Just last week, a client gave me a website to integrate a payment gateway (Interswitch Webpay)  into his Virtuemart ecommerce website but to my surprise, this client was using the same template from JA with another of my clients doing the same payment gateway doing business in the same city.

Really, how unique is your business? What gives your competitors and edge over you? Or should I say “What gives you and edge over your competitors”? These are some of the important questions we need to consider when picking the right look/face (website) for our business on the internet.

How would you feel if you walk down the road only to find 10 other people wearing the same “exact” shirt, jeans, and shoes with you? That’s how your business feels when you wear its website the same template as 1,000 other businesses on the web.

Apart from the uniqueness, most club templates can be very rigid to customize to your taste, hence requiring the services of an advanced designer which eventually cost as much as the custom template if not more.

In all honesty, I must confess that “most” Club templates are very professional and built to w3c standards. They “sometimes have a lot features and flexible configuration settings but configuration settings become useful for customization purpose. With a “custom” template, you really don’t need customization as it is “purpose built”.

The only times I believe club templates should be considered is if the project is:

• a “very” low budget project
• for a business with a few or no competition at all
• for an academic project
• just a prototype (proof of concept)

So how do you know if a designer used a club template for you?

If you are not a professional and you do not come across a website with the same design, it can be tricky, but the following can serve as a guide:

1. He does not give you design options at the beginning of the project
2. He does not give you the PSD (Photoshop) source files for the project
3. He finds it difficult adjusting the design to meet your needs

The decision is always up to you “The Business Owner”!