Why Does Your Business Need a Shopify Development Company?

Jumping from retail mode to digital selling mode was itself a game-changing event for your business. Sooner or later, you apparently would’ve come to a realization that things are way more complex and demanding in the digital space. This is because, in today’s modern era, a competitive eCommerce store is expected to be more user-friendly across all screens, should have an immersive design, and must offer personalized shopping experiences for a customer to stay connected with the brand. Studies have shown that 94% of customers make their first impression of an eCommerce website based on the website’s design. And another study by Hostinger says that 21% of buyers want user-friendly navigation when they shop online. 

This explains why you need to build a quality-driven design and shopper-friendly navigation for your eCommerce store that can ultimately offer tailored shopping experiences. Meeting these specific requirements requires choosing a modern commerce platform, such as Shopify. This is because the platform is built for scalability, has capabilities to transform commerce operations, and creates a robust omnichannel selling ecosystem.

Once you choose Shopify as your eCommerce engine, you will now need to consider the development approach. There are two approaches: setting up your own in-house team or outsourcing your project to a reliable shopify development company. While the former can add more complexity to your project, the latter holds the potential to expedite the process, enable custom Shopify development, and drive your business growth while aligning with your vision.

To further understand why outsourcing your project is the ideal solution, this blog will dive deep into in-house development challenges, highlight the benefits of shopify development company, and detail the cost-benefit analysis to help you make an informed decision.

Challenges of In-House Shopify Development

The in-house development processes impose various challenges for businesses, especially for those who are looking for quick results. This section will discuss the complexities and pitfalls of in-house Shopify development.

• Lack of Adequate Technical Expertise

If you undertake the project via in-house mode, one of the biggest challenges you will face is the lack of technical expertise. Technical know-how is critical to make the development of complex projects successful. For example, suppose you want to build a custom Shopify theme for your store, but your team lacks the knowledge of custom coding. This way you will either have to hire new people or train the existing ones, which will directly increase your cost as well as lead to delays in your project completion. 

• Diverted Focus and Productivity Constraints

The next major pitfall with this mode of development is the shift of focus from significant operations. In other words, if you are focusing your attention on handling end-to-end development, then your core business operations (marketing and sales of your products) will suffer.  With diverted focus, your team will witness a significant decline in their productivity as they will be indulged in hiring new people and training the current employees instead of working on their own KRAs. This will hinder your company’s growth and affect the sales graph. 

• Increased Technical Debt

Oftentimes, businesses go for easier solutions and choose an in-house development approach. However, in reality, this leads to increased technical debt as though they might feel that an “easy solution is the right choice,” but in the long run, it leads to more rework and incurs higher costs to fix the failures. A recent study states that 72% of teams have technical debt in their projects which also hinders their capacity to innovate. Moreover, remember that this debt accumulates over time, causing challenges, especially in those eCommerce projects that require long-term development and continuous iterations. 

• Limited Exposure to Industry Trends

Apart from increased technical debt, in-house teams also face limited exposure to rapidly changing industry trends. We all know that technology advancements, the release of technology updates, and the emergence of new technologies are taking place almost every other day. And keeping up with these advancements while producing high-quality solutions becomes difficult for eCommerce businesses, considering the fact that they have to focus more on increasing the product’s sales rather than going into the nitty-gritty of store development.

• Need for Specialized Job Roles

While in-house teams have limited exposure to industry trends, they also need specialized 

experts, including DevOps experts and architects. This can add another layer of complexity and expense for your business. Plus, finding the right talent for such complex roles can be challenging and time-consuming. Now, if you neglect this requirement, you will be compromising your project. This can also lead to increased failures and higher long-term costs. 

Why Should You Hire a Professional Shopify Development Company?

Now that you understand the pitfalls of in-house development, it is ideal to proceed with another development approach, i.e., outsourcing your project.

Currently, Shopify powers 4.61 million stores worldwide, including a majority of leading enterprise-level brands. But do you know that these brands became a market leader by partnering with dedicated Shopify experts? This is because building a captivating online store that actually engages customers often demands significant time and substantial expertise. As we have already discussed above, bringing the required level of technical knowledge from within your in-house team is time-consuming and expensive. 

It is agreeable that setting up a basic store on your own can be easy. But what about the complex-level customizations, custom API development, and advanced integrations required to boost your store’s functionality? This is where you need help from Shopify development professionals. The team will develop custom features and build a scalable architecture. The best part is that you can integrate emerging technologies like AI, voice commerce, and IoT smartly within your store developed with Shopify. 

So, either go for easy solutions and gain technical debt, or choose professional assistance and win in the long run. You decide.

Top Benefits of Hiring a Shopify Development Company

• Professional Expertise and Certified Shopify Partnership

The foremost benefit of project outsourcing is professional-level expertise and in-depth technical knowledge of the platform’s tools and features. The team will have a portfolio of similar projects and, hence, can develop your store quickly. Moreover, with their extensive expertise, they can seamlessly maintain and optimize your Shopify store, add required features, and launch it within the given timeline. Besides, they will blend quality, eliminate issues, and launch the store faster so that it can reach your target customer in no time. As an expert development team, Successive Digital is a certified Shopify Plus partner showcasing our platform expertise and industry position. Our expertise goes beyond the mere development processes. We build an experience that drives your business forward.

• Customization and Personalization

Along with professional expertise, you also get customized solutions. The team can also implement personalization within your store so that you can deliver tailored shopping experiences. Shockingly, a study says that 88% of users will refrain from returning to an eCommerce store that delivered bad experiences in the past. Fortunately, the Shopify development company will facilitate custom Shopify store development as well as bespoke themes that will create a unique position for your brand. As far as personalization is concerned, they can integrate a recommendation engine as well as AI capabilities within customer support so that your customers feel valued and encouraged to make the purchase. 

For example, Successive Digital created a custom middleware solution for their client to centralize user onboarding, agent management, and order processing as well as improve team collaboration. This helped the client to increase their order volume by 50%.

You can also read our blog: A guide to Shopify development services.

• Seamless API Integrations

While developing customized solutions is essential in boosting your sales, APIs are important to streamline communication with other systems and product content delivery as well as gain real-time updates of current stock levels. The development team has the right expertise and capability to seamlessly integrate required third-party software such as ERP, CRM, or CMS so that your store can easily communicate and update the information on the storefront and optimize content operations for all sales channels. 

For instance, Allbirds, an eco-friendly footwear company, hired Shopify developers to integrate their store with various third-party applications. This helped them improve data redundancy and a 15% reduction in operational costs.

• Mobile-friendly Solutions

When API integration is discussed, the term omnichannel selling will come up automatically. To sell in an omnichannel environment, you will need your online store to be mobile-friendly. One of the major benefits of Shopify development company is that they prioritize building responsive designs that run smoothly and adjust smartly over every screen, be it desktop, tablet, or mobile. 

To say it with an example, the fashion retailer ASOS collaborated with Shopify experts to enhance their mobile site experience. As a result, they saw mobile sales grow by 40%, which incredibly impacted their overall profitability.

• Scalable Architecture

While mobile responsiveness is good for your business sales, scalability is essential to help your online store grow with your blooming growth. Architecture plays a vital role in any built software application; take it as the baseline a building is standing upon. When you leverage Shopify development services, you get access to a team that focuses on building a scalable architecture for your store so that it can easily handle the growing traffic and sales volume without breaking the code or user experience. 

A very good example of this is Sephora. They partnered with specialized partners to build a scalable store to support their growth during new product launches. As a result, the brand handles 500,000 visitors per minute and has witnessed multiple “sold out” scenarios during peak hours.

• Store Performance Optimization

Apart from customization, mobile responsiveness, and scalability, optimizing your store’s performance is another essential element. This is an ongoing process, and optimization should be done not only during development but also after the launch. The Shopify professionals take care of this requirement. They continuously optimize the store, employ tools and strategies to upkeep its speed, and integrate built-in Shopify CDN to minimize downtime as well as streamline content delivery.

For instance, MVMT Watches Co. worked with developers who implemented performance optimization techniques. This helped in page load time deduction and a 50% improvement in customer satisfaction.

• Support for Emerging Technologies

Lastly, the Shopify development team can integrate emerging technologies, such as AI-enabled chatbots and AR/VR, as well as voice commerce-based shopping capabilities within your online store. With the world becoming more and more technologically sound, integration of these technologies has become essential in order to take digital shopping experiences to the next level. 

If you think these technologies are a luxury and can be excluded, then the example below might change your mind–

Various makeup brands, including Sephora, have integrated AR shopping capabilities into their shopping ecosystem with the help of professional Shopify development services. This has allowed customers to “try before they buy”, increasing customer satisfaction as well a 20% increase in sales for the brand.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Professional Shopify Development

By now, you must have made a decision to partner with a professional firm, but before proceeding further, you must analyze the costs involved in full-circle development and deployment of your Shopify store. Furthermore, you will also need to balance the costs with your ROI in order to ensure your store is prepared for long-term profitability.

Shopify Development Costs 

• Initial Development Costs

The shopify development company you hire for your project will charge initial development costs. These include the costs for setting up your store (creating the store, adding products, defining categories, configuring payment and shipping methods, etc.), custom Shopify theme development, and custom app development as well as integration. Also, remember that the agency will charge based on their location, the experience they hold, and the complexity level of your project.

• Shopify Platform Costs

The next set of expenses includes the platform costs. Shopify offers multiple subscription plans, including:

• Basic (for solo entrepreneurs)
• Shopify (for small teams)
• Advanced (for growing businesses)
• Plus (for complex businesses)

The plan you choose will add up to the cost of the project. Additionally, your business might rely on third-party apps for SEO, marketing, shipping, and inventory management. To integrate those apps within your store, you will be required to incur a certain expense on a monthly or yearly basis.

You can also read our blog to understand the detailed cost of eCommerce store development.

• Optimization and Advanced Features 

Once initial development and platform costs are added to your budget, there come the costs involved with the customization and the addition of advanced features. You would require mobile optimization as well as search engine optimization, which will require additional work from the development team. And this will increase your cost. Moreover, your growing business will need advanced features like multi-currency support, smart search and filtering, and AI-powered product recommendations, increasing the overall budget. Basically, the more complex your customization requirements are, the higher the costs will be.

• Migration Costs

The migration cost is only applicable if you are planning to migrate your existing platform (Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, etc.) to Shopify. The charges involved in the migration project will include the cost of auditing your existing platform, migrating your organizational data (product and customers) securely to the new platform, retaining your existing rankings with 301 redirects, configuring store settings, and testing the functionality for a smooth launch.

• Ongoing Maintenance Costs

Now, your store development, optimization, and launch is finalized. This is where the ongoing maintenance comes into the picture. The maintenance charges cover the cost of continuous store monitoring, implementation of regular updates, bug fixing, and making iterations based on customer feedback. This will add another expense to your budget; however, this fee is crucial to maintaining the optimal functionality of your eCommerce store.

Creating a Balance of Costs with ROI

• Short-term Gains

When it comes to mapping the short-term results achieved with professional Shopify development, the very first outcome is the immediate increase in conversions. This is because of advanced improvements made to your store. Apart from that, we know that professional assistance leads to faster time-to-market as the team utilizes DevOps practices and an agile approach. This not only results in quicker returns but also enhances the brand’s image in the eyes of customers.            

• Long-term ROI

While short-term gains lead to increased sales, long-term gains help steadily improve your brand positioning. A store developed under professional expertise eliminates downtime issues, repeated bugs and errors, and rebuilding costs. And when these issues are kept at bay, the user experience is automatically improved which also persuades your customers as well as encourages them to make a purchase in one go.

• Break-even Timeline

Apart from short and long-term gains, you also need to map the break-even timeline for your project. A break-even timeline means the time it will take for your business to recover from the expenses through revenue generation. The revenue generated from increased sales, improved operational efficiency, or cost savings must surpass your initial investment in order to deem your project successful. 

To explain with an example:

Suppose your initial investment is – $20,000 for professional shopify development services.

Now, your store is live, and you will witness a monthly increase of  $5,000 in your revenue due to better design and features.

               Formula: Break-even point=  initial investment ÷ profit margin

Hence, the break-even timeline will be:

$20,000 ÷ $5,000 = 4 months.

Why Hire Successive Digital for Professional Shopify Development?

When you choose Successive Digital for your Shopify store development, you are partnering with a professional firm that holds a decade of experience, follows an agile development methodology, and builds tailored outcome-driven eCommerce solutions. Our team prioritizes innovation in every phase as well as implements DevSecOps best practices for faster, secured development. 

Moreover, we majorly specialize in custom shopify store development, and with our focus on helping our clients achieve business excellence, we also ensure our solutions meet your unique business needs. Whether your requirements involve creating intuitive storefronts, integrating advanced third-party systems (ERP, CRMs, and payment gateways), or developing bespoke apps, we can cater to each of them. 

Across each project undertaken, our team ensures the Shopify solutions we build align with your business objectives, yield measurable results, and drive your business forward. At Successive, we don’t just build eCommerce stores; we optimize them for scalability, performance, and long-term customer engagement. 

Here are some quick insights of our recent project for our client (a leading furniture service provider):

• We developed a centralized platform and Shopify 2.0 store for them. Our design team also improved the UI/UX and utilized the B2B mode of Shopify to enhance functionality and team collaboration.
• Our solution helped them achieve a staggering 3X revenue growth and 50% cost reduction, helping them to achieve operational efficiency.

Bottom Line

The modern-day eCommerce demands businesses to create an omnichannel selling environment and deliver hyper-personalized shopping experiences that keep customers engaged across all touchpoints. However, to meet such demands, choosing the right commerce engine, such as Shopify, is important. And then the next important step is considering the development of your online store and selecting the right development approach (in-house or outsourcing).  

In-house development has its set of challenges, including a lack of adequate technical expertise, declining productivity, and increased technical debt. In contrast, outsourcing professional Shopify development services offers you a multitude of benefits, such as:  

• Professional Expertise
• Customization and Personalization
• Seamless API Integrations
• Mobile-friendly Solutions
• Scalable Architecture
• Store Performance Optimization
• Analytics and Reporting Setup
• Support for Emerging Technologies Integration

This implies that setting up a fully customized eCommerce store on your own can pose challenges and bring failure, whereas hiring Shopify experts help you leverage the full potential of the Shopify platform and transform your business end-to-end. 

So, don’t get jogged up in the in-house development approach. Eliminate the development complexities by outsourcing a reliable Shopify development company such as Successive Digital.  

Ready to take your eCommerce business to the next level? Connect with us to book your consultation with our Shopify experts.