Looking for an ECommerce Website Development company? Here are a few tips that might help you.
• First of all, don’t take cost as your only way of comparing two companies. Cost is very relative when it comes to determining if a company is good or not. A good company from a poor country might charge as much as a bad company from a rich country, for example. Of course, the situation might be the other way around, which is yet another reason not to judge an e-commerce web development company by price alone.
• Be specific about what you want. If you’re having a meeting or a phone call with a supplier, make sure that you do your homework and bring as many specific features as possible. That way you can ask more pertinent questions and make specific demands. Ask how the different products you make can be classified and offered to the public. How the payments are processed. If there are specific taxes in your country or area, can they be integrated in the paying process? Are your usual methods of receiving payment going to be integrated as they are or do they require modification?
• Be open to their suggestions. An e-commerce web development company has done several jobs similar to yours. They might offer you something that you hadn’t though about it before. Or maybe some features that you asked for can give you a better result if implemented in a slightly different way. This is specially useful when reducing the number of clicks that customers need to make for a purchase. If your original idea is too complex, simplifying it can help you avoid losing customers.
When in doubt about one of their suggestions, neither accept it nor reject it. Ask
for more type to study it.
• Don’t limit your choices to companies in your area or country. This is the World Wide Web we’re talking about. If you can’t find a good e-commerce web development area locally, look for it on the other side of the world.
• Lastly, if you have narrowed down your suppliers to a few choices, go to the website of each e-commerce web development company. After all, if that’s what their business is, it’s just logical that every e-commerce web development company puts its best efforts towards their own page. If the page you look at is not nearly close to something you’d like for your own page, then move on to the next company.
Tips For Selecting An E-Commerce Web Development Company
Comparing Companies That Offer Online E-Commerce Solutions
Due to the increase of trading over the Internet, most companies and some individuals are hiring companies or developers that specialize in online e-commerce solutions for their websites. They know that the potential increase of their sales online depends greatly of the quality and design of their webpage, and thus, they are prepared to spend the funds needed in an attempt to increase their profits.
Ecommerce Development Company
However, it can be difficult to select a good and cheap supplier. They all promise you great results, but whether they deliver them or not is another matter. There is also the problem of what is considered a “great result;” which is not very concrete, even when it’s measurable.
For example, what is better? a company that offers “more sales”? or a company that offers “customer awareness”? Both of these terms are rather ambiguous and difficult, if not impossible to measure. Note that no company will guarantee you a minimum amount of sales, for instance “sales of $10,000 in one month.” But then again not even regular publicity and promotion techniques will offer those kinds of guarantees.
One solution is to study the exact online e-commerce solutions that are offered, as these are much more measurable. They also resemble traditional advertisement. For example, 1,000 banner ads on 200 different websites. Another common technique is the creation of a blog with articles relevant to the products of the company. These articles are usually filled with keywords related to the company’s business. A third example is posting on forums. Let’s say 1,500 posts on 300 forums.
While these online e-commerce solutions are measurable, they still don’t guarantee sales. You can have a thousand people see your ad, but they won’t buy your product unless they find a cost benefit ratio that’s better than the alternatives. However, when well done, they can be very effective.
One of the latest and most popular online e-commerce solutions is purchased traffic. Let’s say, 5,000 visitors per day. In this way, you skip the advertising process and get the traffic that would have been generated by the advertising. This solution is popular because it’s very easy and cost effective.
Of course, none of these will guarantee sales, just more traffic and more people that see your company and your products. This can increase the level of sales, but still, how do you compare all these companies?
In my opinion, a simple subjective test is the best way to go. Just go to the webpages of these companies that offer online e-commerce solutions. Does the page of a specific company make you want to find out more about its products and services? If it does, then you have a strong candidate. If it doesn’t, just keep looking.
What An E-commerce Developer Does
An e-commerce developer is not a computer programmer or a “computer guy.” It’s an individual that specializes on solutions for companies regarding the sale of products over the Internet.
This might seems an easy task for most people, since the final result usually is very easy to use. Anyone that has bought a plane ticket online knows what a great advantage it is over having to go to the airport or travel agency, or over being put on hold for hours when calling a company.
Nevertheless, the work that is needed is complex and often monotonous. Imagine a company that literally handles thousands of different products, like BestBuy or Costo. Each and every single one of those products needs to be entered in the system, and with such a long and tedious list, extra care is needed in order to avoid mistakes.
Let’s not forget that all those items have to be categorized in a simple way so that clients can find them easily. Most companies have a classification system that the developer can use, but sometimes he must come up with his own classification.
An e-commerce developer must also select and install an e-commerce payment method. Such method will not only depend on functionality, but also on cost. Certain payment gateways will charge bigger fees than others, but they are more trusted and well-known by clients than cheaper, less popular payment gateways. Thus, costs should not only be measured on immediate payments, but also on projected fees and payments in the future, according to the company’s online sales projections.
As if this were not enough an e-commerce developer has to connect the company’s site with every pertinent system in the company. Finance and accounting will need reports on the sales generated through Internet, sometimes on real time. Production and shipment should have reports on the items requested and the addresses to which to ship, in order to plan the cheapest and more efficient shipment loads possible. The marketing department will also be involved for surveys, change of prices, and advertisement through the company’s website.
As you can see, being an e-commerce developer isn’t as easy. However, for those who like to work with computers, it’s a good profession. And with the market requiring these skills more and more, salaries in this field are very good.