As an eCommerce entrepreneur, you have to provide the best shopping experience to your customers in every manner if you wish to keep their attention and business. However, that’s easier said than done. Constant consumer engagement demands efforts at every step, like stellar websites, easy navigation, simplified checkouts, visible offers, and discounts, a relevant product line-up, post-sales support, and much more.
Hiring external Magento experts is a hassle-free way to achieve this goal, beat the fierce competition, and generate the desired revenue. But, even then, you will need to determine a service provider who fits your constraints. For instance, if you have a restricted budget, you can go with Magento website development in India, the Philippines, Romania, Ukraine, or other such countries where decent resources can be found at reasonable prices.
If you are unsure of how to go about selecting such a partner due to the complexities involved in the process, follow these tips to hire web developers for Magento eCommerce website development.
10 Tips To Select Your Ideal Magento Web Development Partner
1. Define Your Objectives Clearly
Before you start looking for the right outsourcing agency to fit your needs, you should have a clear idea of what your needs are. It begins with defining your business objectives, the niche you want to operate in, your target audience, your short and long-term growth targets, the brand identity elements like theme and logo to match, etc. These will act as the blueprint for the website development process, providing a guidepost to center all elements of the website around. Otherwise, the finished product may not be able to fulfill those objectives.
2. Check Their History/Portfolio
A professional Magento development partner should have a history of delivering high-quality work to match their claims of the same. Thus, you need to check your potential hire’s reputation by combing through various sources that can give you pertinent information.
Start with their website. Have a look at how well it is designed and if the content in it tells about the services it offers. This gives a preliminary view of their capabilities. Then, head to its case studies/testimonial section and read through its past projects. Thoroughly examine the course of action they took to meet their clients’ demands. See if the results match those expectations in the case studies section itself or the testimonials.
If possible, reach out to their past clients and enquire about their experience working with the agency. Cross-check what is present on your potential hire’s website with what the client has to say. You will get a good idea about how well the agency can work for you. Also, note any awards, accolades, special recognition, and certificates they possess. The presence of these items is a guaranteed sign that you are looking at a reputable and capable agency.
3. Glance At Their Reviews and Ratings
Extend your background research of your potential Magento developer by going through online reviews and ratings. Google is a great resource for this, as well as dedicated business review sites like Clutch. Search for your desired potential development agency on Google and check out their star ratings in the results. 4 Stars and above is a good sign.
Go through the comments below to see what people are saying about the company. This is necessary because it provides a look into what the company’s employees have to say about it and its clients. And professional review portals will have reviewers who thoroughly examine a company’s various facets to rate it accordingly. You will even get a glance at the company’s history there too, as well as reviews and ratings from their customers.
4. Know Their Location
Outsourcing agencies rarely stick with having a single office/development center at one location. They tend to distribute their teams across multiple locations, including beyond borders. This helps keep costs in check while allowing them to work across time zones and deliver projects on schedule. It also adds to the diversity of talent, which is very useful if you want to sell across regions too. Regional developers can help localize your brand to better operate in that market.
Hence, have a look at the various locations where your potential Magento agency is present. This information will be present in their website’s Contact Us section, on the search results pages of Google, and in company review portals. You can even ask their representative if they are planning to expand to more locations. It is very helpful if they have an office in your region as it helps with cooperation and localized development.
5. Verify Their Employees’ Qualifications
Only qualified and experienced workers can give your business the website it needs to garner profits. So, you should verify if your potential hire has the quality workforce to handle your project. After checking to see if they have the numbers to work on your project without delays and other problems, engage their representative about the minimum qualification standard for their employees.
Check if those clauses contain the official Magento developer’s certifications or equivalent from reputed institutes. Contact employees likely to be working on your project and learn about their skill sets. Ask about their employee training program to learn if they are keeping their employees in line with the latest developments in the field. While on the topic, check if the company has an official Magento partnership too.
6. Confirm Their Data Security Measures
Data security is of paramount importance today as attacks on enterprises are on the rise. Your eCommerce site should not fall prey to such an attack and cause you losses, especially of sensitive data like customer contact details. Prevention of such cyber attacks starts from the development stage itself.
The web development company should have adequate data security measures in place to prevent any data you’ve shared with them from being stolen. It could include some proprietary algorithms to be integrated with the website. Enquire about the operational protocols in place to prevent unauthorized access to such integrations. Learn about the data security and privacy software they are using and the security measures they have in place for the cloud.
7. Check Communication Specifics
You should have a schedule and a mutually agreed-upon communication mechanism. The two of you should use the same communication tools. The topics of discussion in each routine meeting should be conveyed in advance so that actual progress can be made there.
Troubleshooting measures must be in place to manage things when they don’t go according to schedule. Also, set transparency terms with the company so that you will know about everything you want. Discuss all of this early on so that nothing will become an obstacle during the development process.
8. Know Their SEO Strategy
Your website should have the most viable SEO strategy for high visibility and traffic. While Magento aids the inclusion of technical aspects of SEO, the rest should be contributed by the agency and you. Question them about the design elements that are key to SEO. Work on and implement an SEO strategy with them to get the best ranking results.
9. Ensure Third-Party App Integration
Your eCommerce website can seldom provide all the necessary functions to keep your business going. It requires third-party services, like payment processing, for example, to be fully functional. These are available as APIs that can be integrated into the website, and your selected agency must add them without fail. You may even need to customize some for your specific needs.
10. Know The Price, Payment Method, and Packages
The Magento project cost is what can make or break your deal with the agency ultimately. The price you pay should get you quality without harming your budget. You must look for value instead of just the cheapest price. Also, determine the payment method that suits you like full upfront payment, partial upfront payment, or subscription-based set to a definite period. Providers club multiple services into packages that can reduce costs, but these can also contain unwanted services. See if you can customize these packages to suit your needs.
In Conclusion
As competition heats up in the eCommerce world, so does the demand for sellers to deliver unique experiences to customers while standing out from the crowd. An eCommerce website is an answer to your issues on this front. However, you must hire eCommerce developers in India from a trusted source, i.e., a reputed IT outsourcing company that can offer cost-effective, high-quality resources. Such an agency can give you a website that will keep conversions high and push your eCommerce business to new heights.
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