Custom eCommerce development has changed dramatically in recent years. This article will inform you about the cost of developing eCommerce platforms, their main issues such as traffic spikes, slow loading times, scalability issues, and so on, as well as some potential solutions. You'll learn why custom eCommerce development is a better option. than CMS solutions.
E-commerce Aspects & Expectations in 2022
Custom eCommerce development is an effective method for creating online stores. Furthermore, as a result of the recent lockdown, the demand for eCommerce stores has increased because there is no longer an opportunity to visit brick-and-mortar stores. Prior to the lockdown, eCommerce was relatively stable, with online stores operating without major issues. The situation has drastically changed since then. It is difficult to estimate the number of issues that eCommerce stores face. Unstable traffic spikes, long loading times, low scalability, and a transformed supply chain are among them.
It should be noted that websites built with various CMS, such as Magento or OpenCart, suffered most during the lockdown because they are far less adaptable and well-built than those built using the custom eCommerce development approach. Let's take a closer look at the issues raised:
Higher Traffic & Load
They are now one of the most serious issues in e-commerce because they are completely unpredictable. Sellers recently had a clear understanding of which goods people bought more and less of. Nonetheless, following the lockdown, the demand for certain products increased significantly, resulting in an extreme increase in traffic spikes, which became the foundation of the many other problems that eCommerce is currently experiencing.
Overall Website Performance
Because some products are selling more than others, the websites that sell them have much more traffic than they used to, making it difficult to manage. As a result, the loading time is prolonged. This is the most important factor because it has a large impact on consumer behavior and leads to a higher bounce rate.
According to some research, the stress that people are experiencing right now makes them more impatient, and even a one-second difference in the speeds at which websites load makes a significant difference. That is why it is critical to optimize websites for increased traffic, a better user experience, and higher rankings.
Scalable Database
It is the next issue that has arisen as a result of increased traffic. It is a critical component of a successful website, and it becomes even more critical as the number of customers increases. More goods, cards, orders, and transactions must be stored, as well as more information about them and their clients. The scalable database should be easily expanded with new data, and what matters – not only by IT specialists but also by administrators, which custom eCommerce development fully provides.
A Successful Website Defining Aspects
After we've looked at the technical aspects of custom eCommerce website development and CMS sites, let's take a look at some general information to better understand what makes a website successful. The main points are as follows:
Design:
Those who believe that a website is simply a collection of text blocks are mistaken. Each letter, line, or image necessitated a significant amount of design work. Making unique visual content (pictures, illustrations, logos, etc.) for the website, selecting appropriate fonts and colors, providing easy navigation through the website, creating CTA buttons, and so on are all part of the design process. This is only a small portion of the work that designers do to ensure the success of a website.
SEO:
Regardless of the type of website, it is critical to work with SEO. It is a complex process that cannot be fully described in a few words, but the main SEO factors are relevant to the content, clean code, meta descriptions, links, voice search, local SEO, and so on. Overall, it is a powerful marketing tool today; therefore, it is critical to pay close attention to this when running an eCommerce website.
Digital Marketing:
To make a website perform well, it must be well organized. This section discusses various strategies for getting as many people to see your site as possible. It covers topics such as properly designing and filling out the about page, organizing content plans, email, social media, and influencer marketing, and so on.
Security:
Only a secure and trustworthy website has a chance of ranking high and being seen by both users and search engines. It includes a backup in case something goes wrong, and an SSL certificate means that the data sent by the website to the user is encrypted and can only be read by these two parties.
Trust Factors:
This is a broad category that includes everything that makes real users trust your website and choose it over others. Writing a blog, registering social media accounts, collaborating with other businesses, receiving various certificates, organizing an easy payment gateway, and so on are all ways to get a trusted site.
These aspects are essentially what define your website; thus, a provider should monitor them at all times to ensure that everything is functioning properly. Again, unlike custom-developed eCommerce platforms, they are difficult to organize and track when using CMS for website creation.
Why Custom eCommerce Development
Not everyone who wants to build an eCommerce website is a programmer with sufficient knowledge to do so on their own. When deciding between custom eCommerce development and CMS solutions such as Magento, OpenCart, or SalesForce, they prefer the latter. eCommerce Content Management Systems are ideal for small, medium, and large businesses. However, once the website's traffic exceeds 1 million unique visitors per month or the portfolio exceeds 50000 items, they begin to fall short.
This is due to the technology's limited scalability, integration constraints with modern ERP and marketing tools, and a few other factors that we'll go over in more detail. Different frameworks allow for the sale of a large number of goods, but these numbers are frequently insufficient if you want to build a globally recognized eStore. But, before we get into the other disadvantages of CMS solutions, let's take a look at the main metrics for website visibility:
Bounce Rate:
It shows how many visitors opened only one page of a website before leaving. Daily time on site indicates how much time a single visitor spends on your website per day.
PSI from Google (Page Speed Insight): It represents the overall performance of the website, which includes some technical metrics and how they affect the user experience. The criteria include page size, load speed, usability, adaptability, and so on. It also analyses data on both desktop and mobile devices.
The higher a website’s PSI, the higher it ranks. This means that Google prioritizes websites with a higher PSI. AdWords performance rises in direct proportion to PSI. AdWords calculates your website’s landing page experience and, if it’s high enough, prefers your ads over the competitors’. Custom eCommerce website development aids in this endeavor.
We'll use Google Rank to calculate a website's traffic relative numbers. In other words, it indicates how high the website ranks in terms of global Internet engagement. As a result, the lower the rank, the better (for example, a google page is currently the first with the rating number 1).
According to the research, which will be illustrated with examples later in the article, all of the listed metrics are better in custom eCommerce development than those who use CMS. Furthermore, the lockdown traffic trend tends to grow quickly when discussing custom-made websites as opposed to Magento ones, for example, where traffic drastically decreases. Thus, even without the proof, it is clear that custom-developed websites perform better overall.
Let's go deeper and look at the specific reasons for implementing custom eCommerce development.
Technical Considerations
Custom-made websites have the following technical advantages:
Extensibility and scalability Both concepts have a significant impact on the performance of a website. The first term implies that higher workloads can be handled, while extensibility refers to a wide range of customization options. In the case of custom eCommerce web development, both properties are usually superior.
The capabilities for integration have expanded. Consider some ERP solutions that are essential in eCommerce. A website must be perfectly integrated with supply or ERP solutions used to manage stock, orders, purchasing, delivery, and so on.
Unlike CMS solutions, security is high because all coding is in your hands, and you can make your website as secure as you want. It is not the case with CMS sites, where you will have to rely solely on the Magento developers and hope that they will prevent all potential vulnerabilities and fix them as soon as possible. This is a double-edged sword because you are solely responsible for the security of your custom eCommerce website.
If, on the other hand, a major vulnerability appears on the OpenCart or Magento platforms, all of the hundreds of thousands of shops built on those platforms are exposed to it at the same time, and the only option is to take control and quickly fix the issue with your own development team within the constraints of those platforms or to hope for the Open-Source CMS community's quick action.
Marketing/Sales Considerations
After we've examined the technical reasons for using custom eCommerce development, we can turn our attention to the marketing reasons: In the case of CMS websites, adaptive design is frequently not on a high level. It results in a low ranking in Google's website used experience benchmarks, which has a significant negative impact on SEO. While custom-built websites are highly adaptable, Google ranks them much higher because they are more mobile-friendly.
Google completely shifted to "mobile-first" indexing in 2020, prioritizing websites with a better mobile experience in search results. Custom-made websites load faster than those created with other CMS. It is the foundation of a positive user experience.
In the case of custom eCommerce development, AdWords performance is better. It reduces advertising costs because ads with higher "Landing Page Experience" metrics are more likely to require lower bids to appear in higher positions among other paid results. Because the loading speed is adequate, users do not abandon the site, lowering the bounce rate.
As you can see, the marketing reasons for using custom eCommerce website development are quite significant and demonstrate the benefits of custom eCommerce software development.
Custom eCommerce Development Cost
The cost of developing a custom eCommerce website is determined by a number of factors. Custom eCommerce Development Services include the following:
- Custom website development
- Custom CMS development for portfolio management
- Hosting
- Design
- Integrations with a wide range of third-party business intelligence and marketing tools
Each of these services has a cost, but it is impossible to accurately estimate the cost of custom eCommerce website development because prices vary depending on the list of required features.
To Sum Up
The most important factor is to consider website visibility metrics such as PSI, bounce rate, and others, which result in Google Rank, as they define the overall popularity and level of user experience. These metrics are better in the case of custom websites, which have a positive effect on the traffic trend. Overall, custom eCommerce development is well worth the investment because it will immediately improve your online store's customer experience and search engine performance. This will result in a 50% increase in sales within 3-4 months of the new platform's launch.
iGlobe Solutions is a Custom eCommerce Development Company that has experience building custom eCommerce websites from the ground up, as well as providing post-launch support and updates. If you need to build a new online shop platform or have any questions, please contact us via our Contact Us page or the online chat widget, and we'll be happy to assist you in taking your business to new heights with robust technology solutions.