Better Template / SAAS
Custom
Comparing E-Commerce dev. models
SAAS Vs Custom development
Comparison Table
Better 1 Upfront Cost
2 ROI over time
3 Low Risk
4Ability to react to market data
5Advanced User experience and tracking
6advanced backend needs over time
7Lower dependence on developer
8Time to market
9Security
*10Performance over time.
SAAS usually uses plugins that do not play with each other and under perform as a whole.
SAAS usually uses plugins that do not play with each other and under perform as a whole.
11Customized easier/efficient payment flows
12Maintainability
Different plugins offer no cohesion and have their individual complexities that grow with time.
Different plugins offer no cohesion and have their individual complexities that grow with time.
* Depends on specialist
Template / SAAS
Ideal Usage scenario:
A business that wants to be up and running quick and wants to adopt an evolve-and-learn approach. Where the business is also ok with a complete re-investment at a later time once their own goals are clear.
Pros
- Significant Cut down on Design and web development time.
- The UI/UX part cost is cut.
- Zero Risk in terms of expectation of the user facing part of the site.
- A developer does not have much room to mess things up.
- Pay for what you need plugins.
- Uses economy of scale cloud infrastructure. This means you do not have to worry about the type of server disk-space etc. As long as you are within your plan on the IT side its all taken care of.
- Reliability. As these platforms are designed for "economies of scale", the customer does not need to worry much about spikes in traffic to website and performance, security and other issues.
Cons
- All surety ends at the user interface level. Long term e-commerce is 80% back-end and approximately 20% or less front-end. Most first time clients do not understand what lies under the hood to make e-commerce work. Their perception is simply run by what they see as glitter on the internet. E-Commerce is about selling and operations more or as much as it is about look or branding.
- Do not assume themes are free of bugs. Development support will still be needed, to fix issues. Unless the theme providers are providing you with some form of warranty on purchase.
- Customization's of and existing theme prove more difficult and buggy since the theme is designed in a particular way.
- Customization of the theme is limited and restricted by back-end API / features and plugins. Over time this becomes unmanageable, slow.
- You are paying for the platform and per plugin on a monthly basis. A simple cost benefit analysis reveals your SAAS platform will charge you the same or more in 1.5 to 2 years.
- As needs and traffic increases, while the cloud platform is reliable they also cost more to scale you.
- Payment gateway integration, logistics etc are still additional and require paper work and offline business processes to setup.
- Since platforms are plugin based, sooner or later too many plugins pinch in terms of cost and also do not interact with one another. Each have their own issues and don't often seamlessly integrate into one unified experience.
- You are on your own. A good custom developer will not just work with you on development but be a partner in understanding your business and driving sales. in a cloud based setup, remember the cloud company is running on economies of scale and they are not bothered about our success.
Disclaimer:
- Apparent Development time & costs are low, but over time customization's and fixes can get messy and may face several unforeseen restrictions.
- Average Development Range: Cost of Template + Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000 + tax.
- * Development costs do not include any platform costs, plugin rentals, SEO work etc.
Custom
Ideal Usage scenario:
A portal or a market place site or medium sized company with need for custom work flows, constant changes, and complete control of back-end. Additionally, multiple integration's with third party services like for example Amazon Market place, multi vendor e-commerce, or any custom integration requirement with POS, accounting systems, ERP systems, clouds like Sales Force.com etc.
Pros
- The entire design, functionality can be thought through to be tailored. This is useful for sites that wish to not be run-of-the-mill.
- E-Commerce back-end needs can be custom to how a business works, rather than a business having to adopt best practices around some existing theme or platform.
- In well developed custom site, performance can be a major factor when dealing with many products.
- All costs upfront, maintenance costs are low.
- A good platform and/or developer, integrates various features and allows easier and powerful management of the website, order system, inventory, reporting, analytic s, CMS (Content management system) and more.
- More advanced user engagement and user experience on site.
- Because of a more invested long term relation with your developer, a good developer is more invested in your online success than just developing the site.
Cons
- High upfront cost.
- Outcome is subject and relies on quality and experience of developer. It is not just the tools but the knowledge and depth of platform and tools that comes into play. Many free lance developers offer to know about making e-commerce site, however all they know is a common platform like Magento and they have little or no knowledge of the domain, online marketing, performance, IT related aspects that power online business. What you as a customer want to establish is an online business not just a website. It requires the customer to be with the right developer to truely gain all the advantages of a custom developed site. Customer-Developer relations are paramount for long term success. This is also an advantage if it turns out right.
- Once you build it, you are invested with implementation.
- Infrastructure / Host server is also custom and for small to medium companies, maintaining IT can cost extra as its an additional consideration over just the website and related software.
- Payment gateway integration, logistics etc are still additional and require paper work and offline business processes to setup.
Disclaimer:
- Average Development Range (design costs are not included in development): Rs 3,00,000 upward + tax. Note: Some developers may even offer it for Rs 1,00,000; but as mentioned custom sites are subject to a lot of variation and the value proposition may not be apparent to a complete lay man.
- * Development costs do not include any infrastructure, platform costs, plugin rentals, SEO work etc.
