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Software Outsourcing as the term suggests refers to the notion of hiring another development company or source to help you with the completion of your software development project(s). At times, software outsourcing also involves the practice of handing the entire project to the third-party that is well-qualified to meet the demands of it.Although software outsourcing is not so novel an idea, its hype is getting bigger and better with each passing day.

There are various factors to which software outsourcing owes its popularity - primarily the fact that rapidly changing trends of the digital markets call for innovative minds and skilled professionals to help the marketers and IT companies cope with the waves of advanced technologization.The change in digital trends is giving a boost to the competition among the business ventures and that is what makes software outsourcing a go-to option for them. It is a major driving force behind the digital transformations of several renowned companies.

Here is all that you need to know about software outsourcing-the reasons for it being the trend and how it works, advantages, its drawbacks, and how to outsource the software development effectively:

Why is Software Outsourcing a Big Thing?

Software outsourcing offers multiple benefits to the organizations opting for it. This helps in improving the overall working efficiency and enables them to keep their long-term strategies on track. Moreover, its various types and models are what primarily makes it a convenient option for many companies.

Types of Software Outsourcing Services:

Services that software outsourcing vendors usually offer include artificial intelligence, web or mobile application development, robotic process automation, or the latest trends of cloud computing, which helps the customer companies to have an impactful digital presence. Vendors can also customize their software outsourcing services to cater to the specific needs of their customers.Companies offering software outsourcing services ensure that they have the in-house capacity, and resources (developers, designers, quality assurance engineers, business analysts, need, and project managers) to understand and deliver the project(s) with the required functionalities.

Models for Software Outsourcing:

There are three major ways with which businesses can outsource their projects to the vendors. Mainly being:

1. Nearshore Outsourcing:

This means outsourcing the projects to the companies in neighboring countries.

2. Onshore Outsourcing:

Onshore outsourcing means hiring vendors who are located within the country. Being able to speak the same language eradicates all the issues and possibilities of errors that come with the language barrier, thus making it more effective. However, the development cost will be more than the other outsourcing options though.

3. Offshore Outsourcing:

As the name refers, this means working with vendors from other countries. This helps in reducing the development cost, while online communication platforms like zoom or Google Meet are considered to make the working process and communication more seamless.

What are the advantages and drawbacks of Software Outsourcing?

There are so many factors that contribute to making software outsourcing an advantageous option that results in less product production time and increased working efficiency. To top it all, here are some more benefits of it to help you understand more comprehensively.

The Advantages:

1. Development Costs and Overhead Spending:

The most compelling reason for businesses to opt for software outsourcing is reduced development costs. It helps them grow with the market demands more effectively and that too while staying in budget. Having so many pricing options at hand is undoubtedly the primary advantage of software outsourcing. Outsourcing means that you won’t have to worry about the labor costs and other benefits like leaves, insurance, etc. and all likewise troubles that come when you hire an employee to do the work for you. You will just pay the third-party and get your done work effortlessly. This is what makes the whole endeavor of outsourcing cost-effective and attractive for the business organizations that are striving to keep up with the rapidly changing digital trends.

2. It is Flexible!

You are not bound by any long-term legal constraints or wont have to pay for the resources even after the completion of the project. In comparison to full-time hiring, software outsourcing gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to payment and working plans. You can literally hire any person that aptly meets the project demands irrespective of the geographical location. You wont have to go through those lengthy recruitment processes and prolonged interview sessions. It saves you time and energy to focus on business management.

3. Boosting Working Efficiency:

Software outsourcing vendors are highly professional, skilled, and well-versed in the modified technological tools that are usually needed in the development process. It will save you a lot of time that you would otherwise spend on hiring new team members. Your project moves forward at a faster pace and the project completion period gets reduced to a greater extent.

3. Improved Business Strategies:

Having easy access to skilled and experienced IT talent from all around the world helps organizations in getting the work done effectively and efficiently. Software outsourcing enables them to be more focused on the tasks that need to be done on their part instead of worrying about the tasks that are being managed by the third-party vendor. This will aid in improving their work progress as well.

The Drawbacks:

1. Work Quality:

Lower labor costs sound very attractive to us all, but we cannot deny the fact that it comes at a price. The lower development costs might compromise product quality. Moreover, not being able to contact the developers in person will result in delayed feedback, which in turn prolongs the duration of project completion.

2. Cultural and Language Barriers:

The differences in time zones often hinder the effective communication or feedback between the client organization and the remote outsource team, that further challenges the work progress and leads to extended deadlines. You can overcome this drawback through effective project management.

3. Security Concerns:

Data is considered to be an asset in todays world. Hiring a third-party to help you with your projects means that you will be required to share some confidential data, or intellectual property with them, which in turn exposes your company to external threats. Therefore, make sure to put some effort and thought while selecting outsourcing vendors. Pick the ones who understand and prioritizes your security concerns to reduce the risks for any data leakage. One highly recommended way to reduce this risk is to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA)s with the 3rd-party vendors after consulting a law-agency.

How to Do Software Outsourcing Effectively?

No matter how beneficial a process is you can never reap its benefits if you are not doing it the right way. Likewise, when it comes to software outsourcing, various factors should be taken into consideration to ensure success. Keep the following pointers in mind:

Set Goals:

Make a draft of what your expectation is from the outsource team. How you want the work to be done i.e. list some rough deadlines. Have a clear idea about what kind of product you need at the end of the project. You must ask the outsourcing company to do proper documentation since that ll set benchmarks, milestones, delivery dates, and overall project requirements.

Communication is the Key to Success:

If you are not communicating effectively with the remote team, you are likely to run into problems. Since you are working remotely with the outsource team, you must be vigilant about keeping track of the project progress. Communicate systematically, for instance:

• When posting an ad for software outsourcing, be clear about your demands and job description
• Make it clear if it is a one-time project or you are looking for a long-term contract
• State the qualification and skills required
• State duration of the project
• List your expectations

Having all these conditions listed out will save your time and energy that otherwise would have been wasted on reviewing applications from professionals or companies that do not fit your project requirements. Besides, after hiring the outsource team, get your project management team to collaborate with the hired 3rd-party resources, and ensure that they schedule meetings more often to get the work done perfectly.

Post-Shortlisting Process:

Even if some unfit professionals/companies have managed to slide their CVs/Proposals in your email, you can surely cross them out after some browsing. Further, you can start by contacting the potential resource, those who fit the project demand. Contact them directly to communicate all the concerns and points we have discussed above. Its good to be extra cautious and call their references or previous employers to see if they are reliable and have all those skills that they have listed etc. This will help you to make an informed decision. Before finalizing your decision, take a demo of their skills. Moreover, observe how they are communicating with you, i.e. if they are pleased, take it as a good sign. If you sense something fishy or they are being ambiguous, then you should opt for other available options. Once you have shortlisted them based on these criteria, it will be easy for you to finally choose.

Be Realistic:

Having realistic expectations is vital to keep things smooth between you and the hired team or individual. For example, if you are looking for lower labor costs then be prepared for the compromised quality of the product. Likewise, have some room for delays in the project and unmet deadlines if you are opting for nearshore or offshore outsourcing particularly.

Be Strategic:

You must have a sound plan for the execution of the project. Set multiple milestones to keep track of the work progress.

Where to Find Potential Developers?

When it comes to the platforms where you can find potential developers, the options are practically endless. You can look upon widely known digital platforms like Clutch, people per hour, Fiverr, Upwork, etc. You can visit freelance platforms and trusted reviews sites that list the top and best-rated companies (offering staff augmentation services), individuals, and platforms.

The Bottom Line:

There isn't a particular way or magic formula to ensure your 100% success with software outsourcing but the above-discussed points will surely reduce the risks that come with hiring a third-party. Going through a huge amount of applications pouring in might be difficult but the process will surely be worth the effort. Just like any other business engagement process, software outsourcing has its strengths and weaknesses, but it is essential to be certain if software outsourcing is the right decision for your company or not. shopdev offers staff augmentation services, empowering tech companies around the globe with skilled and experienced talent. Get in touch with us today to discuss your project.

Winter is coming! or should we say the SNOW-storm has already struck and everything else is frozen. Whichever analogy seems appropriate, according to CNN, Snowflake is valued at $70 billion. (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/16/investing/snowflake-ipo/index.html)

So what makes Snowflake the "unicorn" share in the IPO September 2020?

Snowflake, a cloud storage company using Salesforce (CRM) and backed by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, stole the show when the opening shares exceeded the expected $110 benchmark. Share prices escalated to $300 but closed at $245 with a successful $70 billion closing value. In the era of artificial intelligence and the world evolving by the second, these numbers may not seem extreme. But for a company established in 2012 and the skepticism associated with the startup, Snowflake took the IPO by storm selling 28 billion shares, beating Dell from the 2007 IPO.

You must be wondering about the factors which contributed to this success.

Service-Oriented Product Model 

Simple and Efficient Product

While cloud storage is trending, the database often gives creeps sometimes to even data analysts. Snowflakes offer a simple model that doesn't require complex queries or conditional formulas similar to Oracle or Excel. A bridge between the old school queries and modern cloud databases, sorting or analyzing data is a matter of few clicks.

Growing Market Share

Since the pandemic hit, it's raining websites. Each website requires some level of storage. The pandemic shifted the customer perspective and market share. With accelerating cloud computing and storage demand, Snowflake was able to increase the market share by providing customers freedom from the brand dependency found in Google and Amazon.

According to the S1 report, We believe the addressable market opportunity for our Cloud Data Platform is approximately $81 billion as of January 31, 2020. (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1640147/000162828020013010/snowflakes-1.htm#ia73499eb79a34ddeaa563501d30356b0_25)

The growth graph posted by Jeff Richards seconds their claim above. (https://twitter.com/jrichlive/status/1306602971698884608)

Great Leadership 

Established in 2012, Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes, and Marcin Zukowski started Snowflake. Using their extensive experience in data warehousing from Oracle and Vectorwise, the founders made it a unique product. Their first best decision was to give the world Snowflake and their second-best decision was to accept that they don't have the skills to grow a company exponentially. They gave the reins to Bob Muglia in 2014. By now, the company was well on its feet but Muglia took it from pennies to a hundred million. His executive experience from Juniper Networks and Microsoft soared the company's share value.

Another wind of change was Frank Slootman’s successor of Bob Muglia last year. Retired after a starling career, Slootman wasn't ready to jump back in but after the Snowflake success, all it took him was two weeks. Either it's the success of the Closer or Bob Muglia's hard work, Slootman came out of his retirement and helped Snowflake achieve new heights.

A blogpost by Sequoia, the Snowflake team has the following reviews on Frank Slootman's leadership:

"Having worked with Frank on the boards of ServiceNow and Medallia, we knew Snowflake was getting an insightful leader with an extraordinary command of details. Indeed, over the past 18 months, Frank’s operational rigor, relentless focus on serving customers, and deep understanding of the business itself have prepared the company well for this week’s milestone." (https://medium.com/sequoia-capital/snowflake-ipo-the-team-that-dreams-big-85f6b8eb475b)

The silver lining for Snowflake investors?

An on Growing Investment 

Snowflake has blizzarded through the struggle phases and must like the team moto according to Sequoia, it's a dream team project. With almost no long term debt, the company balances its sheet at more than $87 million with a 158% net revenue retention rate. The cloud storage is selling like hotcakes with customers of small businesses to large enterprises.

The tremendous amount of data, in turn, will help Snowflake bring forth better customer requirement trends and solutions increasing sales by more than two hundred percent.

Companies are lining up to transition from their data warehouses and stores to complete the Snowflake transition. Another prominent example would be Office Depot. After switching of four data systems, Andrew Parry complimented Snowflake as "Beyond speeding up typical applications, Snowflake allows the company to answer data questions that were once impossible," (https://fortune.com/2020/09/15/snowflake-ipo-database-oracle-frank-slootman/)

Should you invest in Snowflake or not? 

So should you pull a Fry from Simpsons and yell, "Shutup and take my money"? Hold your horses. Although the figures are enticing and the idea of the unicorn is beautiful but one can't ignore the elephant in the room.

Snowflake's beauty is its curse. An effective system running on the cloud storage of its competitors such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. It can prove to be a ticking bomb. If the three giants put their heads together and increase the pricing for Snowflake, the system won't be able to claim their market share. Another horrifying nightmare for the dream team can be the launch of a cheaper pricing model or services by the AWS, Cloud, or Azure systems, pulling their clients back in their fold.

On the other hand, not all dreams come true. Maybe Snowflake has a headstart over Amazon or Google and will maintain its exponential growth over the years. I'll leave you with Frank Slootman's description of Snowflake that he gave to the Fortune exclusively.

“It sucked me in. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.â

(https://fortune.com/2020/09/15/snowflake-ipo-database-oracle-frank-slootman/)

Outsourcing has been transforming the global industries in the past few years. It is rapidly being accepted and adopted worldwide, and according to experts, it will only show growth in the near future.

• Around 300,000 jobs are outsourced by the US annually.
• The top reason for outsourcing (70%) is cost reduction.
• The total IT budget in 2020 grew from 12.7% in 2019 to 13.6%.
• 58.8% of US marketers saw no covid-related changes in the outsourcing marketing activities.

- CapitalCounselor.com

To be an expert in any discipline needs the core knowledge of that field and adequate experience. A single person cannot have expertise in every single field.

Image Source: nTask

The way some businesses operate these days by overburdening a single person with a variety of different tasks, even those that he has not much idea of, prove into their downfall. In this way, quality is compromised a lot. The solution to such a situation is outsourcing.[lwptoc title="Top 5 Skills That are Being Outsourced" skipHeadingLevel="h1,h4,h5,h6"]Businesses should be open enough to work with freelancing teams or individuals. In this way, the task is assigned to the expert in that area resulting in beneficial outcomes. In this article, we will discuss the Top 5 Skills That are Being Outsourced these days.

Top 5 Skills That are Being Outsourced in 2021

1. Infrastructure Management

Outsourcing to an infrastructure supplier of equipment such as hardware, servers, and network systems will help the businesses and organizations cut costs and labor.Building your infrastructure from scratch is expensive and difficult. Not only does it require high costs, but also extra maintenance by skilled IT professionals. Start-ups and small enterprises may minimize their expenses by outsourcing IaaS since the infrastructure service provider owns facilities and is liable for maintaining and debugging systems.

Image Source: FileCloud

You can easily scale your infrastructure on-demand as your provider will already have the resources, tools, and expertise, and you will also enjoy improved regulatory compliance.The adaption of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) helps in business growth allows the team to focus on improving their products rather than worrying about maintaining and handling a huge system.

2. Graphic Designing

Graphic designers are known and revered for their skills and the latest editing tools to deliver their services. They are blessed with an artistic sense to wrap their designs with messages.Outsourcing these projects ensures that you can count on a professional graphic designer with tools and expertise to produce a professional image for your business.A graphic designer can guarantee the desired combination between text, image, font, background, colors, and decorative elements to positively impact your customers with your business's messages.

Image Source:Penji

Graphic software like the Adobe product suite can be very costly to buy and maintain. Professional Designers already have all this software to deliver their services, so you will have to pay them for their service and save yourself from buying expensive tools.

Also Read: When to Hire an Agency for your Software Development?

Every designing job requires a different range of skills and experience that all graphic designers can not manage. You can employ a professional for each of your requirements through online outsourcing for the best results.

3. Website Designing

A well-designed website is the need of the hour these days. Your website contains all the essential information about your business and directs your clients to your products, services, offerings, promotions, etc. If you already own a website, but it is not working well for your business, you must consider a redesign.You should analyze to check the things that need to be on your website. After the analysis, you can move ahead by making a budget plan and then looking for a professional team or individual to outsource it.

Image Source: SDETech

Outsourcing website design and redesign allows immediate access to almost anything from IT professionals to advanced technology you need for a successful project – without the cost of hiring and training an in-house team. The right outsourcing team or individual can help you make the website stunning, user-friendly, and suitable for your business.

4. Virtual Assistants

A business owner has tons of responsibilities under his shoulders; he should focus on the most critical tasks rather than handling the littlest problems. A virtual assistant helps you to use your resources towards what is essential to you.A virtual assistant can help you save time by taking charge of everyday tasks and working quicker in simplified ways.

Image Source: SDFSystems

Most Virtual Assistants are well experienced in a range of business processes and will help you find cost-effective approaches to operate the organization and save you money where necessary.You might invest a lot of money contracting to multiple providers, including social network administration, newsletter promotions, credit reporting, event management, and so on. All of these costs add up to a significant number. Most virtual assistants have several years of experience and offer their skills to handle all these activities for you – with absolute accountability.

5. Social Media Marketing

Social media is an enormous marketing opportunity for businesses because of its popularity. Outsourcing your social media marketing will benefit your business in myriad ways.Social marketing campaigns can boost your brand's visibility, help you gain new customers, and earn your current customers' trust.

Although there isn't any fixed method to help your social media profile attain the best position, it is suggested to rely upon an experienced professional to market your products and services.

By the end of 2021, the overall value of outsourced IT services will surpass $413.72 billion.- (Daxx) (Statista)

One may think that he can manage his social media himself. Although most people are acquainted with the basics, a social media marketer knows the methods, tricks, and tips to market your product in the way that a rookie can't. Plus, handling this job to a professional will save you loads of time and take the extra baggage off your shoulders.

Closing Note

We have discussed outsourcing business services in this article and conclude that outsourcing benefits your company or organization and saves you costs and time. It lets your in-house team focus on the crucial tasks and gives you ease in terms of scalability, new services, etc.

Introduction

Are you planning to launch an online store? Or considering a platform shift for your existing ecommerce store? This article will provide you the in-depth knowledge and understanding to make the right choice between Shopify or WordPress (WooCommerce). I’ll list down the advantages and disadvantages of both to help you get a deeper and clearer understanding of each before you make the decision.

Shopify vs WordPress, or more accurately we should compare Shopify vs WooCommerce since it is a WooCommerce plugin which enables and empowers WordPress to offer ecommerce functionality.

The world has embraced online shopping, therefore conventional commerce is no more part of the debate. Selling products doesn’t require you to buy expensive physical shops at a location where your ideal customers live. All you need is a quality hosting; a domain name and you are all ready to set up your ecommerce store with unlimited potential.

Considering custom software development might not be the right choice for you if you are just getting started, since custom software development requires a dedicated tech team to develop, manage, and then maintain the platform.

Quick Facts About the Global E-Commerce Industry

• Global ecommerce has jumped from $1.3 trillion to $3.5 trillion since 2014.
• Global ecommerce is expected to be $4.97 trillion by 2021, a rise of nearly 400 percent in seven years.
• Â 57 percent of shoppers make purchases from stores overseas.
• North America ($552.6 billion) is second in overall ecommerce revenue to Asia ($831.7 billion), with China the largest (and fastest-growing) single market.
• Globally, credit cards remain the most popular form of payment; but in the developing markets like India and China, debit cards, digital payment systems, direct debits, and even cash on delivery are more popular.

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An Overview: Shopify Vs WooCommerce

When we talk about Shopify and WordPress for developing ecommerce stores, they both are very popular due to their usability, accessibility, and scalability options.

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What is Shopify?

Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that makes it easy for you to build an online store, accept payments, and manage your entire inventory from a single platform, without you ever having to worry about the technical aspects of website management such as web hosting, security, caching, etc.

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Usage Statistics of Shopify

• Shopify customers include major brands like Nestle, Pepsi, Unilever, Budweiser, The Economist, WaterAid, Penguin Books, Tesla Motors, and Red Bull (Sources: Shopify and Website Builder)
• 87% of merchants use apps, of which the Shopify app store offers more than 2,400 (the majority are paid apps)(Source: Shopify and You Blog)
• The three most-used apps are Privy, SEO Image Optimizer and Free Shipping Bar (Source:Â ASoft Blog)
• 25.8 million apps have been installed, with more than 80% of merchants using third-party apps (Source: Shopify)
• Porto and Wokiee are frequently named as two of the most popular Shopify themes (Source: Ecommerce Platform)
• The Shopify POS system is now used by over 100,000 merchants (Source: Shopify)
• Customers are twice as likely to purchase a product if it has a 3D product image rather than a flat image (Source: Shopify)

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What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce plugin, designed for WordPress. It enables you to utilize the most powerful content management system (CMS) to run an online store. Owing to the open-source nature, you can customize any element of your store and create custom extensions easily.

Now that we have a basic understanding of the two platforms, let’s jump to the comparison between the two platform giants of the ecommerce industry. I’d like to start with quick stats;

Usage Statistics of WooCommerce

According to hostingtribunal;

• 3,317,205 live websites are currently using WooCommerce.
• WooCommerce is used by 4.9% of all websites.
• WooCommerce powers over 28.19% of all online stores.
• 22% of the top 1 million ecommerce sites use WooCommerce.
• 93.7% of all WordPress ecommerce websites use the WooCommerce plugin.
• WooCommerce is the most popular plugin/module on the entire internet – with 68% usage distribution.
• There are 1,267 WooCommerce themes on ThemeForest alone.
• There are 980 plugins for WooCommerce on WordPress.org alone.

According to the stats available on Kinsta, WooCommerce owns 21% of market share among the top 1 Million websites on the internet whereas in comparison Shopify owns 18%. But among the top 10k websites, Shopify owns the market share of 23% and WooCommerce owns a low 6% which means that the more authoritative online stores use Shopify.

In the past 5 years, Shopify has surpassed WooCommerce in terms of growth – according to Google Trends. Although both platforms have shown upwards growth .

Before we go further, it is important to know what to look for. So, let’s have a look at the factors which you must consider before deciding between Shopify and WooCommerce.

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How to Choose a Platform for Your eCommerce Store?

It is certainly not easy to start-off as there are many factors that might impact your decision. Choosing a platform to build your ecommerce store shouldn’t be hard and the following factors can help you decide better:

• Pricing – The initial cost of launching an ecommerce store.
• Ease of Use – Even for absolute beginners, it should be easy to use.
•  Payment Methods – Various payment mechanisms (e.g. PayPal, Stripe, other merchant processors) should be accepted.
• Integrations – Number of resources and tools from third parties that can be integrated to expand your business.
• Scalability – As the company expands, the application should be able to scale up.

You may also want to look at other options depending on your needs, such as shipping, inventory control, invoicing, taxes, drop-shipping, etc.

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Pricing: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Many ecommerce business starters consider pricing as a driving force to choose the resources required to start the business.

SHOPIFY

Price is often a critical factor for small business owners. It’s therefore important to determine the cost of getting started while also taking into account the variable costs of add-on services and apps.

Shopify allows you to set up your online shop super-fast. Their basic plan starts at $29/month, and you can upgrade to the $79 Shopify plan, or the $299/month advanced Shopify plan as your business and requirements scale.

A domain name, SSL certificate, and web hosting are included with each of these plans.

The basic plan comes with sufficient features to create a new online store. You can add unlimited items, 2 user accounts, unlimited data storage, and more.

WOOCOMMERCE

WooCommerce is an open-source and easily available WordPress plugin that you can download for Free. Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin and not a subscription-based solution like Shopify, that means you have to handle a few things before you really get to work with WooCommerce.Â

Before anything, you have to complete the following requirements:

• Get a domain name
• Sign Up to a hosting account
• Buy an SSL Certificate
• WordPress InstallationÂ
• Find a WordPress theme and install

It's only after you've taken care of those four that you can install the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress website and begin your online store setup.

A domain name usually costs $14.99, the SSL Certificate costs $69.99, and the web hosting costs about $7.99 / month. This isn't cheap particularly when you are getting started.

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Ease of Use: Shopify Vs WooCommerce

For beginners, ease-of-use is an important factor because you need to have complete command and control over the platform to yield maximum benefits out of its functionalities.

SHOPIFY

Shopify is a fully hosted platform which means that no software needs to be installed, managed, or modified. Even you don't have to worry about security, efficiency, backups, and compatibility problems.

It helps you pick a design for your online store as soon as you sign up. Shopify guides you through customization and getting started with adding products to your store. Shopify offers an intuitive drag-and-drop UI. Managing your products, sales, and stock is a breeze.

One downside of this user experience being directed, polished, and highly optimized, is that it limits your freedom. You can only use Shopify's design and development tools or add-ons available on their marketplace which is not a bad thing since they have put in a lot of thought and effort to offer complete ecommerce experience and mostly, the user requirements are fulfilled within the provided functionality

WOOCOMMERCE

WooCommerce isn't a hosted platform like Shopify which means that you are responsible for installing WooCommerce, handling updates, maintaining backups, and making sure that your website is stable. Although, there are plenty of free and paid plugins available for you to automate most of those activities.

When it comes to customizations, WooCommerce is super-flexible. You have complete control over the entire platform. With the aid of more than 55,000+ WordPress plugins, you can add any functionality imaginable to your online store.

WooCommerce does not offer a built-in drag & drop functionality. You can use one of the WordPress page builders such as Beaver Builder and many others, but it adds to your cost.

The downside of all this control over the store is that you have to be more hands-on with the management of your website and sometimes that can be troublesome because you’d want to be spending time catering to orders and marketing the products rather than managing or updating the platform.

The Guided Setup Wizard for WooCommerce is helpful, but it doesn't come close to Shopify's onboarding and ease of use.

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Payment Methods: Shopify Vs WooCommerce

The choice of making a payment can help your business generate more sales as the customers get the freedom to choose among the preferred payment methods.

SHOPIFY

Shopify provides plenty of payment methods that you can use to get payments from the customers. It has its own payment solution, called Shopify Payments which is powered by Stripe, along with all common payment gateways by third parties.

The problem is that Shopify charges an additional 2% fee on each transaction made through payment made by third parties gateways. That's on top of the payment gateway processing fees. By paying $299 per month for the Advanced Shopify plan, you can reduce the fee to 0.5%.

Shopify Payments has flat credit card charges, but no additional transaction fees. For the basic plan, credit card rates start at 2.9% + 30 cents and get lower for other advanced plans.

WOOCOMMERCE

By default, WooCommerce provides payment gateway integrations of PayPal and Stripe. It also supports all other common payment service providers with add-ons.

WooCommerce even has support for lots of regional and less popular payment services for payment gateways. Since there is no barrier to entry, any payment company can build add-ons and provide support for WooCommerce.

As a self-hosted platform, only the payment gateway used or your bank charges the transaction fees. WooCommerce never charges your store purchases a percentage fee which is a huge plus.

If it is important for you to choose your own merchant account and use a third-party gateway, then using WooCommerce you will save you a ton of money. But if you're a small store and you're willing to use Shopify Payments that have the same credit card rates as Stripe or PayPal, then this doesn't make much difference.

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Integrations: Shopify Vs WooCommerce

No platform is complete enough to cater to the needs of every single business. The integrations of add-ons and plugins play a major role in the decision to choose an ecommerce platform to build your store on.

SHOPIFY

Shopify offers a powerful API and an App Store where you can buy third-party add-ons for your shop. They've got hundreds of apps in the store that covers any feature you want to add to your online shop.

They have integrations with software such as OptinMonster for lead generation which helps you grow your email list and reduce cart abandonment. They have SEO apps, product reviews, discounts, countdown apps, and more.

The App Store for Shopify includes both free and paid apps. Generally, third-party providers that have their own pricing produce free apps, and the app only incorporates the store into its APIs. Pricing varies for paid add-ons, and most of the apps offer monthly subscriptions.

WOOCOMMERCE

WooCommerce is an open-source plugin built for WordPress which gives you access to more than 55,000+ free WordPress plugins and many more paid plugins to integrate with your online store.

These add-ons can be used to add payment gateways, lead generation, SEO, performance optimization, and nearly any functionality you might find necessary for your store.

Because of the low entry barrier, WooCommerce has a lot more integrations and add-ons available than Shopify. Practically all third-party tools and service providers have their own plugins to integrate seamlessly with your WooCommerce store.

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Scalability: Shopify Vs WooCommerce

Isn’t that a dream of every business owner to scale the business one day? But scalability comes with its own challenges and hurdles. An ecommerce platform must provide ease to scale a business.

SHOPIFY

Shopify manages and takes care of your store's technical aspects which means that you don't have to stress about efficiency, security, and scalability at all. When your company starts to expand, all you need to do is update your Shopify plan.

The infrastructure of Shopify can handle your growing business easily, without worrying about downtimes, backups, updates, or security. As part of the Shopify Plus program, they also provide business services.

All these services simply take away the painful part of the growth, but it also adds to your business costs. Your expenses will increase, and you'll need to plan accordingly.

The positive thing is that you won't have to hire or manage an in-house technical team which saves you a major cost.

WOOCOMMERCE

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform that makes you responsible for the maintenance of your website, updates, backups, and security.

Your hosting plan will run out of resources as your store begins to get more traffic.

The good part is that as you are in full control of your website and you have tons of options to manage growth, from better resource management with caching to upgrading of your hosting plan to more efficient servers.

Your hosting costs for WooCommerce will increase but you will have better resource control and you can make sure you don't pay for the resources you don't need. To help scale up your WooCommerce store you can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like Cloudways which takes away a few of the responsibilities of backups, security, and stability, plus you also pay as per the usage.

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Summary of Features: Shopify Vs WooCommerce

Before we conclude the article, here’s a summary of important features extracted from the points discussed above.

PRICING

• Shopify offers 3 plans for its users, starting at $29/month. Â Â Â Â
• WooCommerce is free, though you need to purchase your own hosting.
• Â

SUB-DOMAIN

• Shopify offers a free myshopify.com subdomain for all its plans.
• WooCommerce does not provide a free domain.

PRODUCTS ALLOWED

• Shopify allows you to add an unlimited number of products.    Â
• WooCommerce also supports an unlimited number of products.

STORE TRANSACTION FEE

• Shopify charges you a defined fee for all your store transactions.     Â
• WooCommerce’s payment fees depend on which payment gateways you add.

ADD-ONS and PLUG-INS

• Shopify has its own app store offering both free and paid add-ons
• WooCommerce comes with its own extensions (same as WordPress plugins) and on top of that you have WordPress plugins to power up your store.

SUPPORT

• Shopify offers 24/7/365 support. Â Â Â
• WooCommerce offers support through a help desk for their users and there’s comprehensive documentation available for the users in need.

STORE THEMES

• Shopify has a number of premium themes available.
• WooCommerce also offers a dozen premium and free themes for WooCommerce.

SSL CERTIFICATE

• Shopify has a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate included in all 3 plans.     Â
• WooCommerce offers SSL support but you’ll have to purchase your own certificate.

ANALYTICS

• Shopify has its own analytics system which can be integrated with Google Analytics. Â Â
• WooCommerce can be integrated with Google Analytics as well as using a plugin.

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The Choice - Conclusion

Now that you understand the in-depth differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each platform, the choice is entirely up to you considering your business requirements, capital, and resources in hand to start the ecommerce business.

Each platform has pros and cons but the right platform would be one that provides you and your business value with minimum to no major limitations. Â

If you enjoyed this article and plan on launching your own ecommerce store and require guidance, reach out to us and we’ll help you get started in no time.

Shopdev top machine learning company of 2021

Shopdev has been named one of the top machine learning companies by Techreviewer.co. The list of leaders was compiled based on expertise, experience, quality of services, and reliability of the development companies. To make an assessment Techreviewer collected information about our services and client’s reviews. Their research placed us in the list of top machine learning companies out of over 500 competitors.Techreviewer conducts annual research and regularly updates market leader lists. Analysts' findings help those who are looking for service providers of complex technical tasks.Shopdev is known to be headquartered in United States, Mountain View. The company started its work 9 years ago - in 2012, and now specializes in e-commerce software development, technology innovation and venture incubation.Shopdev is a reliable service provider of high-class ML development services and business solutions for companies of any industry. Possessing deep practical knowledge in various fields, the company helps its clients to solve their business challenges as soon as possible, while maintaining high quality and efficiency.About TechReviewer.coTechreviewer is an independent IT market research and analysis company. The platform helps to find the best companies that provide high-quality IT services for technical support, development, system integration, AI, Big Data, and business analysis. As a result of objective market analysis, the Techreviewer platform determines the most successful and reliable IT companies and makes top ratings for each of the service categories. Techreviewer’s ranking lists help organizations select the right technology partner for their business needs.

Ramadan — the month of festivity, celebrations & SHOPPING. Its undoubtedly Pakistan’s largest shopping season. So, the need to understand the shift in the way millions of Muslims think, search, and purchase is necessary. This presents an opportunity for brands to connect meaningfully online with the right audience.

Shopistan organized an exclusive workshop for its clients in partnership with Facebook back in 2019. The primary focus of the workshop was to better equip our clients for Ramadan — the biggest season for Pakistan’s retail.

The key objective was to work collectively and understand user behavior during Ramadan & plan campaigns/launches accordingly. The workshop was divided into two parts. The first half was dedicated to choosing the right advertising product mix according to your business objective i.e whether you want to drive online sales or increase offline store traffic. In the other half, we focused on the design & creative side of the campaigns.

Teams were made consisting of 3 to 4 persons. Each team had one person from performance marketing, one from the design department, and also from the brand side. The idea was to learn the Ramadan insights and develop a strategy to capitalize on upcoming Ramadan campaigns.

Teams were given a scenario as a problem statement and they had to come up with a solution for their brands aligned with their business objective. During both exercises, the teams had to select advertising products according to their objective and then create a demo campaign, a small video from scratch with the assets they had.

Teams were given 45 min for each exercise to develop the campaign & strategy and then present to everyone where evaluation based on a point system was done by the Facebook team.

Clients received momentos starting left top Beechtree, Bonanza Satrangi, Maria.B, Molt Foam, Servis Shoes & Zeen Woman.

Here are some learnings:- Develop a measurement plan for your business- Understand shift of consumer trends during Ramadan- Map your customer journey using a full-funnel approach- Create personalize content for each stage of the funnel- Identify the platform where you want to reach your customers- Analyze data & assign credits to each customer touchpoint to evaluate the performance

Overall, it was a great workshop with a lot of learnings. Hope to have such sessions again in the future.

Data has become an integral part of every company. The complexity of data processing is rising with the data amount, rate, and variety. The problem arises from the amount and complexity of measures required to bring information to a state easily accessed by business users. Data engineering teams also invest their time constructing and improving ETL pipelines. In this article, we will discuss the usage and process to design and implement the serverless ETL pipelines on AWS.

Technical developments have substantially changed the software development environment. Cloud platforms such as IaaS and PaaS have prompted businesses towards better feasibility. Likewise, serverless computing has facilitated code implementation into development.

Image Source: Cuelogic

Serverless Cloud Providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) operate the server and technology needed for data collection, computation, routing, event notification, and display for data applications. AWS offers a range of professionally controlled software, including planning, scaling, and management, utilizing a smart payment model to develop and maintain business software. As businesses create a serverless pipeline, Amazon S3 is typically the primary data store that they use. Since Amazon S3 is very versatile and accessible, it is ideally suited as a unified source for data.

Usage of ETL Pipeline

ETL (extract, transform, load) is a data aggregation related to the three measures used to integrate data from different sources. It is frequently used for the building of a data warehouse.

Serverless ETL has become the vision for teams who wish to concentrate on their core tasks instead of operating a massive data pipeline infrastructure.

Data is obtained and analyzed in the ETL pipeline's extraction portion from various networks, such as CSVs, online services, social networking sites, CRMs, and other business systems.

Image Source: Guru99

In the process transformation phase, the data is then modeled in a form that simplifies documentation. Data cleansing is also often part of this phase. The processed data is loaded into a single hub in the loading phase to make it convenient for all participants.

Related: ETL Pipeline and Data Pipeline – How to create an ETL Process

The ETL pipeline aims to identify, report, and maintain the correct data in a form that makes it simple to view and evaluate. An ETL tool would encourage developers to concentrate on logic/rules rather than create the means to apply the code. It eliminates the time that the developers use to develop the tools, which helps them concentrate on other essential jobs.

Building Serverless ETL Pipelines on AWS

A serverless architecture on AWS is based upon the following processes:

Data Ingestion

AWS provides a wide variety of data intake tools to help. You may use the Kinesis streaming media tools family to ingest data and use Kinesis analytics to evaluate the details while streaming and deciding on the data before it goes on in the data lake. Kinesis Analytics can evaluate the log data from the system and assess if the logs are out of the data range, and mark it for intervention before it fails. AWS also provides Database Migration Services (DMS). It offers businesses for on-prem devices that do not generally communicate to object storage or the analytics interface but instead speak to a file system. You may use an AWS Storage Gateway for the integration or an AWS Snowball for data collection and 'Lift & Shift' to the cloud.

Image Source: AllCloud

After that, you should set up AWS Direct Connect and start creating a direct network link between the on-prem setting in the AWS services, whether the cluster is existing on-prem, a data warehouse, or even a big storage unit. Data intake is essential to keeping the data feasible, and you need to select the best method with the right data form.

A Searchable Catalog

A searchable catalog is essential to build a data lake. Without it, you will just have a storage platform and not a data lake. You need it to get insights from your data. AWS Glue comes into play here as it is a stable, scalable data catalog created as data enters the Data Lake. It quickly crawls data to build a classified catalog. After processing the results, you have to be able to show them and gain insights. This can be achieved directly by Spark SQL analytical software. You get a range of resources utilizing the AWS framework, such as API Gateway, Cognito, AWS AppSync, to help you create those user interfaces over your data lake.

Also Read: Next Gen Application Microservices Architecture on Kubernetes

Data Security Management

Data confidentiality and governance management are fundamental factors, as an unsafe data lake is unusable. In the end, a data lake means taking a bunch of individual data silos, combining them, and providing more information from a full perspective. On AWS, you have a broad range of protection services such as Identity and Access Management, enabling you to safely manage access to AWS facilities and benefits. With IAM, you can build, control, and use permissions to allow and reject access to AWS services to AWS users and groups. AWS's Key Management Service (KMS) helps you to build, maintain, and track cryptographic keys through a wide variety of AWS services and applications.

Image Source: AWS

Amazon CloudWatch helps you continue tracking AWS services and programs such that configurations and adjustments can be conveniently measured, evaluated, and registered. You can use various resources to handle data in a very stable, scalable, and granular fusion.

Data Transformation

AWS helps you quickly access serverless analysis using AWS Step Functions and AWS Lambda to coordinate various ETL workflows utilizing multiple technologies. AWS Lambda helps you to execute applications without servers. One can run code with zero administration for almost any form of program or back-end operation using Lambda. You need to upload your code, and Lambda manages all the scaling. AWS Step Functions is a web service that helps organize distributed apps and microservices modules using visual workflows. Each component executes a particular role or activity that allows you to scale and modify applications quickly.

Image Source: AWS

AWS offers easy access to scalable computational and processing capabilities to quickly extend almost every large-scale framework, including data collection, fraud identification, clickstream analytics, serverless computing, and IoT processing.

Conclusion

You can use the AWS Glue ETL for two types of works: the Apache Spark and the Python shell. The Python shell work enables you to execute small tasks utilizing a fraction of the machine resources. The Apache Spark helps you conduct medium to broad functions that are more numerical and memory demanding using a distributed processing system. As serverless services become more efficient, we will see more companies using traditional architectures to be serverless. Anyone who is planning to build a new data platform should start with serverless. Let us know know in the comments section below if you have any query regarding designing and implementing the Serverless ETL Pipelines on AWS.

Ramadan is about to start - one of the biggest shopping seasons in Pakistan’s retail. Retailers plan to capitalize on this season to generate max sales. But due to COVID-19, the government has again imposed a ban on shops to be opened for a short period of time during the day.

Many brands have opted for a discount strategy to pull the traffic on their websites especially Gul Ahmed. The brand is offering Clearance sales since COVID-19 first hit Pakistan and it's still going strong. It’s a good strategy to liquidate the stock but at the same time, it hurts the brand's image as well.

Our digital & e-commerce specialist team at Shopistan.pk approached this use-case differently and tried to develop a solution in which we are liquidating the stock without having too many discount/promotion campaigns.

Let's look at an example of similar fashion brands like Gul Ahmed and Khaadi. The brand is fashion retail which offers clothing & accessories for women & men. They had the same problem, wanted to flush their stock to generate cash-flow but without affecting the brand.

First, we sorted inventory into the following group. (how to make such product sets)- Women full price items- Women discounted items- Men full price items- Men discounted item- Women discounted clothing- Men discounted clothing

Using Facebook’s catalog sale product we ran the campaign based on the above-segmented inventory and got some awesome results.

Problem was to flush old discounted summer stock. The usual solution to this sort of problem is to offer huge sale campaigns. We didn’t want to opt for that since, in the long run, it hurts the brand’s image and also we consider ourselves as technology experts and wanted to come up with a more creative and technical solution.

Fashion e-commerce has seen a huge growth in the last couple of years. Fast-moving fashion is now considered the same as perishable goods with a very limited shelf life.

If a user goes to a website and views a product but doesn’t complete the purchase then it's a missed opportunity and we should re-target the user with a window of 7-day window to make a purchase out of him.

We decided on using up-sell logic through the Facebook catalog ads. We wanted to somehow show customers fresh stock inventory (in which he showed interest) for 7 days and if during that period, if he didn’t interact with that ad, we wanted to show him similar products but at discount.

It was easier said than done. Since Facebook doesn’t allow such complex targeting in its built-in up-sell product, we decided to use custom rules. That was the hardest part. We came up with various combinations but nothing worked. Even had a detailed session with our Facebook account manager but couldn’t come up with a reliable solution.

Finally, after a lot of internal brainstorming, we came up with a combination of custom rules that actually worked

Using this strategy our clients are able to liquidate their stock even on mark-down price but without announcing a sale campaign to maintain the brand image.

Introduction

Magento is one of the largest and most successful ecommerce platforms. Since Magento is a feature-loaded platform, it can be difficult to navigate, but you can find solutions to most Magento related problems if you know where to look (Yes, a guide like this one). 

There are problems that everyone encounters when they work with an e-commerce platform, and some of them are complex problems, while others may be easier to solve. Only because you work with a powerful and complex platform like Magento doesn't mean you can't solve the problem without an expert.

I have mentioned the most typical Magento issues and have also provided the appropriate solutions to make things easier for you.I will discuss the common issues in the Magento 2 version in the current blog post, along with their helpful solutions for Magento store owners, Magento developers, and Magento development companies.

14 Common Magento Issues and Their Smart Solutions

I’ve listed down possible Magento issues (particularly with Magento 2 – technical and non-technical) along with their solutions, feel free to add a problem (with or without its solution) in the comments section below and I’ll add the helpful ones in the list below.

1. Re-Indexing of URLs
2. PHP Configuration and Extension Settings
3. PHP Settings Errors
4. System Error Upon an Extension Installation
5. Version Incompatibility of Magento 2
6. Reset Admin Password
7. CSS Cache
8. Clear Cache
9. Magento 2 – Slow Load Time
10. Setting Up a Blog in Magento 2
11. 404 Error for CSS and Scripts
12. No Graphics is Displayed After Installation of Magento 2
13. Enable SEO Friendly URLs
14. Setting Up a Contact Us Form in the Magento Website

Re-Indexing of URLs

Most users have problems with this system message in Magento 2: "One or more indexes are completely invalid". You can fix it by properly running a Cron Job Or by running the following command in the root directory of your Magento 2;

php bin/magento indexer:reindex

PHP Configuration and Extension Settings

PHP extension and configuration settings are among the most common problems in Magento 2. Just re-configure the php.ini settings to resolve this problem.

PHP Settings Errors 

Another common problem concerns the error on the PHP memory cap. While readiness tests allow at least 1 GB of memory set aside for PHP operations, it is best to retain at least 2 GB in order to avoid problems. Change the value of the memory limit to 2 GB, to increase the memory limit.

System Error Upon an Extension Installation

Check the system requirements for the extensions before running, and updating them, and make sure to get it right.

Version Incompatibility of Magento 2

Verify that your Magento version matches the versions mentioned on the Vendor's module website. If you wish to download an extension made for a later version than yours, there may be an error. So make sure that your web store is up-to-date and download only the modules built to run on your version of the application.

Reset Admin Password

If you have forgotten your Magento 2 admin password and want to fix it as soon as possible, then the easiest way is to update the phpMyAdmin password. Open your database on Magento 2 and find the table admin user. Now the new password will override your old password.

CSS Cache

Some users have problems updating the CSS but that doesn't affect the front page. This is because of the cache. Just run these commands in your root directory for Magento 2 one by one.

rm -rf var/di/* var/generation/* var/cache/* var/log/* var/page_cache/* var/session/* var/view_preprocessed/* pub/static/*

php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy

php bin/magento cache:clean

php bin/magento cache:flush

Clear Cache

Some Magento 2 users run into problems when updating, and the front-end pages do not display the updates. This is because of the cache, which has to be cleared so Magento uses your most updated settings. Clearing the cache also makes the website run more swiftly.

Magento 2 – Slow Load Time

By default, Magento 2 doesn't run slowly. If you find Magento 2 running slow, there are ways to make it better. Firstly, ensure that your server and device specifications are up-to-date, use the latest versions. Use completely optimized photos, allow cache, issue free extensions, and more.

Following points can help your Magento based ecommerce website perform better;

• Reconfigure JavaScript and CSS settings
• Upgrade Magento to the latest version
• Enable Varnish Cache
• Set flat categories and products to increase the read speed of the database
• Set up Content Delivery Network (CDN)
• Optimize images and themes

Many inexperienced Magento users underestimate their Magento store's speed and tend to lose their potential customers and conversion rates. If you want to get more quality leads, speed optimization is critical.

By allowing its Compilation feature you can boost the speed of your Magento shop. It would increase the efficiency on page loads from 25 percent to 50 percent.

To enable the Magento Compilation function, go to your admin area > System >Tools > Compilation > click on Run Compilation Process.

Setting Up a Blog on Magento 2

Magento 2 does not have any features to build a blog but a well-designed blog can add brand value and attract more traffic to your website. You need to use extensions to create a blog for your Magento website.

In Magento Connect you will find several extensions that will help you set up a blog in minutes. Magento Blog - Community Version for the same reason is one of the most recommended free extensions.

You can see an extra section at the top of your admin area called Blog, after installing the extension. From there, you can change the blog settings, add, remove, or build posts yourself.

404 Error for CSS and Scripts

When you get a 404 error in static resources for scripts and CSS, this can happen even if you are not in the development mode, Magento 2 generates symlinks for certain static resources. Go to app/etc/di.xml to solve the problem, and find the section called virtual Type name="developerMaterialization. Here the element name="view preprocessed "should be changed or removed Change the content from

MagentoFrameworkAppViewAssetMaterializationStrategySymlink

to MagentoFrameworkAppViewAssetMaterializationStrategyCopy.

Additionally, deleting the folders in pub/static can clear all existing symlinks. But be careful! Do not remove the file .htaccess.

No Graphics is Displayed After Installation of Magento 2

The path to photos and stylesheets is possibly inaccurate as a result of a rewrite of an incorrect base URL or an inappropriate server. First, to solve the problem, make sure your static assets are correctly located (in the directories frontend and adminhtml under < your Magento, install dir>/pub / static/). Then search the rewrite settings on your Apache server and the base URL on your Magento site. Failure to set the AllowOverride directive will prevent the program from retrieving static files.

In addition, the magento setup: static-content: deploy command can be used to deploy static view files in production mode. Only the command can function in any mode up to version of Magento 2.2. However, starting from Magento 2.2 edition, add -f key: magento setup: static-content: deploy -f in case you need to deploy it in the developer mode.

Enable SEO Friendly URLs

You can easily enable the SEO friendly URLs in Magento;

• Log in to your Admin area of Magento 
• Click on the Setup button 
• Now click on the left panel on "Web" 
• Click the tab Search Engines Optimization and turn to Use Web Server Rewriting by marking "Yes." 
• To allow search engine friendly URLs in Magento, click on the "Save Config" button.
  

Setting Up a Contact Us Form in the Magento Website

By design, Magento has the features of a contact form. Normally a link to a contact form is shown on your Magento store's footer, but you can add it to any page in your web store. 

Set It up with following steps;

• Sign in to the Admin area
• CMS Access > Pages
• Select a page to edit, or create a new one.
• Now paste the following section, using the WYSIWYG editor's HTML option:

<!– CONTACT FORM CODE BEGIN–>{{block type='core/template' name='contactForm' template='contacts/form.phtml'}}<!– CONTACT FORM CODE END–>

Conclusion 

Developing and maintaining a Web store in Magento can be a crucial challenge, particularly for startups. You might experience several obstacles and this blog post included some of the common and potential errors, challenges with their solutions that you could face while working on the Magento website.

Feel free to get in touch with us if you have any queries setting up the Magento store or need custom Magento development for your business.