Web Development with Shopify Stores

Shopify offers an amazing platform for both novice and experienced eCommerce owners, each with its own products, strategies, and reach. One might wonder what kind of needs your eCommerce store might require to take the next step in the various areas from SEO to Conversion and customer experience. The best place is to enquire with a Web Development company such as TheGenieLab that can perform an audit on your online store architecture, tools, and methods, which is compared to industry best practices of today. A good full-stack developer fluent in various programming languages, knowledge of architectures, and frameworks like Node JS can get a report back to you on areas of improvement.

Any eCommerce business can take on theme development and push their brand out in the market. Prototyping with WordPress Themes, or using a simple starter theme to get a feel for what you are looking to produce is generally where it all begins. But once you start and see that WordPress sites might need more maintenance than you planned and might consider Shopify for your design and development, finding the right Shopify partner is for your online business to succeed. Your store design might be easy to review, what's crucial is the management of the Apps (and how they deliver to the user experience), the product page highlighting your goods, and ensuring your digital marketing strategy is effective (including classical email marketing).

Web Development breakdown

There are various categories of skills applied at an eCommerce platform. It is important to understand the role, as well as the key function it delivers to your overall marketing and operations to convert clients to be customers. Web Development (web applications) follows a creative process between the vision of the stakeholder and the development team to reach certain goals that incorporate marketing, operations, financial reporting, logistics, and various additional aspects for a good user experience.

Front End Development: This role operates in the client-facing visuals (color palette, Brand), widgets, and dealing with all visual aspects from triggers, layouts, and color/formats. Website Design has a crucial role in digital marketing, branding, and the customer experience in your eCommerce store. Integrations with customer interactive tools, social media, and content for the consumption, process flow of your marketing funnel are crucial in its delivery. The following key areas are impacted by a Front End Developer:

• Shopify Web Design – The skill in defining, prototyping, and working with the eCommerce stakeholder on reaching a design that portrays the Brand Equity, the UX and UI, and incorporation of the tools to achieve the experience defined together with the stakeholder.

• Shopify Theme Customisation – While there are thousands of themes available, most times the Shopify theme that comes close but needs refinements to reach the intended goal requires customization.

• Incorporation of AI (Artificial Intelligence) such as chat-bots, AR (Augmented Reality) within products, and site navigation resides in JavaScript and Front End development.

Front End Developers’ focus on the defined requirements and feedback of stakeholders are reviewed frequently together to arrive at a final result that satisfies both the vision of the stakeholder and the clients that experience it.

Back End Development: Often referred to as the non-visual parts of the website, the back-end processes and Database operations, custom logic, and procedures are all placed together in this space. Where the Front End is a visual experience the Back End Website Development is driven by process, operations, interconnectivity to other systems, and architecture. Stakeholders have a clear understanding of how their business is to operate, the Back End Developer has to be in-tune with that vision, and execution is crucial for the roles and responsibilities of every department. Back End Development is usually broken down to these various areas:

• Server, Operating System, Web Hosting environment, and tools on the virtual/cloud or hardware that the eCommerce website will be hosted. In the case of Shopify, the back-end of the stores is held by Shopify, while being accessed by Ruby on Rails and their API.

• Shopify Private App Development – Where your store has integrations with other external systems outside of the “Public Apps” in the Shopify App Store, and cannot be satisfied by a Shopify Custom App as described below. A Back End Developer can connect, integrate, and run a Private App within your store that is unique to your business. This App is managed through the Merchant Shopify Admin area.

• Shopify Custom App Development - This type of App is managed through the Partner Account Dashboard and can appear as an embedded app in the Shopify Admin. There is a large overlap between a Shopify Private App and Shopify Custom App – access, and capability differentiates it, where Back End Development delivers it.

• IOS/Android Apps – Outside of the Shopify direct environment, external Apps are increasingly popular for marketing, customer loyalty, and experience connecting your Shopify Store to the client’s hand-held devices. The interface resides with Front End Development however, the App architecture/operation is Back End focused on the interconnectivity, deployment, and maintenance.

This area of Web Development is the skeletal architectural definition of the eCommerce store’s delivery of the experience – Back End Development is abstract in its creativity driven by process, data structures and operations, interconnecting systems, and delivering that to various customer groups and stakeholders. Code reviews are a core process in ensuring that the requirements meet the delivery of the experience, with exception management being part of managing the various outcomes.

Shopify Graphic Design: Graphic Designers are part of the development process and are integrated with the Front End Development since their definition and wireframes are the requirements for the Front End Developer to implement. While the creative process interacts with the eCommerce stakeholder on the look-and-feel, flow, and interoperability UX/UI – the Graphic Designers operate with one foot within the definition of the requirements, and the other working on the implementation of their design. With so many themes available in Shopify, a lot of times the definition starts with the desired theme with annotations of changes. However, all-new designs can be created and implemented using the Shopify Boostrap Theme wireframe to achieve any design.

Additional Critical Development Areas

Areas outside of Development are just as crucial in translating business requirements to Development Specifications so as to achieve the results desired. Areas such as Business Process definition, eCommerce infrastructure design/diagrams, Specification/Change Management, Project Management, and all the various Agile Development process steps being delivered.

Conclusion: If you are interested in Shopify Development, require an eCommerce Audit, or need maintenance on your eCommerce site – considering the roles can be helpful in how you define and communicate your requirements. After all, it is a team effort to deliver the desired outcome and experience. Both Front End and Back End Developers work together, focused on their own areas deliver beautiful websites.

Additional Information on "Why Do Shopify Stores need Custom Web App Development" is also available.

Information on "How Mobile Apps can boost eCommerce sales" is available at this link.

Assistance for Black Friday & Cyber Monday please see "Best Shopify Apps for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) 2020".

Information on "What is a Shopify Expert? Should you hire one?" is also available at this link.

Advice with "Scheduling and Bookings" can be obtained here.