The retail landscape is now global, thus blurring the geographies and making the business model borderless. You don’t need to be in Italy to buy designer shoes; you can shop for them without moving an inch away from your couch. The power of eCommerce combined with global retail has brought the top brands to your doorstep with convenient deliveries.
The Internet has made shopping easier and more accessible. At least $4.9 trillion in retail revenue is generated from eCommerce sales. There are around 12 to 14 million eCommerce sites across the world.
The pandemic is one of the primary reasons for the increased online shopping. With changing needs and evolving customers, online is the most preferred medium. Even brands have started taking security and data compliance seriously, enriching the experience.
As a brand owner, eCommerce is no longer a luxury entail; it is necessary to keep growing your business. The first step to creating your eCommerce site is choosing the platform. Most small and medium enterprises turn to Shopify to build their first efficient website.
Top Reasons why Businesses Choose Shopify for eCommerce Store
When you are a small business, you struggle to achieve visibility and ensure every customer converts. With the powerful management tools, security aspects, and SEO abilities of this platform, it is the perfect way to guarantee maximum sales. The platform helps enrich experiences and keep the interactions secure.
- As you stay in business longer, your customer base will grow. You will need to manage the increased load without compromising on the experiences. You can scale your website in sync with your business’s incoming traffic and newer needs without worrying about the additional costs.
- If you plan on expanding to international grounds, you don’t need to worry about handling currencies or managing multiple franchisees. Shopify makes all of that very easy and hassle-free
- Integrations with several software tools and APIs allow you to easily connect your store with multiple CRM, ERP, and other solutions. You can fetch and send data that can help you make effective decisions.
- You can choose from Shopify’s multiple payment options and incorporate them into your website hassle-free. The best part being there are no transaction fees associated with Shopify payments.
- With the unique and highly impressive marketing tools, you can reach your target markets and successfully convert the customers there.
Do-it-yourself or Outsource- Why Hire a Shopify Expert?
We have already defined the benefits of having a Shopify store for your business. It is time to consider whether you want to build your store or outsource it to a Shopify expert.
Here’s what will happen if you take the do-it-yourself approach:
- The platform is quite simple to use and easy to set up. They have built it to allow small businesses to get started.
- However, when you start creating a professional website for your business, you may either waste your productive hours or not get it right.
- When you are a first-time user, you struggle to find the commands and how to maneuver the store to make it appear to your liking. It can take up several attempts and read.
- You may even spend more money than planned with the do-it-yourself approach. As you need to learn and then incorporate, you will be spending productive hours working on your website. Your core job of getting more sales and converting customers can go for a toss, causing your business to suffer.
By hiring Shopify experts, you get:
- The freedom to focus on your job. You are no longer responsible for building the website, so you can focus on building relationships and enhancing product quality.
- You get the expertise and experience of these developers. They will understand your needs and convert them into aesthetic, functional websites. They will know what plugins, integrations, and interface elements to use to make your website accessible and appealing.
- When you say you want to stand out from others in your niche, the expertise helps you attain that. They will know how to differentiate your brand’s website with simple and practical tools.
- Their ability to understand SEO and Shopify marketing tools will help maximize visibility and get the desired reach
- Lastly, they will also help you maintain and upgrade the website, which is one of the major tasks you need to accomplish.
How to Choose a Suitable Shopify Development Company?
The Shopify development company should have extensive knowledge of the platform. They should be well aware of the tips and hacks that make development easy and comfortable. However, you cannot limit the skillset to their knowledge alone; you need to go beyond to judge their capabilities and enthusiasm.
Clear and Defined Processes
A good working process can make your development smooth and easy. The team should know how and when to collect the inputs needed for growth. This would make the first part of the process. The second part includes the development. You will need to identify the approach for coding and deployment.
Lastly, you will need to define the approach for output, which includes documentation and guidelines. You will need to determine the process from preparation for the project to the testing and final production.
Exceptional Communication Skills
Proper communication between you and the development team can ensure the project’s timely completion in tune with your needs. You should find a prompt company with the communication and provides you will answer at the earliest.
They should have the right tools and methods to streamline sync and async communication. For instance, slack can be a good tool for instant communication. Similarly, JIRA is a good project management tool that allows you to collaborate with your people.
Continual Support
When you are looking for a Shopify development partner, you need someone that extends the necessary support. For instance, if there is a maintenance requirement, the team should be ready with the support tools. If you are experiencing downtime, there should be an immediate solution.
It would help if you had someone on the team to contact whenever there is an issue. The level of support should be one notch higher so that you are never in trouble.
Incredible Work Portfolio
How can you judge if the company is good enough and can offer you the requisite solution?
The answer is the work portfolio. Check out the past websites they have developed and how it is unique from each other. Understand what elements of the brand they have used to create the website. Ask them questions on how they ideated the website for the particular eCommerce brand.
These things will help you understand if the company is worth the investment.
The Design Understanding
It has to be both functional and accessible when it comes to a website. You cannot create such websites without making them simple and easy to learn. Here are a few things that will give you a complete purview of their design knowledge.
Intuitive Navigation
The first step is to improve the navigation. Ensure the user doesn’t need to think through while navigating through the website. It should be clear and precise. When the user presses the first button, they should know where it would lead. Eventually, they should be well aware of how to move through the website.
UX-led Designs
It is essential to think about the UI/UX first when designing an eCommerce website. If your development company has created a UX-first design, it is worth looking into. These designs can improve experiences and increase conversions.
Advanced Functionality
You should check with the provider if they have made way for advanced functionality. Have they created websites with these features, and how have they managed to make them appear usable. These things will help you understand their depth of design.
Conclusion
When planning an eCommerce website, Shopify should be your first choice. From an effective UX to an interactive UI, you can create websites that are functional and accessible with this platform.
However, if you plan to do it yourself, you might not be able to match the expertise or experience requirements. As a result, you will waste productive hours trying to get the right solution.
Instead, you should hire an expert company to help you with Shopify eCommerce development. Codersh is a Shopify development partner that offers the right solutions and extends continual support. With transparent processes and honest communication, we accelerate development and enhance experiences.
