Month: June 2020

e-commerce

10 Best e-Commerce Platforms for Small Businesses

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Small Businesses

E-commerce is a thriving industry.. this is a fact. If you are struggling to cope with this, then you should take a look at the following infographic from BigCommerce.

e_commerce_platforms

If you want to start an online store or simply wish to migrate to an existing content management system (CMS), there are fortunately numerous options for you to choose from. 

Here are 10 of the best e-Commerce platforms geared specifically toward small businesses. 

1. Shopify

Benefits: Overall functionality, convenient use
Price: $9-$300.
Transaction Fee: 2.9% + $0.30 – 2.4% + $0.30

Shopify is a preeminent e-commerce CMS. As one of the more cutting-edge options available, users can take advantage of how convenient it is to use this platform. Both beginners and veteran marketplace teams can excel on this platform with a wide variety of helpful features.

Shopify is also relatively inexpensive. Therefore, if you’re looking for a standard e-commerce platform you can grow with, choosing Shopify is a great selection.

2. BigCommerce

Benefits: Wide selection of themes and designs, broad payment options. 
Price: $29.95 – $249.95
Transaction Fee: 2.9% + $0.30 – 2.2% + $0.30

BigCommerce is a fierce competitor to Shopify as the e-Commerce industry’s top CMS. Both platforms offer similar features at an identical cost. You can’t really go wrong in choosing either platform.

However, BigCommerce does have some advantages, including a wider selection of themes, designs, and broader payment options. BigCommerce provides a visual store builder, supplying up to 80 different themes. 

Other features include 24/7 support, cloud-hosting, marketing services, conversion optimization tools, and so much more.

3. 3dcart

Benefits: Built-in features, payment options
Price: $19 – $229
Transaction Fee: Varies

3dcart is an ideal alternative to Shopify. Though, the platform has a strong reputation for providing more than 200 built-in features users can take advantage of. Users also have the option to choose an affordable plan and still receive incredible benefits, such as saved carts, real-time shipping rates, unlimited product variants, and one-page checkout.

Furthermore, 3dcart provides more than 100 different payment providers and offers a discount if you use payment gateways they are partnered with. 

4. Volusion

Benefits: Cheap processing rates
Price: $29 – $299
Transaction Fee: 2.15% + $0.30 with Volusion Payments

Volusion is similarly priced compared to Shopify, but it is perhaps more simple-to-use. Many themes on the platform are free, as well as inventory and customer management, sales analytics, and marketing tools. 

Volusion does have some disadvantages, which include an annual sales limit depending on the plan they choose.

There are also a limited number of payment options. While Volusion may not be as advanced as Shopify, it does offer users the opportunity to save money on processing orders. 

Depending on the model of your business, this may be an ideal choice. 

5. PrestaShop

Benefits: Open-source platform 
Price: Free to download
Transaction Fee: Varies

All of the entries on this list so far have been SaaS platforms. Though, depending on your marketplace, an open-source platform may be a better selection. If you are looking for an open-source platform, you should consider choosing PrestaShop.

This platform is completely free to download. This means you will only be responsible for paying for payment processor costs, web hosting, and other developmental resources. 

One underrated feature of PrestaShop is the ability to integrate and run numerous stores from one platform. If you have access to a skilled developer, possess proficient technical knowledge, or are willing to pay for the costs of setting up your marketplace, PrestaShop is a great option. 

6. WooCommerce:

Benefits: Free for WordPress users
Price: Free 
Transaction Fee: Varies

There isn’t much to say about WooCommerce that hasn’t already been stated previously. Compared to Shopify and BigCommerce, WooCommerce is a worthy alternative. This platform gives users the ability to upload an unlimited number of products and integrate with more than 400 applications.

What’s more, is that WooCommerce has been integrated with WordPress. If you are currently using WordPress, you can download WooCommerce for free and begin using it. 

7. Squarespace

Benefits: Ideal for very small retailers
Price: $26 – $40
Transaction Fee: 2.9% + $0.30

This list wouldn’t be complete if there wasn’t an option for very small retailers. If you run a shop by yourself or have a limited number of products, Squarespace is an excellent and affordable option.

Squarespace offers all of the features you need to run a successful marketplace. The platform is used mainly to build business websites, so you can expect the templates on there to be professional and clean. 

8. Square Online Store

Benefits: Free hosting
Price: $0 – $79
Transaction Fee: 2.9% + $0.30

Square Online Store is very similar to Squarespace. It’s also powered by Weebly, allowing users to create an online store within minutes. Before getting started, you can choose from a bunch of free themes, customize your theme, and start accepting payments instantly. 

Your completed website will come with a free SSL certificate, product options, unlimited products, and so much more. In fact, the most basic plan on this platform is completely free of charge.

If you desire to use a convenient platform with sufficient features for your marketplace, then Square Online Store is for you.

9. Sellfy

Benefits: Selling digital products
Price: $29 – $99
Transaction Fee: Varies

All of the platforms on this list are designed to sell digital products. However, if you are solely looking to sell your products and limit your spending, Sellfy is a great option. On this platform, you can quickly build your marketplace and start processing orders.

Sellfy is best for very small retailers that don’t have a preference of advanced features. 

10. AmeriCommerce

Benefits: High scalability
Price: $24.95 – $299
Transaction Fee: 2.9% + $0.30 – 2.4% + $0.30

AmericCommerce is similar to Sellfy, but this platform allows you to scale your business over time. Generally speaking, AmeriCommerce will grow as your business grows. You can choose more than 60 free themes and utilize dozens of payment gateways as you improve your marketplace.

Give Us a Call Today!

Do you need direction in choosing the right e-Commerce platform for your business? If so, give us a call at (214) 295-5845 to speak to a member of our award-winning team. 

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “10 Best e-Commerce Platforms for Small Businesses” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

magento

Magento 1 End of Life: What You Need to Know About Moving to Magento 2

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Magento Platform

Magento is one of the top e-commerce platforms on the internet right now. Thousands of retailers use the platform every year to sell their online products and services. Now, Magento has officially ended its support for their Magento 1 platform. 

This presents a huge dilemma and a sense of urgency for brands still using Magento 1. There is a lot of information to take in about Magento’s new announcement this month.

If you are currently running a store on Magento 1, then it makes sense to continue reading this article to learn more about how your store will be affected moving forward. 

When Will Magento 1 End?

Magento 1 will officially end in June 2020. Multiple sources have confirmed this date, including this article from Magento. Magento also sent a tweet out to break the news about the transition.

Magento
In June 2019, there are 240,000 live Magento websites. Out of these websites, there are 189,000 websites still operating on M1. This number will begin to decrease in the following months as clients move on to M2 or transition to another e-commerce CMS entirely.

What Other Dates Do You Need to Look At?

Insider experts have long seen the writing on the walls for M1’s demise. On December 31st, 2018, Magento deprecated PHP 5.6. This was a big hit to the Magento community, mainly since Magento is written in PHP.

However, Magento released a patch that provided support up to PHP 7.2. 7.2 until November 2020. So, again, Magento has been more than lenient in slowly downgrading M1. 

In November 2020, CentOS 6.x will also be depreciated. This will result in the further elimination of support for M1. 

The M1 End of the Life Rumors

The end of M1 has been discussed since at least 2017. In April 2017, a Magento presentation featured the line “Magento 1 End of Life: 17 November 2018”. Of course, this date was incorrect.

It was a primitive guess on when Magento would end. Immediately, images and articles appeared speculating the end of M1 up until this point. These insights warned merchants that M1 would end sooner than they anticipated.

Initially, Magento executives speculated that the end of life for M1 would come three years after 2015. Therefore, 2018 made sense for the EoL. Since then, Magento has revised this date to June 2020.

What Does This Mean For Your Store?

If you are still using Magento 1, you have a limited time navigating to Magento 2. Here are a few things you need to consider before your next move:

  • Design – One of the most tedious things about switching from M1 to M2 is that you will have to go through a partial website redesign. Depending on how complicated your site’s design is, this could be very expensive and time-consuming. 
  • Extensions – While you are auditing your website, it’s essential to browse the extensions you are using on your M1 website. Although extensions on M1 generally aren’t compatible with M2, several updates are available if you want to make the switch. 
  • Security – Without support, M1 will be vulnerable to a wide variety of different security threats. This is perhaps the greatest reason to transition to M2. Hackers won’t resist an easy opportunity to prey on insecure websites. Please don’t make the mistake of having your website being one of them. 
  • Hosting – Not much will change as far as hosting is concerned. You will have to check in with your specific hosting provider to receive an update on how your plan will alter your website.
  • Costs – Transitioning to Magento 2 could be expensive. A majority of the associated costs will entail the audit and the transition to Magento 2. 

Keep these things in mind once you and your team begin to make a move to Magento 2. While staying on M1 isn’t an option anymore, the decision isn’t something you should perform too hastily.

It would help if you created a strategy to guide you through transitioning to Magento 2. 

Should You Move On To Another Platform?

Although Magento is a powerful e-commerce platform, there are countless available online. These include WooCommerce and WordPress. Depending on your needs and your situation, deciding if you should move to another platform will vary.

If you are a large organization disillusioned with Magento and have the funds to move forward, then deciding to transition to another platform may not be anything you will think twice about. 

However, if you have a limited budget and not enough bandwidth to maneuver to another platform, then you’re better off staying on Magento. Whatever decision you choose, discussing with a marketing consultant is your best bet for making the right choice. 

Agency Partner Interactive Has the Key

Transitioning to Magento 2 or another e-commerce platform takes a lot of effort and time. It’s best to leave this task in the hands of professionals. At Agency Partner Interactive, we specialize in helping our clients migrate their marketplaces. So for your migration, be sure to put that in the hands of the best among other Magento Development Companies. 

We realize how difficult this task is and pride ourselves on delivering complete services to our clients. Whether you want to change to Magento 2 or another e-commerce platform, we can assist.

We can also redesign your website to align with your brand identity and leverage fundamental digital marketing strategies to grow your brand. Do you want to learn more about how our award-winning team can develop your business’s transition strategy?

If so, continue reading below to contact us today!

Give Us a Call Today!

The Agency Partner Interactive team has several years of experience in web development with e-commerce and retail brands. If you need help deciding on your next move, you should contact us for a consultation.

Give us a call today at (214) 295-5845 or click here to Get a Free Quote to speak to a member of our award-winning team. 

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “Magento 1 End of Life: What You Need to Know About Moving to Magento 2” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

e-commerce_marketing

E-commerce Marketing 101

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For E-Commerce Marketing

Online shopping has never been more prevalent than it currently is now. Generally, online shopping is more convenient than purchasing products from a physical location. What’s more is that younger generations value convenience, which makes e-commerce a growing global trend. 

Having a marketing strategy for any business is essential, much less an online retailer. Needless to say, developing a marketing strategy for an e-commerce retailer is much different than for a local business.

E-commerce retailers require special attention while creating their marketing campaigns. If you want to begin brainstorming the ideas for your new e-commerce marketing strategy, then continue reading this guide for more details.

What is E-Commerce Marketing?

Again, e-commerce marketing is fairly different than most marketing campaigns. This is because many e-commerce companies are geared towards B2C audiences and mainly sell products instead of services.

Selling online products can be tricky. Services are typically items people need, such as HVAC and primary healthcare solutions. Even important products, like CPAP machines, cannot be easily sold without a marketing strategy. 

For this reason, e-commerce marketing entails the steps of achieving visibility for online products and enticing an audience to purchase them. Take a look at this image to learn about all of the methods of how you can market your products.

e-commerce_marketing
Let’s break down each method in detail:

  • Banners: Banner ads exist all throughout the web for the purpose of building brand awareness and encouraging high CTRs.
  • PPC Campaigns: Pay-per-click or PPC campaigns help marketers gain traffic commensurate with the money they spend. Utilizing PPC can help you grow your business while your SEO strategy is in effect.
  • Social Media Exposure: Social media hosts billions of people across the world. This presents marketers with a golden opportunity to advertise their products to new audiences.
  • SEO Strategy: SEO or search engine optimization is the process of growing your online presence in the search engine results pages (SERPs). A firm strategy must be in place for your business to thrive online.
  • Coupons and Discounts: Do you want to drive interest in your products? If so, coupons and discounts administered through an email marketing campaign will do the trick. 

These methods make up a standard e-commerce marketing strategy. It’s important to practice all of them to build brand awareness and usurp your competitors.

Why is E-commerce Marketing Important?

There are two types of marketing: traditional and digital marketing. Traditional marketing entails the process of mainly increasing the brand awareness of your business through print media, billboard advertisements, and TV commercials.

Digital marketing is a culmination of methods to increase your online presence. If you have a physical store location, you can take advantage of the fact that potential customers can find you while randomly traversing the city.

This isn’t the same for e-commerce retailers. The internet is a vast place full of billions of websites. If you don’t develop a strong e-commerce marketing strategy, your website simply won’t rank on the first page of Google.

It also won’t receive exposure on social media or even from paid media. Therefore, it’s not an option. Invest thoroughly in hiring a digital marketing agency to lead these efforts.

Tip #1: Use Facebook

Have you ever browsed through Facebook only to see an ad for clothes? Facebook is the most popular social media network in the world. It makes sense why businesses flock on their advertising platform to increase the exposure for their products.

Just take a look at how this retailer created an ad for their product.

tip1_e-commerce_marketing
In the same way, you should use Facebook to generate interest in your products in front of millions of potential customers.

Tip #2: Develop a PPC Strategy

Unlike SEO, it doesn’t take much time to build positive results with a PPC campaign. That’s only if you are conducting your campaign correctly. Google has shown PPC ads of online products extensively for at least a decade. 

tip2_e-commerce_marketing
Getting that type of exposure on Google can be huge for your business, improving the CTR of your ads. The higher the CTR, the higher your ad quality score will be. This will result in increased web traffic at a more affordable price in your campaign.

Tip #3: Leverage Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website to be crawled and indexed. As its name suggests, technical SEO is very technical. It entails things like improving your page speed and making your site mobile-friendly.

For this tip, you should definitely hire an experienced digital marketing agency. If you don’t know much about SEO or how to build your own campaign, seeking outside help will be in your best interest.

Mainly, paid speed and mobile optimization are the two most important areas of improvements for most marketplaces. 

Tip #4: Create a Stunning Website

Do you already have a website that doesn’t look the way you want it to? If so, you should create a new design for your website. Doing so will reinvigorate your brand and attract your target audience to your brand.

Give Us a Call Today!

Agency Partner Interactive specializes in delivering full-service marketing services for e-commerce retailers. If you want to increase your online exposure, then you’ve come to the right place.

To learn more about how we can help you, give us a call today (214) 295-5845 or click here to Get a Free Quote. 
Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “E-commerce Marketing 101” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

covid19

How COVID-19 Is Affecting E-commerce

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For E-Commerce Marketing

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has undoubtedly left an indelible impact on the world. Thousands of people have been infected with the virus with many unfortunately perishing as a result. 

This is not to mention the millions of people who are currently unemployed due to government regulatory measures to restrict physical movement. Overall, the effects of COVID-19’s impact can be felt worldwide.

Interestingly, the virus has caused a certain trend to form in the e-commerce sector. If you are currently running an e-commerce marketplace, then you should continue reading to learn more about how the coronavirus could potentially alter your business.

Millions Are Staying at Home

Again, the coronavirus is an airborne affliction that requires extended quarantine periods to restrict its growth in communities. As such, state governments in conjunction with the federal government have mandated a quarantine period, keeping millions of people at home.

Of course, these people still desire to carry on with their everyday lives even though it’s been altered. Without a lot of outside options to carry out grocery shopping duties, purchase essential products, and splurge, many are turning to the internet for a solution.

According to the senior enterprise contributor at Forbes, Louis Columbus explains that mandatory stay-at-home periods have increased the appetite of e-commerce shopping since not many other alternatives exist.

“In many families, online grocery, apparel, and entertainment shopping will replace store and mall visits permanently until a vaccine is available.”

In addition, key global trends point to a correlation between stay-at-home orders and e-commerce industry growth.

  • The year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth of online retailers has increased by 68% as of Mid-April, outgrowing a peak percentage of 49% in January. 
  • There is currently a 129% increase in the YoY growth of online retailers in the United States and Canada, as well as a 146% increase in all online orders. 
  • Conversion rates online have increased by 8.8% since February, highlighting a renewed sense of urgency online products not seen since Cyber Monday. 

With more people at home, online shopping has become ubiquitous throughout the world. This puts pressure on online retailers to make changes to their marketplaces and internal marketing strategies to accommodate the growing surge of consumers. 

Increased Mobile Usage

The domination of mobile usage in today’s global internet traffic is nothing new. According to Search Engine Land, nearly 60% of all online traffic comes from mobile devices. However, since the dawn of the coronavirus, mobile online traffic has skyrocketed.

Per the PYMNTS’ 2020 Remote Payments Study, 72% of consumers are using mobile devices to purchase online products. As a result, e-commerce retailers have to be mindful of how they can optimize and curate positive user experiences for all potential customers.

This means leveraging fundamental mobile optimization strategies to improve the responsiveness of their platforms. Hiring a web development agency to audit and performance improvements will be necessary for getting your marketplace ready for today’s new crop of consumers.

More People Will Continue Shopping Online

Stay-at-home orders are currently interim, at least in the larger states of the U.S. where the coronavirus has run rampant. This, however, doesn’t mean that these trends will decrease any time soon. 

A Morning Consult study concluded that 24% of consumers wouldn’t shop at a mall for at least six more months. This makes sense, being that a vaccine for the coronavirus would have to be available before larger stores and outlets could be safely reopened. 

This could mean that current e-commerce trends could continue growing. After all, online shopping is more convenient than any other alternative. Also, younger generations value convenience more than anything else when making a purchasing decision. 

How to Optimize Your E-Commerce Marketplace

As you can see, COVID-19 has tremendously affected the growth of the e-commerce industry, albeit in a positive way.

This growth is insofar of how proactive you are in adapting your marketing strategy to fit the changing times.

Remember, just because more online shopping is taking place doesn’t mean consumers will settle for any marketplace. It only means that the saturation of the e-commerce industry has increased, so there are thousands of retailers fighting for position. 

If you want to stay afloat, here’s how you can revamp your marketing strategy.

  • Make sure that your e-commerce platform is mobile-friendly. This is absolutely essential as there are strict penalties for not having a responsive website. 
  • Reduce the friction on your site. Friction is defined as an obstacle that prevents a potential customer from converting. Therefore, ensure that your website is simple to navigate.
  • Increase the speed of your website and perform a technical SEO checklist to make sure that your marketplace will rank online and be seen by your target audience.

Unfortunately, if you’re not an SEO expert, these steps will be incredibly difficult to perform. The good news is that the team at Agency Partner Interactive can be of service to you.

How Agency Partner Interactive Can Help

Agency Partner Interactive is a boutique digital marketing agency, specializing in creating high-performance marketing campaigns. We mainly provide services to e-commerce retailers.

By working with us, we can get down to the bottom of your marketplace’s failures and formulate an effective solution to increase its web traffic and conversions. Our decisions are based on highly-qualitative data.

Therefore, you can always be sure we are making the right decisions to help you achieve the highest return on your return on investment (ROI). SEO is very technical expertise and requires the brightest minds to have any effect on your campaign. 

If you want to put a proven professional in your corner, look no further than Agency Partner Interactive.

Give Us a Call Today!

The coronavirus has changed the way we do business. Unless you have a strategy to overcome your losses and reinvigorate your bottom line, it will be complicated to surpass your competitors and survive.

If you want to learn more about how we can help you, give us a call today at (214) 295-5845. You can also click here to receive a free quote. 

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “How COVID-19 Is Affecting E-commerce” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

 

email_marketing

A Beginner’s Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Email Marketing

Marketing strategies usually have the purpose of attracting qualified leads to do business with you. Email marketing is very different in this regard. In email marketing, you already have qualified leads in your email list and the purpose is to convert them.

Email marketing takes all of the hard work out of prospecting for potential customers. The more your email list grows, you will have the attention of hundreds and even thousands of people that could potentially purchase your products and services.

What you do with this attention will impact the performance of your email marketing campaign. If you want to bypass a bit of the learning curve of making rookie mistakes in your first campaign, continue reading to learn all you need to know about email marketing.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the process of converting prospective customers in an email list. An email list is a collection of people, known as subscribers. If you’ve ever visited a website, then you’ve likely seen a prompt urging you to sign up for a newsletter or email list.

Here’s an example of what this looks like:

beginners_guide
Successful companies have large email lists, which are ideal for eventually converting new customers and encouraging repeat transactions from existing ones. Email marketing is a valuable means of creating an engaged audience for your business.

Why is Email Marketing Important?

Email marketing delivers the highest return on investment (ROI) than any other marketing initiative. This speaks volumes of how email marketing can benefit your business.

Still not impressed?
If not, then check out these benefits of beginning an email marketing campaign for your company. 

  • Quality Collection of Leads – Email lists are full of qualified leads who can convert at any moment. 
  • Ease of Conversion – Unlike other marketing campaigns, subscribers are simple to convert. You don’t have to craft long-form content and engage in extensive keyword research. 
  • Increased Website Traffic – You can take advantage of your email list to achieve a continual flow of website traffic. Increased visibility will lead to more conversions sooner or later.
  • Feedback – More than any other marketing strategy, you can understand what your subscribers are feeling by sending out surveys and optimize your campaign for better results.

As you can see, you can’t afford to not have an email marketing campaign. Are you looking for insights on how to start and grow your campaign? The next section will discuss core email marketing techniques you need to employ immediately.

What are Essential Email Marketing Tips?

If you’re new to email marketing, understanding how to navigate your campaign can be challenging. The good news is that email marketing is pretty straightforward. Let’s go over the basics of beginning your successful campaign. 

Segmentation:

Segmentation involves putting subscribers in specific categories. Each category receives a different marketing message. For example, inactive subscribers will be placed in a category where they will be sent re-engagement emails
On the other hand, subscribers likely to convert will be sent custom messages to get them across the threshold. You can’t expect your email list to grow by sending the same emails to all of your subscribers.

This will cause them to tune out and eventually unsubscribe. Instead, send relevant email messages by segmenting your entire email list.

Personalization:

According to HubSpot, personalized emails deliver exceptionally high transaction rates. Personalization is the next step of segmentation. It involves creating a personal and relevant email message to each subscriber. 

Again, your email list won’t grow if you copy, paste, and send similar emails to every subscriber. It’s important to realize that people receive dozens of emails every day and will quickly become annoyed if they see that your correspondences don’t appeal to them.

Although it may take more time and effort, sending personalized emails is key to your overall success at email marketing. 

Subject Lines:

What is the first thing you notice before opening an email? It’s, of course, the subject line. Emails with a personalized subject line have an open rate of 7.4% and a click-through rate (CTR) of .4%.

It’s pivotal to create emails with captivating subject lines. This will increase the CTR of your emails and make sure you are generating positive ROI from your campaign. 

Welcome Emails:

Perhaps the most important aspect of any email marketing campaign is the welcome campaign. It serves the following functions:

  • Welcome emails set the tone for the entire campaign.
  • Welcome emails allow you to begin segmentation. 
  • Welcome emails increase engagement and allow you to introduce yourself.

If you need inspiration on how to create the perfect email campaign, then take a look at this welcome email from Asana. 

asana
Or, you can check out this one from Away. 

away
These welcome emails do more than just say hello. They give subscribers something to look forward to. 

Remarketing:

There will be a time where your emails will not reach everyone on your email list. If you notice that your email list has a bunch of inactive subscribers, you should begin a re-engagement series. 

These series of emails will attempt to reach subscribers that haven’t interacted with your emails in a while.

Reengagement emails look like this:

beginners_guide
As you can see, re-engagement emails are a formality in email marketing. However, these emails are simply an attempt. If inactive subscribers don’t engage with your campaign in a while, it would be best to let them go. 

Email Copy:

If you want people to engage with your emails, you have to sound like a real person. Emails aren’t essays. Therefore, it’s not time to show off any extravagant words. A great, conversational email looks something like this. 

guide

Give Us a Call Today!

Email marketing is a simple concept, but carrying out a successful campaign takes a lot of work. Hiring an experienced digital marketing agency may be in your interest if you need assistance.

If you want to learn more about how you can hire Agency Partner Interactive, give us a call at (214) 295-5845 or click here to receive a free quote.   

Not big on reading? That’s okay. Watch “A Beginner’s Guide to Successful Email Marketing” instead.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence, we turned this blog into a video for you. Check it out below!

software_developer

How to Hire a Custom Software Developer

Posted on | by devops
Expert Tips For Custom Software Developers

The demand for quality software is growing tremendously, insomuch that there is an increasing saturation in the market of software developers. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Mainly, having countless options to choose from on your search for a quality developer is a breath of fresh air.

Though, this means you will have to conduct an in-depth consumer review on all prospective software developers. 

If you’re completely new to the process of hiring a custom software developer, this can be complicated. Therefore, if you need new, custom software for your organization, you can read this guide to make the right decision. 

Build a Shortlist

Again, if you are new to hiring a software developer, you’ll be hard-pressed in finding somewhere to look for the best option. Let’s start with the basics of locating any quality company: asking for recommendations.

If you have a business associate (not a competitor) that has recently developed software for their company, you can simply ask where they acquired their product. If you liked their software, you will be sure that the same work will be put forth for your business.

Therefore, add software companies from personal recommendations on your shortlist. If this option doesn’t work for you, you can try finding local software companies via local search. 

Let’s try out using a basic keyword like “software developers near me” and see what happens.

custom_software_developer
As you can see, there are a healthy number of software developers using this search. Here are the main things you should look for in Google Map rankings:

  • Star Rating: This indicates the quality of a business based on online reviews.
  • No. of Reviews: This number is in parentheses next to the star rating. You can generally trust a business with 10 reviews with a collective rating of 4.9 than a business with one 5-star rating.
  • Online Reviews: These can be found by clicking on the listing and scrolling down. Reviews are both short and long details of consumer experiences.

47% of consumers only work with businesses with more than four stars. You should choose carefully based on the results you receive from local searches. Hence, don’t be too quick to add software developers to your shortlist even if they have a positive online reputation.

Lastly, collect and verify referenced based on short interviews with prospective software developers. If you like what you see and hear, you can add the final candidates to your shortlist.

You may realize that your shortlist contains dozens of companies, and that’s fine. The next step will involve confirming if any shortlisted candidates will be a good fit for your company.

Verifying Your Shortlisted Candidates

Software development is a thriving industry. There are thousands and possibly more companies that specialize in creating software applications. Conducting a basic internet search will provide more software developers than you can count.

However, how do you make sure that these companies meet your standards and can lead to the production of your software project? Check for these things when moving on with your search.

Company Portfolio:

Every software developer will claim to offer the best services. Hence, you should check every company portfolio you come across in order to verify these claims. Make sure you look for details such as delivery timelines, team sizes, tech stacks, etc.

Also, take note of any company that has first-hand experience in developing software for your industry. Typically, large companies have massive resources and specialize in many niches, while smaller companies operate in specific niches.

Client Testimonials:

Ideally, you’ll want to partner with a company that has a proven track record of achieving successful results. In this case, you should ask for client testimonials and case descriptions. 

Unless clients are prohibited by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) from speaking to you, pick their brains about important details of what it was like working with a prospective software company.

Did they consider their project to be successful? How would they rate communication and deliverables? Would they recommend them as a potential partner? These are all questions you should have answered before moving forward with any company.

US/EU Jurisdiction

There are some legal requirements involving the process of software development that relates often to healthcare, insurance, and FinTech. Any software that utilizes sensitive data receives stringent governmental oversight.

To stay compliant with the latest mandates of the Federal Government, hire a software developer that operates under US/EU jurisdiction.

Talent Partners/Network of Resources:

When hiring a software developer, you shouldn’t have to worry about any of the technical details of accessing a wider pool of talent. That’s, after all, why you’re making a hire in the first place.

Choose a software company with either talent partners or an extensive network of resources to ensure that your projects run smoothly. 

Selecting the Right Engagement Model

Onshore and offshore software companies will generally offer a few standard engagement models for you to choose from. The tricky part is knowing which one you should select for your business. 

Fixed Price:

This is the simplest engagement model. You and the software company agree on the scope of the project and determine a fixed price. Any additions to the project are almost always identified, which come at a fixed price as well.

This model is ideal for smaller projects. 

Time and Materials (T&M):

Unlike a fixed price model, this doesn’t have a defined budget. Before your partner begins, you must agree on the total amount of hours for the project. This model is ideal for complicated projects that are difficult to pin down in terms of production costs.

Dedicated Development Team (aka Extended Team):

This model serves as an extension of your company. You retain ultimate discretion and control over your project. This model is ideal for large projects with changing needs and the requirement of full-time development services.

Give Us a Call Today!

Do you want to work with a qualified customer software developer? Give us a call at (214) 295-5845 or click here to receive a free quote.  

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