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When hiring a developer makes no sense

Some of the projects that reach me do not need me. Twenty products with no variants, a standard catalogue, no business system to connect: a hosted off-the-shelf offer does the job for the price of one development day. Saying so costs me work, but less than a project delivered at a loss and abandoned six months later.

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A small ready-made store in the spotlight, while a large toolbox stays set aside.

Seven situations where you do not need a developer

  • Fewer than about fifty products, with no variants or with two or three simple options. That is exactly the shape hosted offers handle best, with no server administration at all.
  • One carrier, one VAT rate, one delivery zone. Native configuration covers it everywhere, and it needs nobody.
  • No management software, no till, no warehouse to synchronise. Integrations are the first genuine reason to develop; without them there is nothing to write.
  • Nobody in-house to administer a server, apply patches or watch backups. A self-hosted platform nobody maintains becomes a compromised site, and that is a matter of months.
  • A primarily editorial need: presenting an activity, being found locally, taking enquiries. Selling is secondary, and a classic content site does the job better.
  • A total budget below the cost of one development day. That is not a judgement: it is a constraint, and there are decent answers at that budget.
  • A project where nobody yet knows whether customers exist. Validating demand with a shop assembled in a few days costs less than discovering there is no market after a development.

What a webmaster does better than me, and cheaper

There is a confusion worth clearing. Many requests phrased as “I am looking for a developer” actually describe routine upkeep: adding products, updating copy, changing a banner, publishing a page, checking updates go through, answering when a form stops sending.

That work exists, it is useful, and it has nothing to do with development. A webmaster or an integrator does it better than a developer, because it is their trade and because they bill it at the right rate. Asking me to type in product records means paying development rates for data entry — and I will do it less well, because it is not what I do daily.

The developer becomes useful at one precise moment: when the expected behaviour does not exist in the tool and no setting produces it. Before that point, they cost money for nothing. After it, there is no alternative.

Five triggers that make a developer useful

  1. A business rule that exists nowhere

    A price computed from dimensions the customer enters, a discount depending on history, shipping billed by volume rather than weight. No setting produces that, and no market extension either once the rule is yours alone.

  2. A connection to an outside system

    Management software, till, warehouse, accounting, marketplace. It is the most frequent and most legitimate reason: data has to flow both ways, without retyping and without overwriting what matters.

  3. A volume that makes the tool buckle

    A catalogue slowing the back office, a category page taking several seconds, an import that no longer completes. At that stage it is no longer configuration, it is query and index optimisation.

  4. A failure nobody can explain

    A 500 error, lost orders, payments that do not complete, a compromised site. That means reading logs, database and server: exactly what a developer is called for.

  5. A plugin stack that became unmanageable

    Fifteen extensions treading on each other, with nobody knowing what they do. Replacing the stack with code that is understood and maintained becomes the cheaper option at that point.

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Frequently asked questions

Can a hosted off-the-shelf offer really be enough?
For a standard catalogue, yes, and lastingly. These platforms handle the product, the basket, payment, delivery and ordinary tax with no technical administration. Their limits appear on three precise grounds: unusual pricing rules, integration with existing software, and deep customisation of the buying journey. As long as you are on none of those three, developing adds nothing.
Is starting small then migrating risky?
It is reasonable, provided you know the migration will be paid for. What makes it expensive is not exporting products, it is carrying over addresses, orders and customer accounts. Starting small is still almost always cheaper than developing a shop for a business that has not yet found its customers.
At what threshold does a developer pay off?
There is no revenue threshold, but there is a threshold in the nature of the need. The day you describe a behaviour no setting produces, or the day manual retyping costs you several hours a week, the calculation flips. Before that day, development is spending with no measurable return.
Do you take small projects?
Yes, when they are bounded: a fix, an integration, a module, a targeted takeover. What I decline is selling a developed shop to someone for whom a hosted offer would plainly suit better. I would rather say it in the first exchange, even if it means not working together this time.
How do I know which category I am in?
Write down what you sell, how many references, how many options per product, which carriers, and which software has to talk to the shop. If that description fits in five lines and contains the word “bespoke” nowhere, you probably do not need a developer today. That is also the most useful answer I can give you.

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