Finding the right ecommerce partner for your Magento site can prove invaluable. Choosing a partner that doesn’t fit your needs can set your project back. A good relationship hinges on collaboration, mutual interest and a willingness on the provider’s part to understand your business and what makes your web requirements unique. With those broad considerations in mind, here are five traits you should look for when selecting a Magento development partner:
“A good relationship hinges on collaboration.”
1. Certification
The Magento Certified Partner program ensures that consultants working within the Magento ecosystem have the skills, knowledge and support from Magento needed to roll out sites using the platform and maintain them effectively. While it may be tempting to look at a certification as just a piece of paper, partner certifications don’t only verify that somebody passed a test, they also highlight that the organization has a clear connection with the platform provider.
2. Partners
Very few development consultants have the internal staff and skills necessary to provide what is truly needed for an end-to-end web project. Instead, they may specialize in or two areas and be weaker in others. Look for Magento consultants that have a partner network to broaden their expertise and ensure you get the full scope of services you need. For example, something like Magento ERP integration is a complex and technically demanding process, but experts in the process can ensure a smooth, efficient rollout because of their specialized knowledge. A good partner network will provide the specialty services to get the website you really need.
3. Varied creative skills
While a partner network is important considering the complexity and scale of modern websites, you also want to make sure the consultants you work with have the breadth of skills needed to understand your project. For example, design and development are often looked at as distinct processes, and you may want to go to dedicated teams for each. However, the design decisions you make can have a huge influence on the development that needs to happen in the backend. A good consultancy will understand these dependencies and accommodate for them whether you are handling all of these processes in house or connecting with their partners for some components of the project.
4. Magento 2.0 readiness
The Magento 2.0 platform is on its way and businesses that want to be ready for the future may want to build on Magento 2.0 from scratch or begin working on an upgrade to ensure their site is ready to take advantage of what the new iteration of Magento has to offer. Make sure your ecommerce partner is up to speed on the latest developments in the Magento world to avoid falling behind.
“Very few things are stagnant in the web universe.”
5. A culture of continuous improvement
Very few things are stagnant in the web universe. A good website will be improved and tweaked on an ongoing basis to keep up with customer demands, stay ahead of industry developments and provide a meaningful competitive edge. When you look for a consultant, don’t just go after a partner that will build you a site and leave things there. Instead, seek out a consultant that will design your new site or upgrade with the future in mind and want to stick around to help you make continual improvements over time.
There is a great deal to consider when setting off in search of an ecommerce consultant. The Magento landscape makes this process a bit simpler as the powerful platform’s certification system helps to narrow the list. Once you’re happy with the certification, you can look for the rest of these attributes as the guiding point in your search for a partner.
Need assistance picking the right partner or looking to start the interview process? We’d love to chat with you!
