Small, medium and big businesses are making their presence felt online. In order to compete with your rivals, businesses need to capitalise on every business opportunity be it online or offline. If you want to give your business proper branding and generate revenues apart from on-ground sales, then investing in a good e-commerce site is necessary.

In today’s day and age, those businesses that do not have online presence lose market share to their competitors. There are many e-commerce development companies you can count on for making attractive e-commerce sites.

Before you make your final decision, you must keep in mind the following pointers:

• Read their review and testimonials – The first step to hiring an ecommerce development company is to check out their earlier client’s experiences with them. Online and word of mouth reviews of e-commerce development sites will set up their credibility and whether they are serious about their services.

• Company portfolio – You need an e-commerce site whose technical knowledge and work experience compliments your website need. Ask them for their team member’s profiles to check if they are the right fit for your e-commerce site needs. Ask them questions about what kind of websites have they created before, which platforms they use for development and which development languages are they comfortable in. Any well-established ecommerce development company will have their previous works portfolio on their website. Go through it and check their skills, their niche wise ability and an estimated idea of what your site might look like if you hire them.

• Cost Effective – There is no point in taking matters forward if the company’s budget is way beyond your paying capacity. Ask them for a detailed quotation with the breakup of the design, server management and development. Ask quotations from a number of vendors before you zero in on one which suits your budget and requirements the best.

• Communication is key – Most client-developer relations turn sour because there is a lack of communication. It is important that there are regular meetings, irrespective of the medium of the communication so that both parties are on the same page. Someone from the team must be available anytime during working hours to keep the client informed of their progress on the site. The company must be patient in explaining every aspect of the development process to the client.

• Time is money – Some ecommerce development companies take their own sweet time and take years to complete a single project. Do not fall into that trap. Read their reviews to see if they deliver their work on time. Longer the site takes to complete, higher its development costs. They must give you a midweek heads up on their progress on your project and maintain deadlines/work schedules so that they do not become complacent. Choose a mid to big sized team preferably, so that they can create bug-free websites in a shorter time frame.

Your website is ready and launched. Now what? You need a development team that supports you even after you go live. You will need to update and maintain your site once it’s created. You might even need to come up with smart digital marketing strategies. Choose a company that provides impressive post-development services and not hiring a number of vendors to manage one site.