By: RH
Looking around the net I found a good story from Australia on web design trends. Even though we are based in the U.S. I like to look around the world to see what is new and what is working.
StartupSmart is a website that deals with giving business advice and news on start ups.
Oliver Milman wrote an article about 5 web design trends that every start up should heed. The article looked at Red Bubble as an example and all the things they have done to improve their website.
One of the things that was surprising was just how much they spent on their site. Taken from the article:
The main advantage of launching a web-only business is the cost – stripped of the overheads of premises, fixtures and fittings and equipment, online start-ups can run a very efficient model.
However, as selling via the internet becomes ingrained within businesses and rises in popularity among consumers, the costs are beginning to rise.
In order to stand out from an increasingly cluttered field, you will need a striking design, easy user experience and a secure payment platform that doesn’t fall over or get hacked into on a regular basis.
All of these things cost money. If you baulk at the cost, you should ask yourself how important the web is to your business and whether you’d invest a large amount in another area of your operations that’s of equal value.
Hosking says that in addition to the 18 months taken to overhaul RedBubble, he also spent $200,000 on market research and design, which doesn’t include development costs.
“It’s a big outlay for a small company like ours,” he admits. “But that’s what we had to pay to really show what the brand meant to customers and how customers use us. I can’t put a figure on what the return will be, you can’t easily quantify that.”
“But we want to be a global brand for those that aspire to creative individualism. In Australia, brands such as Billabong and Quiksilver have done that in the past and we want to be in that category. And that takes investment.”
It is a very good read for anyone developing websites, rebranding or thinking about starting their own website.
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