Top 10 Questions To Ask Before Hiring An E-commerce Development Company

It’s no secret that the E-commerce industry is growing at a rapid pace and every business is moving to an online platform. As per stats, it has been estimated that worldwide E-commerce sales will double by 2021. How your online business will meet the end-user expectations depends on how well-equipped and secure your website is.

When planning to invest in a big E-commerce project, such as customizing, or migrating your traditional store, things need to be as transparent as possible with your E-commerce development agency. You need to be specific about your business requirements and expectations to help the developer understand your vision, identify the parameters and the possible risks involved.

Asking questions will not only bring transparency in development work, but it will make sure the Magento development agency works with full dedication & professionalism. Knowing that the client is not technically sound can sometimes cause some loopholes at the development end.

Here’s a list of questions to ask when building an E-commerce site.

1. What I will get for the overall website budget?

• Once the budget is finalized, check your money’s worth.
• Ask your partner to provide a consolidated list of deliverables regarding web development, graphic design, UI/UX, & content.
• You’ll see that your website is free of any content or images, which is useless for your business. All the information must be analyzed before the deal is done, so you can stay relaxed.

• Most online store owners lack technical knowledge. Hence, maintenance is a must after deployment.
• What will happen if the website shuts down temporarily or need some small changes regarding content? These queries are important as they affect your business.
• Hence, make sure you hire Magento developer that are proficient in the maintenance as well.

3. How much hosting space website require?

• Make sure to inquire about the web hosting service. Which server you are getting a dedicated or a shared one.
• Most of the E-commerce websites are content heavy and involve a lot of products. Thus for long term benefits, a dedicated hosting service is the best option.
• If you are ready to invest from the starting, you can go with the dedicated server from the starting.

4. Is the E-commerce website responsive?

• Does the E-commerce website is compatible with the desktops, laptops, PCs, and mobiles?
• In today’s digital age, most people use mobile devices, hence your website must be responsive across all mobile devices. It should open like an app, optimized as per the customer needs like shape, size, and design.
• Mobile responsive is a crucial factor behind the ROI, revenue and conversion rate.

5. Is the website designed in an SEO friendly environment?

• Once the website design & development process is finished, it is almost impossible to perform any technical customization regularly as it damages the overall visual appearance of the website. If the changes are done on a continuous basis, it might cause website downtime as well; which is completely unacceptable.
• Hence, from the beginning, stay alert if the Magento E-commerce agency knows the intricacies of SEO and if they’re implementing the right practices or not.

6. Are you paying importance to page load time?

• Page load time specifies how long it takes a web page to completely load in a specific web browser. What importance does it holds? Customer satisfaction and good SEO.
• Thus, the code needs to be light in weight and properly readable.
• This is a crucial element to engage customers in an instant manner. So, be alert of using the heavy images and videos, particularly on the home page or target landing pages.

7. What additional services do you offer?

• Some Magento E-commerce development companies also provide additional services including branding and graphic design, PPC marketing, SEO, and many more.
• The best part about working with such companies is that you get those services that help to make your E-commerce website successful.

8. Does the website integrate with a payment gateway?

• This is one of the most crucial aspects of all. This is completely about the online transactions on your E-commerce website and you can’t afford any security lapses here.
• Not only do you require a payment gateway integrated, you require a robust and high on security with SSL encryption.
• Make sure payment is two-factor authentication based.

9. How do you keep communication transparent?

It’s the duty of development agency to provide timely reports regarding what’s going on with the project. And it’s the Magento E-commerce website development responsibility to get the communication process transparent. One of the best approaches is to establish regular calls and meetings for updates on the progress. Being a store owner check the communication medium, and agree upon e-mail, Skype, Slack or anything else as the communication channel.

10. Have you worked on similar verticals?

An E-commerce development company should have a portfolio of previous customers and projects. If they can’t show their previous works, they’re probably not that much proficient to be able to take your E-commerce project on board.
All these are some of the major questions that need to be asked when looking to invest in E-commerce development for desired business solutions.

Wrapping Up:

Now that you know what to ask your development partner, you also must clear your role in the development process. Make sure about the details you need to provide before getting started to save losing time and increasing costs later on.

Even the simplest selling store requires attention and get the right development. If you skip this process, you actually risk building a webstore that doesn’t work as per your business needs. Make these questions a standard part before making any investment. Check the development partner replies and working style so that nothing is missed.