Scaling E-commerce Business

As your e-commerce business grows, its demands and complexities increase. While popular free solutions like WordPress and PrestaShop are great for starting out, they may become limiting as your business scales. Moving to a custom-made e-commerce platform can provide the performance, flexibility, and integration capabilities necessary for sustained growth. At maal, we specialise in creating custom software solutions using the Go programming language which are tailored to your business needs. Here’s how making the transition to a new solution can benefit your business.

When WordPress and PrestaShop Are Not Enough

WordPress and PrestaShop are effective for launching and managing small to medium-sized e-commerce stores. However, as your business expands, you might face several challenges:

• Performance Issues: High traffic and large inventories can slow down these platforms, leading to a poor user experience.
• Customisation Limits: Plugins and themes offer some customisation but may not meet your specific business requirements.
• Scalability Problems: Scaling up can be complex and may result in instability or compatibility issues. Sometimes it might be even near impossible since the solution used might have not been built with a large operation in mind.
• Lack of support: Typically when you choose an open source solution you have a limited access to its maintainers. With a software built for Your business, You can request new features and ask for help directly from its developers.

If your business is facing these challenges, it might be time to consider a custom-made e-commerce platform designed for your specific needs. We can provide you not only with the platform but also the infrastructure it needs and extra tools for it that will automate the work that is done after an order is submitted.

The Importance of Good Performance for Your E-Commerce Business

The performance of your e-commerce platform directly impacts your business’s success. Here’s why good performance is so crucial:

• Customer Satisfaction: A fast-loading website enhances the shopping experience, encouraging customers to stay longer, browse more products, and complete their purchases. Slow load times can frustrate customers, leading to high bounce rates and lost sales.
• Conversion Rates: Speed is a critical factor in conversion rates. Studies show that even a one-second delay in page load time can result in a significant drop in conversions[1]. Ensuring your platform is quick and responsive can directly boost your sales.
• SEO Benefits: Search engines like Google consider website speed when ranking sites. A faster site can improve your search engine rankings, making it easier for potential customers to find your store.
• Mobile Performance: With a growing number of shoppers using mobile devices, your e-commerce platform must perform well on smartphones and tablets which have constrained resources such as RAM memory. A fast, mobile-friendly site ensures a seamless shopping experience across all devices.
• Competitive Advantage: In a competitive market, providing a superior shopping experience can set you apart from your competitors. A high-performing e-commerce platform can become a key differentiator, attracting and retaining customers.

Increasing Performance with Dedicated Solutions

Performance is critical in e-commerce. A slow website can frustrate users, leading to abandoned carts and lost sales. Poor performing search features will limit the number of the sales You can make as Your customers won’t be able to find what they are looking for quickly enough. Custom-built e-commerce platforms offer several performance benefits:

• Faster Speed: Our software built with fast programming languages is efficient and provides quick response times.
• Tailored Design: Custom software is designed for your specific operations, ensuring smooth performance even during peak times.
• Better User Experience: A fast, responsive website leads to higher customer satisfaction and increased sales.
• Scalability: Custom solutions are built to scale with your business, supporting growth without sacrificing performance. We can transition your data to a better performing database, and improve its resilience. Our software is built for scaling to multiple machines.

At _maal _we prioritise performance at the first steps of choosing a programming language for our implementations. Most freely available applications are developed in dynamic languages such as PHP (for example PrestaShop, Woocommerce, Magento), Python and JavaScript which might be easier to use when an implementation process starts but come with worse performance and higher infrastructure costs. For our software we have chosen Go language which is many times faster than PHP, Python or JavaScript. (Can be even 100 times faster depending on the task and implementation). Occasionally we also use Rust programming language which offers even better performance but typically takes more time to develop with.

Staying Up to Date with External Services and Integrations

Staying up to date with external services and integrations is vital for maintaining competitiveness and efficiency. Custom e-commerce platforms offer superior integration capabilities:

• Flexible APIs: Custom-built solutions can integrate with a wide range of third-party services, such as payment gateways and marketing tools, ensuring seamless data flow.
• Regular Updates: Custom solutions can be updated to incorporate new technologies and industry trends.
• Enhanced Security: Custom platforms can be designed with advanced security measures tailored to your needs.
• Adaptability: With a dedicated development team, your platform can quickly adapt to new market demands and technological changes.

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Moving from free e-commerce solutions like WordPress and PrestaShop to a custom-made platform can significantly enhance your business’s performance, scalability, and integration capabilities. At maal, we use the Go programming language to build robust and efficient e-commerce solutions tailored to your needs. As your business scales, our custom software solutions provide the flexibility and reliability required to maintain a competitive edge. Partner with us to fully realise the potential of your e-commerce business and drive sustained growth in today’s market.

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[1]: https://www.portent.com/blog/analytics/research-site-speed-hurting-everyones-revenue.htm