Custom E-Commerce Website Vs CMS-Based Website: Basic Metrics Comparison

When you opt for custom e-commerce website development, one of the major concerns is choosing between custom e-commerce website designing or hiring CMS development services for your business. Let us help you make the decision effectively.

Whether you are creating a new e-commerce website or remodeling the existing one, one question that you are going to come across is –“Should I use custom e-commerce website development or standard CMS?” The question is relevant for both technical as well as non-technical business owners as each option comes with its own sets of pros and cons. Therefore, it is imperative for e-commerce business owners to take the decision wisely and watchfully.

Deciding on the Best Website Development Strategy

As far as taking up a new website development project is concerned, you are required to consider several factors. It helps in determining whether you should opt for custom e-commerce website development or the best web development company for CMS development solutions. Amongst the most important factors to consider are business requirements, system requirements, marketing agenda, and applicability as per the requirements.

Once your website development needs are clear, you can decide between going for the custom development of the e-commerce website and using a pre-configured system with the help of a standard CMS. Therefore, it is imperative for you to know about the merits and demerits of each of the given options.

Custom Website vs. Standard CMS Website

A standard CMS serves to be a previously-designed application or software solution featuring a predefined interface along with some basic functionalities. CMS development helps in delivering a specific level of personalization to the users to help them adapt to the respective needs. However, there could be specific limitations.

On the other hand, a custom CMS website is one that is designed & developed from scratch. Most of these are designed with the help of open-source frameworks (or code libraries) created by other professionals to be used by others. On the other hand, you can also consider hiring reliable services from a professional CMS development company for optimal results.

Custom E-Commerce Website or CMS –Which is better?

While deciding on the best strategy for e-commerce website development, you should consider some important factors. Here are some:

#Pricing

During e-commerce website development, an important concern is an overall price. Custom e-commerce development might turn out slightly expensive than CMS development. However, it turns out to be a profitable venture in the long run.

Why? As you hire custom website development services from a leading e-commerce development company, you can be assured of customized results throughout. These projects are focused on satisfying the unique requirements of the clients. This implies improved ROI. Moreover, as these projects are customizable, they tend to be highly flexible and durable as well as scalable for ensuring expansion of the platform.

However, if you are centered on saving time, then you can opt for CMS website development.

#Time of Website Development

If you wish to minimize the overall development time, then CMS has an advantage over custom e-commerce development. This is because, with CMS development, you get access to a wide range of advanced plugins that can be right away implemented into your e-commerce website development project. As you are going to make use of preset templates for website development, it will take less time to design and develop the entire website.

On the other hand, with custom e-commerce website development, it is required that previous work reaches a specific standard or ideal structure. To ensure the delivery of optimized designs to the target audience, every aspect of the development project is considered. The entire set of planning and execution processes could take time.

#ROI & Conversion

To understand the concept of ROI comprehensively, you should seek services from industry professionals specializing in custom website development. This helps them to ensure the delivery of improved ROI in comparison to website development projects with the help of standard CMS templates. When the website is designed by keeping the target audience and business objective in mind, sales and conversions tend to multiply significantly. This is possible in the case of custom e-commerce website development.

#User Experience

The overall image has a vital role in drawing the attention of the users and gaining more sales. Typically, it is believed that custom development tends to depict more possibilities for making a website attractive visually, easy to use, and highly efficient. This helps in delivering a highly customized user experience. Business owners could anticipate the specific expectations of the users like adapting the purchasing process as per the specific needs of the users.

#Scalability

As a business owner, you must be aware of the specific path that your business is going to undertake. As such, to maintain the pace, a well-designed website is required. Custom-made websites tend to be highly scalable. With a customized website, you can go anywhere you want in terms of website design and its functionalities. It would ultimately depend on the developer.

On the other hand, when you make use of CMS development services, you tend to have specific limitations. There might be the chance that the software that you use for website development does not allow you to use specific app features. Moreover, even when specific changes are made, the costs are quite significant in comparison to that of custom development.

#SEO Positioning

Another major reason to choose custom e-commerce web development is that it helps in contributing to improved SEO positioning on the leading search engines. This is because this type of website gets created from scratch. As such, the entire set of development tasks tends to commence from the primary preferences of the search engines. It is important to note that SEO and custom web development go hand-in-hand.

#Clean Code

This criterion might not be visible to the end-users. However, when you have access to clean codes (codes that are easy to interpret and modify), it can help in making the overall process of e-commerce website development highly seamless.

When you wish to implement specific changes to your website, in case the developer is not able to decipher the original code, website development cannot be carried out effectively.

In the given scenario, custom website development is known to make use of clean codes by catering to the specific functional requirements of the clients. In contrast to this, standard CMS systems might go forward with installing a series of unimportant codes that would only lead to problems that are hard to detect while reducing the overall performance of the website.

#Security

With a custom website, you get access to improved security guarantees in case of some cyber-attack. This is because the generation of custom e-commerce website code tends to be less accessible to the potential hackers out there. Moreover, it would ultimately depend on the custom web developers to include a myriad of security levels for the protection of consumer data and content.

On the other hand, in the case of the custom CMS, the given aspect remains in the hands of the agency that had developed the plugin or the security software. Moreover, such firms are not known to make the available or necessary measures in public.

#Plugins & Third-party Extensions

When you hire custom web development solutions, you can be assured that the experienced developers here make use of advanced third-party extensions or libraries to adapt to the specific requirements of the clients. On the other hand, the plugins that are made use of in the case of custom CMS development depend on the agencies that would have developed the plugins. This implies that there tends to be a higher level of dependence on the given agency for coming up with the latest security updates for ensuring that the website is not hacked into.

#Third-party Integration

You can come across some of the famous CMS systems that have integrated software developed for allowing the users to transfer any data that has been stored in the external systems. The transfer can be made to the respective CMS as the API would allow it.

In the case of customer e-commerce development, experienced custom web developers are required to design customized & well-adapted integration systems while adjusting them to the respective API. This helps in connecting the required data while ensuring proper communication across different platforms. Whatever might be the case, you will require the assistance of an experienced programmer with relevant knowledge in the CMS technology for properly implementing the necessary integrations. Therefore, it is recommended to hire services from the best web development company.

#Performance

The overall performance of the website helps in improving its usability as well as the respective user experiences. This is the reason why it is another important aspect that you should consider during e-commerce website development.

With custom web development, you can expect improved results as this strategy only makes use of the required code for meeting the specific requirements of the project. On the other hand, in the case of the standard CMS, the code tends to be less clean while negatively impacting the performance of the website.

#Time to Launch

Usually, the overall time to launch gets reduced when you make use of the CMS web development solutions. This is because, with the help of pre-defined templates and plugins, you can instantly start creating the website and using the existing theme. This stands true only when you do not have a particular design in mind. If you wish to achieve a specific web design for your business, then having a CMS solution would only increase the time to finish & launch.

When you are required to implement the custom website design, you are offered two options –developing a custom website theme or getting help from some existing page builder for allowing you to implement the website design with the help of the CMS interface.

Now that we have compared different factors for you to consider, you can make the choice between custom and CMS website development solutions.

CMS Development –Who Is It for?

A CMS or Content Management System tends to be highly uncomplicated. It is known to be available with all the necessary features that you would want out of a fully functional website. Without having the requirement to begin development from scratch, you can choose the desired pre-designed template while setting up navigation, ensuring file management, libraries, databases, and so more. You can always come across leading third-party plugins available for CMS development –including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and so more.

An experienced web developer from a leading e-commerce website development company can customize these third-party platforms to deliver a highly personalized website at competitive rates. To top it all, it takes minimal time to develop a CMS website. You can get access to multi-user management with complex graphics. Moreover, you can also receive regular updates on the website without worrying much.

Custom Website Development –Who Is It for?

With respect to custom e-commerce website development, you can expect professional web developers to code the entire website –right from scratch. There are several benefits of custom coding –including improved website performance, access to clean codes, better control over the entire website, and the speed of loading new & advanced features.

You can easily come across leading web development agencies delivering access to custom e-commerce website development solutions for optimized results. This type of web development strategy is well-suited for e-commerce owners who wish to design a website in a specific manner while delivering highly personalized experiences to the end-users.

Understanding Custom CMS Solutions

By the term ‘custom CMS,’ refers to the functionalities that a professional web development team would design or develop from scratch. This is achieved with the help of some programming language and a proper framework of the choice of the developers.

Custom-made e-commerce websites are designed to meet the exact requirements of the clients. Therefore, these can be as simple or complex as you want them to be.

Pros

One of the best aspects of custom web development solutions is that these are tailored as per the specific requirements of the clients. Therefore, there is no requirement of compromising and trying to fit the business into some existing solution. Additionally, there is no requirement of paying for something that you might not use for your website. This mostly tends to happen in the case of pre-defined solutions like open-source CMS.

Another major advantage of using custom web development solutions is the overall security. When executed properly by a team of professional web developers, custom e-commerce development tends to offer highly secure results in comparison to open-source or commercial solutions. It also implies that security solutions are implemented by properly adhering to the respective industry standards.

Additionally, with a custom solution, only you can have access to the given set of codes. On the other hand, with a standard or open-source CMS, anyone can download or analyze the existing vulnerabilities of the website.

How to Make the Decision?

While the option of custom CMS development might appear highly appealing, it is the solution that might not be suited for everyone out there. For instance, if your requirements are not too specific while you have a limited budget and timeframe, then you can opt for the standard CMS option.

However, on the other hand, if you have specific requirements while keeping in mind factors like the performance of the website and user experiences, then you should opt for custom e-commerce website development services.

To Conclude

Custom website development will allow you to create a highly administrative website that would adjust to the specific needs of the e-commerce business. Unlike the CMS-based websites that restrict you to add modules or features you need, track results as per your requirement, and make it a tough job to apply changes going beyond the forced adoptions and choices. This will help you in selling more and positioning better in the e-commerce scenario. In addition to this, you will also be able to grow and evolve with the changing trends easily and effectively. For all your expectations, custom e-commerce website development solutions are completely worthwhile!