Team Augmentation

Team augmentation is a highly flexible approach to staffing which allows you to cover skill and knowledge gaps within your in-house development team. Team augmentation can be highly-valuable, particularly when your project ROI, or budgetary constraints won’t justify hiring an(other) in-house developer. One of the most compelling benefits of team augmentation is your ability to swap out developers in light of evolving business or technical requirements, all without the exorbitant HR expense of hiring and onboarding new, full-time employees.

Finding the best fit for your e-commerce development team involves many factors:

🟠 Experience: Seek out developers with highly-relevant experience in your specific e-commerce platform. Systems such as Magento, Shopware, and Shopify.

🟠 Technical expertise: Seek out developers with deep expertise in e-commerce development, in general. Meaning, they’re experts in programming languages, databases management, API configuration and maintenance, and best-in-class web development frameworks.

🟠 Portfolio and references: Check potential partner’s portfolio and references to get an sense for the success of their past work. Are their past and current clients highly-satisfied?

🟠 Communication skills: Use the research and interview process to test your potential partner’s responsiveness, transparency, and communication skills. How they perform during this phase of pre-engagement almost certainly reflects their future performance.

🟠 Project management: Effective team augmentation partners should have verifiable project management experience, expertise and processes. This includes known frameworks and tools to ensure your project stays on-time and on-budget.

Choosing the most effective e-commerce platform will depend upon your business and technical needs, your project budget and goals, and your in-house development capabilities.

Magento, Shopware, and Shopify are all powerful e-commerce platforms. However, it’s important to understand the niche they each fill:

📍Magento is an established platform that offers advanced features, scalability, and flexibility. Magento boasts one of the largest and most robust open-source communities, with an extensive range of third-party extensions and integrations. It is a great choice for mid-size and large businesses that have a large product catalog, complex business processes, and high traffic volume.

📍Shopware is also an open-source platform, good for small to medium-sized businesses. Shopware offers customizable storefronts, built-in SEO and marketing tools, a broad range of configuration options, role-based permissions, easy landing page creation, and industry-leading video shopping functionality.

📍Shopify is a hosted solution (ie, not open-source) known for its ease-of-use and affordable pricing. Low startup costs and pre-built themes make Shopify a great choice for small to medium-sized businesses with simpler product catalogs, less complicated business processes, and fewer technical integrations. However, transaction fees and costs for essential add-ons may translate into a greater Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in the long run.

The Magento platform is a workhorse for robust retail business performance. Customizable themes and storefronts, mobile-first & mobile-friend design, built-ins SEO, multi-store management, advanced marketing features, and a broad array of payment and shipping integrations make Magento uniquely suited to handle the needs of medium to large-sized businesses with large or complex catalogs, extensive business processes and technical integrations, and high-volume traffic. Magento’s advanced features help e-commerce businesses establish a strong online presence, grow brand awareness, improve customer engagement, and increase sales.