information on this topic, why not take a look at this video:

Getting the most from your suppliers

Commercial suppliers

We do not recommend specific products or suppliers; instead we provide you with a representative sample which covers the range of suppliers/products available. You may choose to look at these suppliers or products but this is entirely at your discretion.