Custom Ecommerce Solutions Beware! (or it could cost you thousands of dollars and a ton of wasted time and energy)

Video Transcript

If you’re shopping for a custom ecommerce solution or just looking for an ecommerce solution in general, there’s some really important information that you need to know.

I’m giving you this information based on over four years of experience working with ecommerce businesses and helping them find the proper ecommerce solution; and also based on working with businesses that have gotten themselves into an ecommerce solution that doesn’t fit their needs. In many cases, they paid much more than they should have paid for that solution. There are some really big pitfalls that you have to look out for when shopping for an ecommerce solution; especially if you feel like you need a custom ecommerce solution.

The number one danger when shopping for a custom ecommerce solution is the developer you choose to work with. The mistake that I’ve seen business owners make over and over again is they work with a developer who is the first person that they’ve come in contact with in the development world; or possibly in what they consider the “ecommerce world” - so this person becomes a trusted resource.

Now that can be a great situation. If you find a very competent ecommerce developer who has a lot of experience developing ecommerce solutions, they can absolutely guide you to the right solution very quickly; and probably the most economically. But the problem is, most developers – and this is a really key point – most developers who are very competent at development – whatever coding language they specialize in – are not ecommerce developers. They may have developed an ecommerce store here and there, but they haven’t been-there, done-that over and over again with clients. They’re not able to know exactly what you need or to intuit your needs if you’re not exactly sure what you need.

That’s a really key point because the number one mistake I see businesses make – this is small, mid-size and large businesses – when they’re doing ecommerce development is they hire a developer who then just listens to what the client thinks they want; and then tries to build it from scratch. What you typically end up with is a store that doesn’t work particularly well or doesn’t work as well as the ecommerce business needs it to; and you pay double, triple, quadruple what you would pay if you had the proper ecommerce developer or if you were to use a commercial ecommerce solution which is already developed and may fit your current needs.

How do you avoid this? The way you can avoid falling into this pitfall is number one, when you’re looking to do ecommerce development, shop around. Talk to different developers. Have them show you their portfolio. Ask them what kind of experience they have. That’s very, very important.

Number two is you have to know your needs. The way I suggest you go about figuring out what your needs are is go out into the internet and shop around. Not just shop around for developers, but shop your own website. Look at your competition. Look at who are you going to be competing against? Who seems to be the most sophisticated? Spend some time. It’s a dense area to penetrate, but spend at least 30 minutes or an hour looking at the different competitors in your industry; and looking at what features they have on their websites. How do they structure their websites? How are they structuring their sales messages? How does that all come together into their ecommerce platform? Start to make a list of the features they have; and look at what features you may need or what features you may want.

So that’s the best way to make sure that you get the right ecommerce store at the right price – is to really understand your needs – and then go and shop around different ecommerce developers and make sure they can build something that’s going to really fit your needs. Make sure they’ve done it many times before. They’re not just doing this for the first or second or third time.

Alternatives to custom ecommerce development: Yes, there are definitely alternatives to custom ecommerce development. In fact, for most businesses, you’ll be better off going with a commercial ecommerce solution than a custom ecommerce solution. I talk about that in another video. But in general, you want to really weigh the pros and the cons versus the commercial and the custom solutions. And in general, even for small, mid-size and even some large businesses, a commercial solution is going to be better suited for you; and it’s going to save you a lot of money.

In closing, the number one word of warning is don’t get sold down the river by a developer who just wants to build you a custom solution because it’s a nice body of work for him and he’s excited about it. Make sure that he’s a veteran ecommerce store developer; and also, shop around. Get other opinions. But first, understand your needs so that you can get the most sufficient build – the most sufficient spend of your money in what they build for you.

Good Luck!