This is an era of going digital and buy things using e-commerce websites. This is because these websites offer lots of benefits and convenience to the users. That’s why E-commerce market is growing at an unprecedented rate and so many businesses are hiring developers to build their ecommerce websites. Magento is the second largest e-commerce platform in the world with about 9% marketshare. In today’s time, whatever is the industry of your business, you should have an ecommerce website to sell your product and services in an effective manner.

Although the developers have many choices for platforms but most of them prefer Magento as their preferred platform to build ecommerce websites as it offers incredible features and benefits.

Suppose you own a business and you have also decided to hire a Web Development Company to build a Magento based ecommerce website for your business but the question here is how to select the best Magento development company or Magento developers to carry out this development work. The latest Magento 2.0 offers 100% mobile friendly layout and modular architecture to nurture an e-commerce website with the branded look and feel. To develop such an amazing ecommerce website, the developers should be expert and experienced in Magento development and should possess an in-depth understanding of Magento framework.

Hiring a Magento developer is an art and it is a critical decision which can make or break your business. First thing is that the Magento developer should be authentic and technically competent and you need to do continuous monitoring of the work if you want to get best results. To help you in this process, I am going to present here some of the must ask crucial questions which you can ask while hiring the Magento development company or Magento developers. Let’s start.

Are you a Freelancer or a Company?

Before hiring any Magento Developer or a Company to develop your Ecommerce store, you need to ask this question to become clear about it. You should know whether you want your online store to be built by a freelancer or by a company. You need to choose between a full-time Magento development company which has a proper team or a freelancer who promises to do all the work himself. Remember, a big team is always good as there are many steps involved in the development of your ecommerce website like requirement gathering, designing, development, testing etc.

How many years of Experience You Have?

This is one of the most important and crucial question to ask as you should only select an experienced company or developer. An experienced company knows beforehand the challenges and issues faced during the development of Magento websites and therefore while doing your project they can resolve them quickly and effectively. If they had developed a similar ecommerce website like yours before then it would be an added advantage as they can provide valuable inputs based on their experience and finish the project work quickly i.e. before the final deadline.

Do You have Sample Work or Portfolio of your Earlier Work and the Proof that It was Created by you?

Hiring without checking their portfolio of earlier work can be a risky decision for your business and ecommerce website. Whether one is a freelancer or a proper company, they must have worked with other companies in the past and should show to you their previous work. This will give you an idea about what kind and quality of work they can deliver to you. One thing you should remember is that in current time, there are so many agencies worldwide which show fake testimonials and in reality they have not done much of the development work. Hence you should ask the company about the contact so their previous clients and talk to them directly about whether they are satisfied with the work of the company or not.

What Will be the Final Date for Completion of Project Work?

When you plan to launch your Ecommerce store then there are many other important things to be done other than ofcourse the development work of the ecommerce website. For example, marketing of your ecommerce website before its launch, holding an event for its launch, informing the media about the launch of your website and more. Hence you have to plan about all of these things and events and therefore you need to fix a deadline to fix your website development work so that you can streamline and adjust all other activities according to it. Hence you should discuss the deadline with the development company and reach at a consensus regarding the final date of completion of your project so that you can plan other activities and events accordingly. Hence the development company should give you a timeline mentioning all tasks/milestones and related completion dates, in the beginning of the project itself.

How Reliable Are Your Communication Channels?

You should observe the quality, reliability and truthfulness right from the first time you started communicating with the ecommerce website development company. Make sure that the developer has a detail oriented approach and answers to all aspects of queries raised by you. Ask what kind of communication channels they are going to use while dealing with you for example they should be available on fast communication channels like Email, Live Chat, Skype, Phone, Video Call and more. Avoid the Magento developers who are slow and careless in communicating with you. Remember you need to communicate with the development team several times during and even after the development process is over to update some features or to do some changes. Hence make sure the company understands the value and importance of fast and reliable communication.

Do You Provide Documentation and Post Development Technical Support?

You should ask this question to the developers that do they provide proper documentation of your ecommerce website project and post development technical support? This is very important as otherwise the developers will simply run away as soon as they complete and deliver your website while you are going to need them several times post development of your website for so many of the tasks, like:- to resolve Magneto related issues, to add any missing feature into your online store, to update your online store with respect to the Magento framework and other technologies they have used while developing your online store, to apply security patches from time to time and to resolve any other kind of issue. Also make sure to ask whether they provide free technical support for some time or if they charge for it. If yes, then how much?

Conclusion

We have just discussed some of the most important and crucial questions you should ask while hiring a Magento web development company. The scope of an eCommerce website project is huge having endless possibilities hence it becomes highly important that you ask these question to the developers beforehand and make sure that they are on the same page as you are regarding the development of your ecommerce store. For example, they should understand the importance of prior experience in Magento development, completing the development work before deadline, having right technical skills, using latest technologies and tools, use of reliable communication channels and providing proper maintenance and technical support post development. Overall we can say that you should hire a Magento developer who is expert, experienced, have good portfolio, creative having good reviews and ratings from previous clients so that he can deliver high quality Magento based Ecommerce website to you which truly represents your business and ultimately have full potential to take your business to new heights.