How to choose a Magento Development Agency

11:03 AM June 12, 2014

There are several important factors to consider when choosing an eCommerce Magento development agency. In this article, I’ll run through a group of them to help you make a more educated decision. When it comes to Magento developers and Magento development agencies, not all are created equal. Some require a minimum starting cost of $25k and up, while other overseas outsourcing companies may try to deceive you and say it’s only going to charge around $5k. So who do you choose and who will make the best fit for your eCommerce website? This is an important and difficult question for a lot of companies to address.

Budget

If you’re on a tight budget because you’re a startup, you might be looking at that $5k number and thinking it is desirable, but if you’re choosing an outsourced company overseas, there are a whole different set of factors that need to be considered. Such as time zone; are they awake and working when you are? Are they an actual company or just a middle man outfit who’s pushing your project out to local freelance developers? Then there’s also the obvious language barrier and their ability to comprehend exactly what it is that you’re looking for.

The $20k, on the other hand, is over your budget, so working with a larger firm with a fancy office, a receptionist, phones, desks, computers, fast internet and utility bills is out. You don’t have it in your budget to pay for all these items and frankly, you shouldn’t have to, but all these are the main reasons that the larger and established Magento development firms want that minimum $25k so that they can cover their expenses during the project build.

There’s an obvious middle that is missing here and that’s the $6 to $24k price point. That’s where companies like Full Impact Studios come in, the boutique eCommerce Magento development agencies. We are a trusted, experienced, and efficient team of talented eCommerce web designers and developers who love to work with small to medium sized business because we know we can deliver an excellent product at a fair and affordable rate. Plus we’re a U.S. company with U.S. employees so the money that you spend with us goes back into the local State and U.S. economy and helps support small business growth in America.

Design & Attention to Detail

Design and attention to detail for the little things is very important. The design of your site is the first impression that a shopper feels, so you want your site to be clean and organized with a user-friendly navigation structure. It’s important with e-commerce websites that you showcase what your product or service offering is very quickly and then create calls to action to entice the visitor to click deeper into the site to look at products. Once someone is on a product page you want them to be able to see the product easily and be able to make their selections quickly to add it to the cart.

Once a person has added items to the cart, you want to display a shopping cart icon with the number and price of products they have and you want this icon to follow them around. A little trick that is helpful with the abandoned cart issue is to offer up a pop-out window with a message should the visitor move their mouse off the page. This can be a simple message like “Wait, you still have items in your cart, click here to check out now and receive 10% off and free shipping.” This little trick might be just what’s needed to keep them from leaving and to continue the purchase.

So as you can see, design is more than just the look of the site, it also involves the features and flow of how the site works and how a shopper interacts with your site. We have an excellent design and project management team that walks the client through all of these elements so that nothing gets missed and the client understands why and how specific advice we offer translates to higher sales and conversions.

Development Time

Obviously, development time depends on the scope of the project, and since no two projects are alike, the development time will vary. I can say this, typically a pretty standard build takes around 150 hours of work, but you should keep in mind that this is a pretty basic set of features. eCommerce development time will vary from agency to agency, but be suspect of any eCommerce web design agency that says that they can accomplish a project in under 45 days.

When developing a Magento site from scratch the design phase is what typically takes the longest. This is because of the back and forth that is required to perfect the design the way you the client wants it. There should be a structured wireframe and UX process that are laid out and approved prior to jumping into the design. This will save a lot of time, and time is money.

Customer Service & Responsiveness

This may seem like a small piece of the pie, but it can actually be the largest headache for a client to deal with. You want to make sure that the Magento development agency you’re working with has an excellent track record of responsiveness. They should answer their phone and be friendly and be inviting. They should be knowledgeable and willing to educate you on their processes and answer any questions you may have. If you’ve sent them an e-mail, they should be able to respond within an 18 to a 24-hour window and not longer. Your time is valuable and the last thing you want to do is work with someone who isn’t responsive to your needs.

Server Setup & Knowledge

You definitely want to work with a team that understands how data and server intensive Magento shopping sites can be. Magento has been called a data hog and can be slow for some people if they don’t have a server that has been setup properly. RAM and processor speed is very important for Magento sites because Magento is constantly talking to the server with each action a visitor takes. Magento tracks your visitors around the site and remembers what they’ve looked at. One page visit by a user can have 3 database calls or more, now add a few hundred more shoppers and you can pretty easily see why you want a server that has been optimized correctly for a Magento website.

Since a lot of people aren’t knowledgeable about servers, we offer dedicated Magento hosting options and we setup and optimize the server for you, as well as manage and maintain the server for the life of hosting with us. We offer 24/7 support and backup maintenance as well as server upgrades, all included in the cost. If you want to know more about our hosting, give us a call 1.800.658.0113

Testimonials

Existing client testimonials are an essential part of choosing the right Magento development agency to work with. You’ll want to speak to a couple of the clients that are actually in the web companies portfolio.

Portfolio of Work

Lastly, the Magento agency should have a nice Magento portfolio to showcase. Their design style should meet the design style you’re looking for or at a minimum show the ability to create clean and visually appealing websites. Go visit a few of the sites and go on a shopping experience like you’re the shopper. The flow of the sites should be clean and easy to navigate, and the design style should flow through all the pages.

Be on the lookout for anything that seems broken or buggy, because this means that the attention to detail is lacking and if they have client websites that are live with bugs and issues, you can probably expect the same of your site.

Finding a Top Magento Development Agency to work with isn’t easy, there’s a ton of firms out there to choose from, but if you use the information I’ve outlined above it should help you narrow your search. You should talk to them on the phone several times and ask to speak with one of the Magento developers. The Magento developer should listen and understand your needs, and be able to answer any of your questions without having to get back to you.

Experienced Magento developers should have the answer to any of your questions right on the spot and you shouldn’t be able to stump them.

I hope you’ve found this post useful in your search for a Magento development agency and we’d love to be included as one of your options. Give us a call toll-free and let’s discuss your needs 1.800.658.0113 or you can send us a Magento quote request and we’ll get back to you within 24hours.

Checkout our article on the 10 reasons why it pays to have a responsive Magento site