eCommerce Dilemma: Why Most Website Builders Are Labeled "Scam Websites"?

eCommerce is one of the fastest-growing businesses in today’s world. Like every other online scam, there’s no shortage of scams in the web development world. In this article, we’ll investigate the reasons why many website builders are listed as “scammers”.

Overview at eCommerce Takeover

As we are progressing in technology, so do our ways of buying and selling are changing. People are getting more engaged in e-commerce or internet commerce. This refers to a process of buying and selling services and goods online by transferring money and data.

According to an estimate, e-commerce's share of global retail trade rose from 14 percent in 2019 to 17 percent in 2020, due to the pandemic of COVID-19. It will keep growing at a rapid rate in the coming years.

The Dilemma of eCommerce

Where there are many advantages there are some disadvantages as well. The virtual world is also full of frauds and scammers. There’s always a chance to get stuck into a scam especially for the newbies. When a beginner wants to start a new business, they are most likely to become the target for scammers.

Having a website for any business or service provider is a must-have rule in today’s trend. Building a website is very costly if you hire a website designer, and for a newbie, it’s difficult to put a big budget on building a website. Thus, website builders also known as CMS (Content Management System) are very popular among users nowadays.

There are many well-known website builders available on the internet like Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Shoplazza, etc. These platforms provide various options, resources, and strategies to fulfill your needs. Regardless of being a designer or a professional coder.

Understanding Website Building Scams

So, what’s the catch? If building a website is that simple, then why are people having issues like scams and reports like getting hacked. This happens because there are many website builders out there that practice shady business with low-quality functionality.

These website builders promise you a free website design, offer a free domain, etc. They will ask you to register and fill up your details to begin building a free website. Later you will get scammed by getting charged. Or, a fake builder will promise you a beautiful site at a low cost, but deliver a small part of what they promise. Later, scammers will keep control of the site. The functionality will be minimal, and you can’t add text, edit or install anything.

Many people around you get scammed by website builders by getting offers of a free website and then hounded to start a website. After a few steps, they will get forced to pay to create a better site.

These kinds of things affect many site builders even if they are providing better services. People suspected them and started posting negative reviews. Which will later put them in the “scammers” category.

One more reason I came up with is that scammers use these site builders to create a hoax site to create a fraud or scam. Every website, which is created using these CMS, has a badge or a logo at the end of a web page as “powered by XYZ”. That indicates the website was built on a certain website builder. When these scammers target consumers, the consumer will post a negative review stating the website builder’s name which will lead to putting their name under the scammers’ list.

Every user should learn how to spot scams and scam websites. For a beginner, it’s a little difficult to understand things so soon. I would recommend taking an expert’s help in this regard to save yourself from being the next victim.

(Contributed by Faiza Jalal Siddiqui; Co-author: Clair Feng & Ethan Tang)