Choosing the best agency of vendor for a new website design and build is one of the biggest and hardest decisions you will make as brand manager. Sometimes the devil you know is hard to leave, especially if you make the wrong decision, you end up with a new website which is just as bad as before, or worse, not as good and just a huge bill.
However, if you do it right, it can be the best decision you make, here are a few tips from 5xThinking. Over the years we have made these decisions many times for a multitude of different brands.
Here are our top 5 tips:
1) Research & planning
Only work with agencies who are the right type for you, make sure they understand your business and have built similar size websites, with the service levels you require. Plan, plan, plan. Make sure the brief or RFP is as detailed as possible and before you start everyone needs to be completely bought in to the objectives and understand the website you are aiming to build, both client and agency.
2) Budget
Sometimes, less is more. If you cannot afford all the bells and whistles, do not cut corners or try and cram more in then you can afford, it will cause more trouble in the long-run and the final result will be a website which has a lot of different features, none of which really work.
3) Timing & Project Management
Websites are complicated and need a lot of project management. make sure you are not going to launch your website in prime selling time (you will always have launch issues) and dedicate a good amount of time, or even better hire a outside project manager, to bring the project to fruition on time and in-budget, a good agency will always have questions and need a lot of input to make sure the project is completed correctly.
4) Designer vs Developer
Don't be afraid to split the project, use great creatives to get the look, feel and concept you want and then hire a hardcore development team in order to integrate into the eCommerce platform of choice. Again project management is key (see point 3).
5) Platform
DO NOT BUILD YOUR OWN ECOMMERCE PLATFORM, unless it needs to be completely bespoke or you are a technology company and intend to support this. Nobody thinks, let's get a company car, I know we will build one!! Choose the right platform (Magento, Shopify, Demandware, Hybris etc) for your site. Think about where you currently are but also future growth plans and then develop for the future, you will have all the benefits of the platform constantly evolving and if you need to you can swap agency or you will have a whole stable of already trained developers to work with you in the future.
Many more decisions to make, with very careful strategic thinking needed before deciding on the change but we hope this helps the process.
5xThinking offers a service to help you choose the right agency and also a project management service for the design and build. Don't hesitate to contact us to discuss it more. info@5xthinking.com.
