Should you build your Store yourself or should you hire a professional?

Today, eCommerce is changing the way people shop. This change in shopping behavior has converted most of the retail shops into eCommerce websites. Retail businesses are inclined towards eCommerce to sell their products and services. As the demand for eCommerce websites is increasing, various new platforms have emerged and they can be made in multiple ways.

In this article, we will discuss two ways in which you may choose to develop your eCommerce website; You can either choose to develop your eCommerce store yourself or you can hire a professional eCommerce developer. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages that may become the deciding factor for you. Let’s begin.

Advantages of developing your eCommerce store by yourself

Cost-effective

If you are creating your eCommerce store by yourself, definitely you will cut the huge cost of hiring a development company or a team of professionals. A self-developed eCommerce website will just take

More control over the system

As it is developed by you, you will feel more comfortable using it and know exactly how the modules will function.

More Data Security

If you are hiring an agency or a professional developer, then you have to provide the content or website data that they may utilize for other purposes. While this is not the case when you are developing eCommerce store yourself. The data will remain safe with you as no 3rd party company will have access to it.

Easy Maintenance

Maintaining a self-developed eCommerce store will be quite easy and will require less effort as it completely developed by you. You will be aware of every function of the store.

Disadvantages of developing your eCommerce store by yourself

Lack of expertise

If you’re new to e-commerce and don’t have experience with creating or running a website, a generic template and hosted store might be the better solution for you. Still, you need to have a basic understanding of how things work in an eCommerce platform.

No out of the box features

Since you don’t have any prior programming knowledge, you can not build your own custom and user-friendly features as required by your eCommerce store. You will have to rely on available templates and plugins which may have limited functionality. This will greatly impact the user experience.

Time-consuming

Developing an eCommerce store will require a lot of time and effort. And being an entrepreneur or business owner, it will be very difficult to manage and take time out for other important things in the business.

If you are not an expert in developing eCommerce website, there isn’t much of an advantage in developing an eCommerce store yourself except saving development cost.

Advantages of hiring a professional to develop your eCommerce website

Businesses must utilize the expertise of professionals like development firms or eCommerce agencies to develop an excellent eCommerce store for customers. Hiring an expert agency brings with it plenty of advantages and could be a smarter move for gaining access to experience and expertise. Here’s why you should hire an agency or a professional for your eCommerce business:

1. User-friendly features

An eCommerce store requires various user-friendly features that are essential for the success of an online store. A professional eCommerce developer will have the knowledge and experience to create and provide features like multi-language support, 360-degree product view, shopping cart, and also integrate payment gateways. It will also offer a smooth shipping facility.

2. Uncompromised Preliminary assistance

This is common amongst all professional ecommerce web development company, offering a lucrative package to their potential customers. Some of these packages include designing of mockup sites, setting up your sites skeletal view and allowing you to evaluate independently. Professional ecommerce website developer their time to work inside with your team to develop the pre-design project map of your website and also suggestive ideas on how to overcome loopholes on the website.

3. Easy to operate

The eCommerce website is an ideal option to start a business website. An eCommerce website can be easily operated from anywhere around the world. An eCommerce website can be easily viewed on smartphone, tablets or laptops.

4. Easy management of Inventory

eCommerce provides efficiency to manage and track items and products with any hassle. Thus, it becomes easy to manage orders, stocks, and inventory, and customer data. A professional developer can provide complete control of the business to the business owner. This means quick expansion and growth of the business.

5. Professional Design

Professional design is one of those requirements that every ecommerce portal needs to survive the challenging industry. With a professional ecommerce team, one can get a customer friendly and highly responsive website. An eCommerce development team is a team of specialized professionals. Beginning with the coders, to the UI designers, down to the graphics designers, custom snippet designers, etc.

6. Timely Delivery of Project

Most Ecommerce website development company make sure that your project is completed and delivered to you in a timely order as agreed. It is likely that you will get an update on it beforehand and avoid disappointment.

Disadvantages of hiring a professional to develop your eCommerce website

1. Lack of communication and quality service

If you have not hired a well-known and experienced developer or an eCommerce agency, then there is a chance that you face a lack of communication and might not be able to inform them in advance a necessary change. You may not get the kind of quality and end-results as you expected in your eCOmmerce website.

2. Expensive

Hiring an agency or a professional can be very costly and may not suit your budget. Price for developing an eCommerce site is more than a normal website as eCommerce site have lots of necessary features.

Conclusion

There are great advantages both to hiring an agency and developing your eCommerce store yourself. Before making any decision, you must also consider the needs of your business and how they are likely to develop as you grow, and you should be able to make the choice that works best for your business.

Want to find out more about what an agency can offer your business? Just get in touch and we’d be happy to help.