When it comes to harnessing the power of Adobe Commerce and the Magento platform, the right partner can elevate your business, helping you navigate the complexities of the digital landscape with finesse and innovation. With so many Adobe Commerce partners vying for your attention, it's crucial to research and compare them beyond surface-level attributes. In this blog, we'll delve into the essential aspects of evaluating and comparing the top Adobe Commerce partners, enabling you to make an informed decision that aligns seamlessly with your business goals and aspirations.
IronPlane has a deep understanding of Magento, Adobe Commerce, and Adobe Commerce Cloud. We have worked on custom development projects for both B2B and B2C companies since 2011. Our experience is vast: we’ve built sites from the ground up and have also taken on existing ones — improving code, structure, and usability. We can assist in complex integrations, page customizations, and the migration of your site from another platform. Our approach is collaborative and focused on creating lasting partnerships so we can continue to update and optimize your site in the future.
Finding the Right Agency to Manage Your Site
The right Adobe Magento Commerce developer for your business will have these key traits:
Deep Understanding of Your eCommerce Business
If a developer doesn’t take the time to understand your business, as well as your site’s code, their work may lack the context for creating true business value with your website.
Expertise with Magento Open Source, Adobe Commerce, and Adobe Commerce Cloud
While these platforms share the foundation of the Magento codebase, each has its own development environment and production infrastructure. As a result, it is essential for developers to have specific experience in the environment you have. If your developer doesn’t have the requisite experience, you risk inefficient development, bugs, poor site performance, and increased maintenance costs.
Site Customization and Optimization Abilities
The true value of Magento and Adobe Commerce is best revealed through innovative customization. Find a developer with experience customizing areas such as product detail pages, custom search and filtering, product configurators, and custom checkout flows.
Focus on Trust and Long-Term Partnerships
Development projects do not have to be a source of frustration for your business. A strong developer with years of experience understands the value of honest and up-front communication with both good news and bad. This approach helps build a mutual trust that is essential for initial project success and also for long-term support as your business evolves.
Adobe Commerce Agency: How IronPlane Works
Let's go step-by-step through our rigorous and personalized development process.
Step 1: Schedule a Consultation Call with Our Team
Our process starts with a consultation call, which covers your:
- Current Site Concerns: If there are any areas of your site that need attention, such as slow loading times or a lack of integrations with your ERP software, we want to know about them.
- Future Site Plans: Whether it’s an increase in conversions, a more user-friendly interface, or customized product pages, we can develop a plan of action once we understand what you envision for the future.
After we’ve gathered all the details, we will talk about the solutions IronPlane can provide. If we decide that IronPlane is the right fit for your business, we will move forward to the next step, where we dive deeper into your online store and determine what projects to prioritize.
Step 2: Set Up with a Solution Specialist
Once we begin working together, you’ll be paired with a Solution Specialist who will act as your strategic partner throughout every project. Our Solution Specialists help you decide on site changes, while keeping track of project status and outcomes. They are knowledgeable about eCommerce and Magento best practices, so they can provide ideas on how to improve your site and help you plan for future updates.
Your Solution Specialist is your go-to person for everything IronPlane is working on, and their guidance helps facilitate the next part of our process.
Step 3: Business Discovery
Before we begin working on any project, we conduct a Business Discovery. Here is where we focus on fully understanding your needs, future plans, and the underlying code of your site. During the Business Discovery, we concentrate on:
- Identifying Website Needs: We examine your existing documentation and interview company stakeholders to understand what challenges you’re facing with your website and what goals you want to achieve.
- Operations Review: At this stage we learn about your business rules and internal systems, including order management, shipping, subscriptions, taxes, promotions, and pricing. We’ll talk to the team members who are involved in these site functions to gain clarity on the daily processes, such as customer interactions and order fulfillment.
- Detailed Design Review: Next, we focus our attention on the user experience of your Magento eCommerce store to identify any areas of the site that we need to update or develop.
Step 4: Site Audit / Code Review
As with the Business Discovery, Site Audits and Code Reviews are tailored to your specific needs. The level of detail is determined by you, but the foundation of it includes these two aspects:
- Site Audit: During the audit, we look at areas of the site that impact UX and conversions. We analyze the storefront, user interface, site speed, security, SEO, analytics setup, and more.
- Magento Code Review: Here is where we get into the details of your frontend and backend code, uncovering areas that need repairs, improvements, or removal. IronPlane’s development team will inspect the core files, theming structure, modules, customizations, and any areas you feel need attention.
After our review of your business goals and website code, we will have a clear picture about what projects to work on first. We’ll present you with a comprehensive plan, detailing our proposed approach, timelines, and pricing.
Step 5: Magento Rescues, Updates, Customizations, and Development
Magento Rescues
Many clients first come to us when something has gone seriously wrong with their website or with their existing development team. Sometimes, the developer’s skills were not a fit for the complexity of the work, and other times, the lowest cost development option turned out to be a massive failure. Regardless of the reasons for the challenges facing your Magento site, you might need a ‘rescue.’ IronPlane frequently takes on projects that other development teams haven’t successfully completed. We’ll fix code conflicts, enhance site speed, and rehabilitate your site so it’s in working order.
For example: Our work with Packaging Price is an example of this. They are a packaging and shipping supply company that came to us with several site issues, including poorly configured APIs, complex site architecture, and more. Whenever they attempted to change one aspect of their site, another aspect was negatively impacted. IronPlane repaired and enhanced Packaging Price’s site code and began managing the site’s hosting with Magento-optimized AWS. These improvements stabilized their site and increased usability.
Magento Updates
In theory, a Magento update should be relatively easy. This may be true if your website stuck to the native Magento functionality, but if you have third-party modules, custom code, or integrations, the update process takes on a new level of complexity. Without an experienced team of Magento or Adobe Commerce developers, updating can take much longer than expected and may have unanticipated frontend or backend impacts that degrade or break existing functionality. We regularly work with businesses that need assistance upgrading their site from Magento 1 to Magento 2, or from earlier versions of Magento 2 to the very latest install base.
IronPlane’s expertise with the Magento eCommerce platform means updates are performed correctly, and 3rd party modules, customizations, and integrations remain in working order. As we update your site, we keep everything running so you won’t experience any business disruptions. Once the update is complete and your site is stable, we can focus on site optimizations and functional customizations that drive conversions and customer satisfaction.
Customization and Development
Business owners often have a vision for specific website features that will set their business apart from the competition. IronPlane specializes in taking these visions and translating them into functional specifications for new code development. During our comprehensive discovery process with Packaging Price, for example, we learned that their checkout process was complicated and frustrating for customers. We also found that visitors weren’t able to easily discover new products.
IronPlane came up with a number of solutions, including:
- A customized checkout process, allowing customers to easily add items to their carts and choose their shipping options.
- An integration with their fulfillment partner so customers are instantly notified when their order is fulfilled or delayed.
- The development of product discovery features, showing customers other products that they might be interested in.
Our work resulted in an 18% increase in Packaging Price’s average order value and a 17% increase in overall revenue.
Step 6: Optimizations and Ongoing Support
After successful delivery of a project, IronPlane’s Solution Specialists shift into maintenance and optimization mode, working with you to continually enhance your Magento 2 site. They will help you optimize conversion rates and ensure your site speed remains fast. Solution Specialists work closely with the development team to implement any bug fixes or new features. At the same time, your site is kept secure, with IronPlane offering a security management program that includes detection and prevention of security threats.
Many of our clients have worked with us for years. We ensure their sites are updated to the latest Magento version, handle bug fixes, and install extensions and integrations as their business needs change.
The best Adobe Magento Commerce developer for your website is one who not only understands the platform, but who also has the experience and expertise to form a lasting partnership with your growing business.
FAQs: Adobe Commerce Magento Development
What sets Adobe Commerce / Magento apart as an eCommerce platform?
Adobe Commerce / Magento is renowned for its flexibility, scalability, and feature-rich nature. It offers a suite of tools that help businesses create unique and personalized online shopping experiences. Its open-source foundation enables extensive customization, making it a preferred choice for businesses with diverse needs. Additionally, Magento's modular architecture and comprehensive ecosystem of extensions provide businesses with the ability to tailor their online stores to meet specific requirements, ultimately driving higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
What are the key considerations when selecting a development partner for Adobe Commerce Magento projects?
First and foremost, evaluate the partner's experience and expertise with the platform. A seasoned partner will have a track record of successful implementations, showcasing their ability to handle complex integrations, customization, and optimization tasks. Additionally, consider their familiarity with the latest Magento updates and best practices, as well as their capacity to understand your business goals and translate them into a tailored solution. Communication skills, responsiveness, and a customer-centric approach are also essential to ensure smooth collaboration and project execution.
What role does ongoing support and maintenance play in Adobe Commerce Magento development?
Ongoing support and maintenance are integral components of a successful Adobe Commerce / Magento development strategy. After the initial launch, your eCommerce store requires continuous monitoring, updates, and optimizations to ensure its performance, security, and user experience remain top-notch. A reliable development partner will offer post-launch support, addressing issues promptly, implementing necessary upgrades, and staying on top of potential vulnerabilities. This proactive approach not only safeguards your online business, but also enables you to leverage new features and capabilities as they are released, keeping your store competitive and aligned with evolving industry standards.
Related read: Magento Enterprise Developers: IronPlane + 5 Alternatives
