5 Ques­tions When Hir­ing An ECom­merce Web Developer

For any busi­ness look­ing to sell their prod­ucts on­line it is es­sen­tial that you hire the right per­son or com­pany to build your website.

Af­ter all, you’ll likely be in­vest­ing thou­sands (or even tens of thou­sands) of dol­lars into your site and you must be sure your site will have the look, the func­tion­al­ity, and the user ex­pe­ri­ence you want.

The fol­low­ing is a start­ing point for your con­ver­sa­tions with po­ten­tial web de­vel­op­ers. Be sure any­one you’re con­sid­er­ing can an­swer each of these ques­tions thought­fully and in a way that makes sense to you, even if you’re not tech­ni­cally savvy.

1. Can I see your portfolio?

Any web de­vel­oper worth his salt should have a re­sume’ of qual­i­fi­ca­tions and a port­fo­lio of fin­ished projects at the ready. If con­sid­er­ing an independent/freelance de­vel­oper, be sure to ask what spe­cific as­pects of the project the de­vel­oper han­dled (de­sign, cod­ing, shop­ping cart in­te­gra­tion, etc.) and make sure he/she has ex­pe­ri­ence build­ing the ex­act func­tion­al­ity you’re look­ing for.

Any­one can talk a big game, but un­less you’re sure their de­vel­op­ment skills match their sales skills, you might wind up dis­ap­pointed with the fi­nal prod­uct. The only way to know they can han­dle your project is to see sim­i­lar projects they’ve completed.

2. What do you need from me?

Web­sites re­quire con­tent. And eCom­merce web­sites re­quire a lot of content—marketing copy, com­pany in­for­ma­tion, pri­vacy poli­cies, and po­ten­tially thou­sands of prod­uct pho­tos & descriptions.

In most cases, this is the client’s re­spon­si­bil­ity. Some­times that just means for­ward­ing a supplier’s cat­a­log and writ­ing a few para­graphs of “About Us” copy. Of­ten, how­ever, con­tent de­vel­op­ment is the most time-con­­sum­ing as­pect of a web project.

Hav­ing a clear un­der­stand­ing of ex­actly what you, the client, are re­quired to pro­vide makes the en­tire process much more straight­for­ward for every­one in­volved. You can’t blame the de­vel­oper for con­tent delays—and the de­vel­oper can’t blame you for any other delays.

3. What tech­nolo­gies do you plan to use for this project?

For a tech savvy busi­ness owner, you can go into depth ex­plor­ing why the sug­gested plat­form may or may not be a good fit for the project. But for any­one with­out tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise, here’s what you re­ally need to know:

Is the tech­nol­ogy open source?

“Open source” ba­si­cally means the tech­nol­ogy is free and read­ily avail­able to the public—and no li­cens­ing is re­quired. If not open source, make sure the soft­ware is pro­pri­etary to a third party—NOT your web developer—so you’re not locked into stay­ing with your de­vel­oper forever.

Is the tech­nol­ogy extensible?

This means that you’ll be able to add fea­tures and func­tion­al­ity eas­ily, with­out any ma­jor changes re­quired to the ex­ist­ing web­site. Some great ex­am­ples of ex­ten­si­bil­ity are the thou­sands of pre-built plu­g­ins avail­able for the Word­Press platform.

How easy is it to up­date the website?

Web­site main­te­nance can be­come a huge op­er­at­ing cost if your site isn’t built in a way where you, the client, can eas­ily man­age up­dates. You want to be sure your web de­vel­oper pro­vides you with a Con­tent Man­age­ment Sys­tem (CMS) that al­lows you to han­dle the most com­mon up­dates (such as adding new prod­ucts) with­out any tech­ni­cal knowl­edge required.

4. Who owns my website?

The is­sue of web­site own­er­ship is hugely important—and I strongly rec­om­mend hav­ing your lawyer re­view any web de­vel­op­ment con­tract be­fore you sign it. If your re­la­tion­ship with your de­vel­oper ever sours, you want to be sure you can move your site with­out any ma­jor hurdles.

When reg­is­ter­ing a do­main, make sure to ei­ther reg­is­ter it your­self (us­ing a reg­is­trar like Go­Daddy or My­Do­main) or have your de­vel­oper reg­is­ter the do­main in your name, not theirs. As an eCom­merce busi­ness your do­main is ar­guably the sin­gle most im­por­tant as­pect of your branding—and you need to be 100% sure you are the domain’s le­gal owner.

You also need to be 100% sure you own your en­tire web­site, in­clud­ing all as­pects of de­sign, pho­tog­ra­phy, copy, and any tech­nolo­gies used in the site im­ple­men­ta­tion (or have these items li­censed in your name). In a le­gal sense, this means the project must be des­ig­nated “a work made for hire.”

5. What are the to­tal costs for the project—and what does that include?

We’re fin­ish­ing with the ques­tion that most busi­ness own­ers start with—what’s the bot­tom line? Un­for­tu­nately, it’s rarely that sim­ple. There are sev­eral as­pects to con­sider when dis­cussing costs:

Scope of Work

The Scope of Work de­fines ex­actly what is or isn’t in­cluded in the project cost.

Some items to con­sider when defin­ing scope of work in­clude logo/graphic de­sign, copy­writ­ing, stock pho­tog­ra­phy li­cens­ing, and soft­ware li­cens­ing, plus all de­vel­op­ment costs. You and your de­vel­oper should have an in-depth dis­cus­sion of ex­actly what work you need done and make sure your con­tract spec­i­fies every item you agree upon.

The last thing you want is to re­ceive your fi­nal in­voice with a bunch of line items (and a hefty dol­lar to­tal) for things you thought were included.

Web­site Maintenance

Web­site main­te­nance costs are any­thing re­quired to keep your web­site up and run­ning. Com­mon ones in­clude do­main registration/renewal, web host­ing, and soft­ware li­cens­ing, plus any de­vel­oper up­dates (usu­ally charged at ei­ther a monthly re­tainer or a per-hour fee).

I’ve seen many com­pa­nies of­fer a cheap (or even free) web­site to a client, but lock them into a long-term con­tract with high monthly main­te­nance costs. I’m not ad­vo­cat­ing for or against this type of situation—just be aware of what you are get­ting your­self into.

Pay­ment Terms

Once you agree on a scope of work and know the to­tal cost of your project, you’ll have to agree on pay­ment terms. Most web de­vel­op­ers re­quire a deposit—usually 20-50% of the to­tal cost—upfront, and the bal­ance of pay­ment within 30, 60, or 90 days of web­site publication.

Be wary of any­one that asks for more than 50% up­front, un­less you have a rock-solid con­tract and the will to chase them down if they take your money and disappear.

Re­mem­ber, these ques­tions are just a start­ing point. Other fac­tors you may want to dis­cuss in­clude mar­ket­ing, Search En­gine Op­ti­miza­tion, pay­ment gate­ways, web­site se­cu­rity, and a whole lot more.