Bolding mine)
My less educated customers frequently tell me this. They're usually wrong.
Rick
Careful about unethical web designers over-charging for theme work
- Thread starter tankman1989
- Start date
Bolding mine)
My less educated customers frequently tell me this. They're usually wrong.
Rick
tankman1989
Active Member
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- 5
Yeah and people who try to run scams say the opposite and are also wrong. I've talked to a developer and their estimate as only 10% higher than what I expected it to be but it is also on a different CMS platform.
anglian
New Member
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- Location
- Felixstowe UK
Oh yes. Especially when it was a web site designed by the bosses nephew who has now gone to university and has lost interest, then it can take an hour just to figure out where everything is.
16k_zx81
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 54
- Location
- South Australia
... then another hour to correct all the spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors.
- Reaction score
- 1,535
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
As someone who outsources a lot and I believe I do so relatively successfully, there are a few issues here.
If this designer copied and pasted an existing design, swapped the header and said it took 5 hours, then thats an outright scam in any country, it doesnt mean third world labor is more likely to scam you, it can really happen in any country.
Having said that, you do have to treat overseas labor different than you would a westerner.
A good example is if you want a door installed over there. A westerner would install the door, have 2 hinges on the side and a handle. Its assumed that when you say "Door" you also want the hinges and the handle.
I have found in personal experience, mainly with Indian contractors, that you have to be super specific about what you want. I want a door, of this size, over there, with 2 hinges, opening in this direction, with a handle located there.
I think it may be a cultural thing or perhaps since they are working for so little they do the absolute minimum, Im not sure.
With overseas labor you have to control the project very tightly. Here are my tips:
See a portfolio of their work first, check out the code, see if its original. If its a outsourcing job site, check out their feedback.
If its a larger project, give them a small test task that requires the skill that the big project needs that will take no more than an hour. Observe their skill/speed/responsiveness/quality. If they are crap, you are only out a few bucks rather than finding out months into a big project. I have found that many overseas contractors on the outsourcing sites will snap up any work they can without actually having the time or skill to pull it off. The test tasks filter out these people.
In the project brief, be stupidly specific (as in our door example) and be sure to add in lines like "All work needs to be original". While you would assume that all work would be original anyway, others dont seem to think that way. Thats why you have to really spell out the terms.
With the payment terms, work something out that limits the financial damage if they are bad. Ideally pay after you see work. If you have to pay something up front, try and keep it to a smaller percentage.
If its a large project, require daily/weekly updates about the work that is being done (depending on whether they are solely working on your project or not). I dont bother with this on small projects, but on big ones I do. Set up milestones on when things must be complete.
Managing like this is the cost of cheap overseas labor, if you can do it well its great. If you find a great overseas contractor that has proven to be reliable in your past projects, then you can obviously loosen the reigns. If you dont want to do all this then stick to a westerner instead, but you will pay for it.
If this designer copied and pasted an existing design, swapped the header and said it took 5 hours, then thats an outright scam in any country, it doesnt mean third world labor is more likely to scam you, it can really happen in any country.
Having said that, you do have to treat overseas labor different than you would a westerner.
A good example is if you want a door installed over there. A westerner would install the door, have 2 hinges on the side and a handle. Its assumed that when you say "Door" you also want the hinges and the handle.
I have found in personal experience, mainly with Indian contractors, that you have to be super specific about what you want. I want a door, of this size, over there, with 2 hinges, opening in this direction, with a handle located there.
I think it may be a cultural thing or perhaps since they are working for so little they do the absolute minimum, Im not sure.
With overseas labor you have to control the project very tightly. Here are my tips:
See a portfolio of their work first, check out the code, see if its original. If its a outsourcing job site, check out their feedback.
If its a larger project, give them a small test task that requires the skill that the big project needs that will take no more than an hour. Observe their skill/speed/responsiveness/quality. If they are crap, you are only out a few bucks rather than finding out months into a big project. I have found that many overseas contractors on the outsourcing sites will snap up any work they can without actually having the time or skill to pull it off. The test tasks filter out these people.
In the project brief, be stupidly specific (as in our door example) and be sure to add in lines like "All work needs to be original". While you would assume that all work would be original anyway, others dont seem to think that way. Thats why you have to really spell out the terms.
With the payment terms, work something out that limits the financial damage if they are bad. Ideally pay after you see work. If you have to pay something up front, try and keep it to a smaller percentage.
If its a large project, require daily/weekly updates about the work that is being done (depending on whether they are solely working on your project or not). I dont bother with this on small projects, but on big ones I do. Set up milestones on when things must be complete.
Managing like this is the cost of cheap overseas labor, if you can do it well its great. If you find a great overseas contractor that has proven to be reliable in your past projects, then you can obviously loosen the reigns. If you dont want to do all this then stick to a westerner instead, but you will pay for it.
16k_zx81
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 54
- Location
- South Australia
Ive encountered this also with phillipino and indonesian workers. I dont think its cultural. Perhaps the 'narrow margin' is what drives it. That makes better sense, I think.
Agree about being very specific about whats required from the outset. I have actually been 'saved' a couple of times by referring contractors back to the original job description/brief that they signed on for. By making this fairly airtight you get some protection, but also, a lot of people these days seem to want to use Skype for discussing jobs. Personally, I require chat via text (Gtalk), so that if anything is not done to spec, its all there in writing to refer back to. Skype is too nebulous and difficult to get a record from. If all the communication is written theres nowhere for them to go.
This 'minimalist' approach is a real issue and its about articulating the parameters that must be successfully met in order for the job to be considered 'completed successfully'.
Its important to be clear about timeframes too. I have been stung in the past with contractors wanting to spend more time than was initially agreed and then wanting to charge for it, despite the fact that there were no alterations to the specific requirements of the job.
This also may be a 'cultural' or a 'narrow margin' issue, but it was a hell of a surprise to me on the occasions when I struck it, and now am clear at the outset of any contract what the timings are, and that 're-quoting' because the job took longer than the contractor anticipated, will not be entertained. There is definitely a different understanding with offshore workers about the 'acceptability' of this, in my experience.
But yeah, it really is a very different experience from hiring locally. Requires different precautions and different methods of communication in order to get things done.
Last edited:
codegreen
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 34
- Location
- New Brunswick, Canada
Tankman, based on your description of your experience, it's safe to say that the guy you were dealing with was:
a) incompetent,
b) a scammer, OR
c) both
There's no argument here. The problem is you seem to be tarring and feathering 1/6 of the world's population based on this one bad experience. Scammers know no borders, and you could have just as easily been scammed by an American "web designer" online. If you replace all instances of "Indian" with "American" in your original post, you might see why people responded the way they did.
That said, Bryce made some good points. When outsourcing work to someone in another country, you need to be aware of language and cultural differences. It's not the same as hiring a local person or company.
a) incompetent,
b) a scammer, OR
c) both
There's no argument here. The problem is you seem to be tarring and feathering 1/6 of the world's population based on this one bad experience. Scammers know no borders, and you could have just as easily been scammed by an American "web designer" online. If you replace all instances of "Indian" with "American" in your original post, you might see why people responded the way they did.
That said, Bryce made some good points. When outsourcing work to someone in another country, you need to be aware of language and cultural differences. It's not the same as hiring a local person or company.
myPCTechs
Member
- Reaction score
- 23
- Location
- Phoenix, Arizona
You get what you pay for.
I know people who charge 1000+ pounds for websites that are based on wordpress themes... most website designers use wordpress themes or joomla themes and modify them for the businesses purposes.
For a 100% from scratch website your talking pages and pages of php and unique graphics you would be looking at hours and hours of work and it would cost you a fortune.
Any website you see just look at the source and I can almost guarantee it will be based on a theme no matter the designer. Ive looked at all the website companies in my area and all base their websites on themes and modify them.
For a 100% from scratch website your talking pages and pages of php and unique graphics you would be looking at hours and hours of work and it would cost you a fortune.
Any website you see just look at the source and I can almost guarantee it will be based on a theme no matter the designer. Ive looked at all the website companies in my area and all base their websites on themes and modify them.
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