Custom versus No Code

Written By Tim Richardson

So. What’s been going on?

I decided to go public with Your Basket Is Empty version 4.0. Which, to be honest, was a daunting endeavour.

I like the idea of ‘building in public’. But I’ve never been fully comfortable with the concept. I prefer to just create honest, authentic content that I like to make and assume that others will enjoy consuming it. However, I understand the power of social, especially when one is trying to go from zero to one - which we are with version 4.0.

So. I did it and I’ll admit it was liberating to tell the world that Your Basket Is Empty is now a Digital Commerce Agency and we’re open for business.

If you’re a brand and you want to experience what it’s like to work directly with agency founders, hit me up and we can have a chat.

Your pals, Lucy & Tim

Custom versus No Code

As I mentioned in my version 4.0 public post, we’re going to be refining our content to focus on problems that brands face and how to solve them. In time, this is going to be become its own dedicated content hub. We’re also exploring a directory with problems and solutions that we’ll release publicly. But for the moment, I’m going to use the news nuggets section. Here goes…

One of the great website development debates is custom versus off-the-shelf (OTS)?

Rewind to 2018 and my perspective was clear. Custom all the way. Sure, you can tweak OTS themes. In fact, I created a new service line at WMW designed for this very use case - 'semi custom'. For a brand that was in between OTS and custom. But the tweaks were never enough. The brand always wanted more which rendered the concept useless and we canned the service in favour of custom only.

What’s more, OTS themes were bloated in 2018. They contained useless code which needed to be ripped out before building. So you were buying what you thought was a brand new house, but you actually needed to do a whole bunch of renovations to it before moving in.

But in 2024, I'm revisiting my perspective. Is custom worth it?

Shopify has spent a zillion dollars on R&D, Dawn is great, OTS themes are way less bloated, you're not locked into a framework that will need rebuilding or refactoring in 3 yrs and maybe the cost of a custom framework could be better spent on something else. Eg content, creative, and branding. Which, in my opinion, is where the real differentiation is.

And this isn’t just my opinion. I’m seeing more and more +£10m GMV brands opt for no code OTS themes.

Of course, I'll caveat this thesis with 'there is no perfect answer'. The custom versus OTS also depends on the type of brand. Some brands just don't like OTS, usually because they want full design and creative control. They might also have genuine requirements that mean a custom approach is better. And that is a competitive advantage.

But I'm bullish on OTS. With the right creative, brand, colour palette, font - and of course, a killer product - it’s an incredibly powerful proposition.

Shopify’s Earnings

Shopify reported its Q1 earnings and they were hot

GMV up 23%, revenue up 23%, gross payment volume up 32% (Shop Pay gaining more traction) and the holiest of holy grails -  free cash flow up 169%. One could argue that their strategy to focus on the product, become a commerce platform (not just D2C) and cut costs is working.

So why did the stock drop 20% in one day? And does it really matter?

As you’d expect, there were a number of opinions but most pointed to lower forward guidance. Shopify were publicly bullish on consumer sentiment (see Harley’s post-announcement roadshow content), but their future earnings expectations painted a more muted perspective. Which the street agreed with, and I suggest J Powell would too. But there were also arguments that we’ve entered a new investor sentiment world. Growth at all costs has been replaced with profit at all costs. But not even that was enough in this instance.

So why?

This takes me back to a dusty old lecture theatre at the University of Adelaide, circa 2006. One of my favourite classes was behavioural finance. And whilst I suspect there is some classic herd behaviour at play, I think Shopify is experiencing the very technical world of ‘you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t’.

Stronger forward guidance that is missed = getting punished in the future. Weaker forward guidance = getting punished now. So they are opting for shore term pain with potential long term gain and betting on the fact that their Q2 results will far surpass their guidance and increase the stock at least +20%. Did they think they’d get punished this hard? Probably not.

But as I’ve talked about previously, how much of this really matters on the ground? Is a brand going to consider Shopify’s earnings versus stock performance when making any sort of technology decision? Absolutely not. They are and will continue to be the gorilla.

In other interestingly adjacent news,  Big Commerce is up for sale. Will going private allow them to make bets that the street can’t punish them for? Will these bets strengthen their position against Shopify? Even though they just announced Muji as a client (which, tbh, needed a website refresh. Hands down one of the worst UX experiences in modern commerce) I am not bullish. See above gorilla statement.

 

What Else Is Clucking?

Playlist

The weirdo, underground, rock world lost a legend last week. Steve Albini, probably most famous for his work with Nirvana, passed away. Rest In Power, Steve. Listen to my playlist of his greatest production credits.

Want to know what it’s like to work with the A-team?

Tim Richardson
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