Website Templates On Ebay, Bad Idea?
So you want to buy website templates on Ebay? The price almost looks too good to be true for sure but what are you really getting yourself into? Prices for template packs start at just over $3 to $30 so at that price one would jump at buying these packs, we did and here is what we found.
Quality of Templates Not Great, Not Even Good
Yeah, our CD arrived around 1 week later and we couldn’t wait to see how good these templates were. Now please note that the only reason for the purchase was to merely test out the quality of these templates, we had no intention to use these products or resell them (no way would we resell these) more on that later. What we found is a bunch of garbage truthfully, I mean we were not that surprised, over 30,000 templates for $8.00 we really didn’t expect anything special. Out of the whole CD, we found 3 or 4 templates that were acceptable but still needed work to make them semi-presentable.
Say Hello To The Trash Bin
So after 20 minutes of searching each folder, it was apparent that this was a wasted $8, now of course I was not expecting some great Flash design or award winning website templates but maybe a couple good ones at of 30,000 templates would be nice. It was obvious that what I purchased was a template dump. Alot of the templates REQUIRE you to leave a link of the author on the template, removing the link may get you in legal trouble if your found out. More legal issues below.
Be Careful Of Stolen Work
A problem that I have seen is that some people decompile existing flash templates and then resell them on eBay, what this means is that you are buying templates that are already violating copyrights. Some template makers and Ebay have worked on the issue but I still see decompiled templates on there for sale, so be careful. The last thing you want is to be shut off by your hosting company due to stolen work that you had NO idea about or even worse…legal documents.
Our Advise
You know the saying, you get what you pay for…well this is totally the case with buying website templates on Ebay. In addition to the bad quality, you run the risk of buying stolen templates so our advise to is stay away, far away. I know the price is right if your looking to build a website with almost no cost, or perhaps looking to resell them, but to put yourself in the line of fire doesn’t make any sense. Ebay is not at fault, they can’t monitor which templates violate copyright and which ones don’t and I’m sure Ebay works to weed those people out. Still, if there is a buck to be made selling template dumps and stolen property, sadly this will be a continued trend.
Be smart. Become Informed.
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April 1st, 2008 at 1:34 am
Its true even I encountered similar stuffs while I was looking for a good template for my website. The packages are at very cheap prices but you always get what you pay for and at most of the cases the worst are packaged most brilliantly with the loudest bang!!
April 1st, 2008 at 1:39 am
@Arnold
Hey Arnold,
that was a good one.. Worst with loudest bang!!!. I 100% agree with both the post and Arnold that you get the worst when you look for cheap. You cannot have all at one go. Either you pay the price or be stuck with worst programming.. haahaa have burnt my hands also !! so all i can say is be careful and informed of what you are buying..
April 1st, 2008 at 1:42 am
@ everyone
Hello,
Finally all like minded people met at one platform.. but instead of the problem lets focus on the solution because that is the call of the day or else we will still be stuck at the mess let me know from where to find all those information we are talking abt ???
April 1st, 2008 at 1:43 am
Arnold:
We tried to really like some of the templates in the bunch but no luck, We always preach Quality over Quantity to our customers. On the other hand, if somebody really has to try out the templates, they are only out a few bucks in some cases. I still say don’t waste your time.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:52 am
I was thinking of buying templates from ebay for my website but after reading this am changning my mind will go for a designed one Thanx:)
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:57 am
Its always recommended to have it designed because it gives you uniqness
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 am
True! am happy u raised this point that designing is always better as it will definitely give my website a lift and uniqueness than others.. Anyways quality is always better than quantity..
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:00 am
Hi ,
Lol you telling me if i am buidling 30 websites i should get it designed 30 times.. Uggh it will be ery silly of me !!!
Templates rock
April 10th, 2008 at 6:05 am
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later ..
April 17th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Your site beautiful dreamlinestudio.com
May 8th, 2008 at 4:58 am
@Christian
Why would you need 30 websites unless you were a web designer yourself building sites for 30 different clients? That would be a bad idea anyway, because you’ll run into a bunch of copyright issues (esp. with the prevalence of stolen content,) not to mention pissed off clients when they realize that the site they just bought came from some generic template mill.
Yes, some of them do say that you are getting a “unique” template that won’t be resold, but there is little to no accountability on the web. Good luck getting any recourse from what is likely to be a shell company in China, or India selling the same templates under a thousand other business names which aren’t even properly registered.
Unless you have some HTML skills, you’d be better off just hiring a designer. You will still need to alter all the template content, including the graphics, to suit your content. Sometimes, this ends up being more work than if you’d just hired a designer to do the whole site for you. Sites are supposed to be built around content, not the other way around. Function before form, always.
November 8th, 2008 at 4:02 am
Hey guys, I actually ran into a website that was giving away products you apparently hired them to do. I guess you guys hired 1three.com to do some layouts and barring a disagreement they gave them away?
http://www.encide.net/index.php?topic=191.0
Absolute idiots if you ask me, if you need me to give you some extra details shoot me an email. I went over to the 1Three blog to find it under construction, go figure. I have been a fan of your work for some time and know some of the people that work there so I know how you guys operate.
Goes to show, its hard to trust people online especially those guys at 1three.com, have you guys contacted them about this?
November 8th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Yeah, that’s old news actually and there is no need to start contacting ISP’s among other things, just not worth it. If 1three is showing how they operate, so let it be.
I will personally be keeping an eye on 1three both by website and associations via forums etc. I still have all the chat logs to contest claims.
Thank you for the heads up.
Dreamlinestudio Staff
November 9th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Hello,
To whoever posted as “1Three Blog” you have no right digging into business that is not of your matter. I’m going to break this down into some key points for your understanding:
1) We did not give these designs away. I posted them on this blog for C&C from fellow friends of mine; they were not being downloaded for use. If you post *anything* on the internet, it can be obtained one way or another. Dreamline Studio has these same designs up for preview on their website so me posting the image to the design is no fu-par.
2) Our disagreement within out contract was of internal matter and not for the public. Also, for your information, this was a second contract we did with Dreamline Studio; our first contract was completed as intended, and Victor was pleased with his work. You have no legal right to dig into a company contract that does not have your name in it, period.
3) You can post all you want about 1Three, and it will not stop us from opening our website and conducting business. If you have any experience in the web development industry you would understand there are times when contracts don’t work out and must be terminated. Unfortunately that was the case with Dreamline Studio.
Now that I have sorted my business with this anonymous user I would like to say a couple of word to you, Victor.
We conducted our business as you expected with our first contract, and was pleased with our products we provided to you. You were also pleased with what we had going on with the second contract, and then we ran into a speed bump. I hope you remember the situation quite well, and if you don’t I would love to speak with you to remind you what happened.
I am not talking down about your business, and would never do so as I take my line of work very serious. Doing anything to bring a bad image to my company is the last thing I would ever consider doing. So if you have anything to say on this matter from this point on, please contact me.
Best regards,
Andrew Ellis
CEO, 1Three
November 9th, 2008 at 5:04 am
Thanks for the lengthy explanation Andrew, but the fact remains that you 1three.com made these designs available AFTER we had commisioned you for this project. We paid you for exclusive rights, not for you to share them with anybody else.
Can you imagine if after we created a custom job for a client, we turned around and made it available for everybody? This is simply not a good business model. at least disclose the fact that you give away your client’s designs after completion.
In any event, we are good.