The e-commerce sector is one of the fastest growing in the IT sector. The impact of Covid has increased the importance of online shopping. According to Statista.com, worldwide e-commerce sales amounted to US$4.28 trillion in 2020 and e-retail revenue is projected to grow to US$5.4 trillion in 2022. All purchases are expected to continue to be made online.
Brief overview of e-commerce development
E-commerce development is a complex and complicated process. Of course, due to the requirements and size of the company, there can be big differences. For example, there are many builders, such as Tilda , where you can relatively quickly start a small online store with basic functions such as user cabinet, product cards with descriptions, basket, etc.
But if we are talking about startups with medium or large-scale job function email list projects in the future, the scenario will be a little more complicated. The simplified steps for developing e-commerce look like this.
Idea and validation
Decide on the segment and type of customers: b2b, b2c or b2b2c
Choose technological elements such as web server, databases, storage, technological stack and programming languages.
Think about integrations with payment systems, CRM , mail services, etc.
UI/UX design creation and testing.
Development
Launch and Testing
The list above does not include SEO requirements, automatic content generation, etc. Today we will focus solely on the main criteria that a good e-commerce site should have “under the hood”.
Before starting the development of an e-commerce project, the main task is to create technical requirements. You need to create a list of technologies and estimate the cost and terms of future projects.
So what are the most important things you should choose?
Choose cloud computing as the best solution in terms of scalability, speed and security.
Scalability is the most important factor for the future growth of the project. Your store or platform must be prepared for future market changes and challenges. Well-thought-out architecture will significantly save your budget in the future. For example, there are several common reasons such as increased demand due to some holidays or new trends or innovations that require a quick response.
First of all, what should you choose? Cloud computing . Providers like Google, Amazon , Azure, and others are in demand. Cloud hosting allows you to create your own perimeter and have seamless scalability. It allows you to grow vertically or horizontally without manual intervention. Also, there is a list of ready-made solutions like applications, networks, RDS, databases, etc.
One of the great advantages of cloud providers is their ability to adapt to traffic spikes. Due to the peculiarities of the e-commerce sector - advertising campaigns, sudden changes in traffic for new products were expected. You can be sure that users will not have access problems thanks to the excellent automatic function.
Imagine your project is already launched. Except for an attractive design and a good UX, there are 2 things that are really important: speed and security.
The average user waits no more than 3 seconds for a page to load. Any on-premise infrastructure could not compete with the cloud when it comes to speed. The microservices included in cloud computing allow you to grow without additional integrations.
Security is one of the “three whales” of good e-commerce. Users enter their name, credit cards, etc. into your system. A single security issue can destroy a company’s reputation. Cloud computing can promise you PCI-DSS certified hosting. The importance started to increase after the advent of GDPR. In addition, cloud technologies can promise superior security measures to protect you from DDoS attacks. Because of the location of all your services within your perimeter, you can be more confident about security issues. But it is also imperative for companies to adopt cloud solutions and invest in specialized security training for their team. Such training from reliable Cisco CCNP Certification Dumps should cover best practices regarding security, including proper use and management of cloud resources. This is essential to ensure that employees are equipped to use these advanced systems effectively.
Choose the right technology stack for an e-commerce project
The technology stack is a list of technologies that will be used for the project. The technology stack allows estimating the project cost and development time. There are some of the most common technology stacks used for e-commerce projects: MEAN, LAMP, Python-Django, .NET.
To choose the best one, take a look at your current team and compare the abilities of each stack.
For example, for e-commerce startups, Django is one of the best solutions. The Django framework used in conjunction with Python provides a high level of security for backend development. This high-level Python web framework is a good choice because it covers the main needs of scalability, security, and compared to the other, it has many out-of-the-box features. Django avoids a lot of common security bugs, which often weaken traditional PHP CMS. It allows you to build an application right out of the box. Perfect for supporting your online store with functionalities such as user authentication, content management, or RSS feed.
According to the latest statistics , Python is one of the most popular languages worldwide, so choose this one and you will have a great support community and new features. Also, it is not difficult to hire Python developers , if the need arises.
Another widely used option is a MEAN (Mongo Express Angular Node) stack. It solves all the challenges with performance. Moreover, it has great scalability – the server can be horizontally scaled by using the cluster. Moreover, MongoDB is a NoSQL database highly designed for cloud and scalability with full support for clusters.
MEAN is a widely used technology adapted by small startups to companies like eBay, PayPal, Facebook, Google, etc. Therefore, this technology stack is ready to handle any challenge that may come in the future.
As we mentioned above, your solution should be based on existing technology, budget, and the reliability of the solution. The higher the demand for the language, the larger the community you have, the better. You will always have new updates, more support, and wider possibilities.