Please introduce your company and give a brief about your role within the company?
Simtech Development has been working in web development since 2005. We develop complex e-commerce solutions for e-shops, marketplaces, manufacturers, dealers, and retailers. Our clients are individuals and companies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, the UAE, and more than 150 other countries. This is our golden recipe: listen to the client attentively, offer the best solutions, work hard, and be demanding. Everyone on the team at Simtech Development knows that what they are working on today will make people’s lives easier and their business more successful tomorrow. As for me, my management role is to be a leader: to lead my team members, to grow them, to continuously develop each and every person under my responsibility into an expert. Developing is firmly connected with a sense of creativity, motivation, and discipline. So, my personal commitment is to keep that sense in the company, and I am still contributing to this process. We already have our internal bookstand replenished by employees wanting to share their best books with others, our most experienced specialists teach in Simtech School and give recommendations to juniors during so-called ‘Expert Meet-Ups’, we are sponsoring webinars and classes for Simtech devs and schoolers. I’ve recently introduced a new tradition to reward the ‘Best Employee’ with a personal and motivating gift.
Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the 1. time frame of developing an e-commerce app.
● complexity of business logic of the e-commerce app ● third-party integrations ● resource availability Anyway, we know that fast task execution and issue resolution is crucial for business. Whether it's a trivial task, a new feature or a new market expansion, we deliver the result on the maximum pace to keep your flagship on full ahead.
How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front end and back end of an e-commerce app?
Turn-key app development usually takes us 1-3 months to complete.
What is your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/outsourcing?
Behind the success of each project are people who create it. We have an in-house team of developers. This means that we can better control the quality of the e-commerce development process. We can become part of any team by integrating our task management systems, sharing the same working hours, and even relocating our experts to your place of residence or vice versa.
How is your business model beneficial from a value addition perspective to the clients compared to other companies' models?
Our business model encompasses three main areas: AWS cloud hosting (IaaS), add-ons (eCommerce), custom development, design, and integration with third-party systems (B2B). We are focused on CS-Cart platform and closely cooperate with the original developer. So, the main value our client can take advantage of is the most authentic service for the CS-Cart platform users provided by us at a reasonable price. We’ve been one team with the original developers for a long time. We follow the same strict coding rules and can guarantee the quality of service.
What industries do you cater to? Are your clients repetitive?
We provide end-to-end software solutions in a variety of industry verticals. Most popular industries are fashion, clothing and accessories, health and beauty, electronics, toys, books, etc. 47% of our clients are repetitive.
What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right platform for an ecommerce application?
● goal ● client’s budget ● integrations ● necessity of customizations
Which platform do you suggest your clients to begin with when they approach you with an idea (Magento, Shopify, Bigcommerce, etc) and why?
It depends on many factors: ● business model ● selling product (digital or physical) and/or service ● required features out-of-box ● self-hosted or hosted platform. By identifying what you want and what you can do by yourself, you can make an ideal choice fitting your needs and actual state. Not taking anything away from the above platforms, there is one major inconvenience in all of them - they provide a framework heavily relying on plug-ins. This fact may imply the following disadvantages: the more plug-ins you use, the lower is the speed of your website; non-compliance problems in communication among several plug-ins provided by multiple developers; lesser security as compared to a more cohesive solution. In this context, it seems more rational to use platform-consistent software such as CS-Cart platform. As it is a downloadable e-commerce software, you pay a one-time fee to get access to the software. This fact makes it more favorable compared to Shopify as you are not tied up with a monthly payment plan. However, this one-time fee doesn't include expenses like hosting or additional customization which makes it more similar to WordPress and Magento, but the latter ones are pluggable and may entail the inconveniences as we described above. I would recommend starting with the CS-Cart platform to small and medium-sized businesses, to start-up projects and non-techy entrepreneurs, as this platform is feature-rich, user-friendly and easy-to-customize, accompanied by extensive documentation. The platform is tailored both for digital and physical items and can be provided with and without hosting, at the discretion of the business owner.
Which Content Management System do you prefer to use (Wordpress, Jumla, Drupal etc)?
Despite the fact that we have experience working with Magento, Wordpress, Shopify, and other software, our priority is CS-Cart custom development and all the CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor software-related services. All requests concerning customizations, modifications, custom design, third-party system integrations, hosting solutions, design creation, etc. are handled by my company.
What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of an ecommerce application?
To provide a more precise estimate, we consider: ● business goal ● examples of similar executions on other sites ● step-by-step description and screenshots of the required functionality ● degree of ambiguity of requirements ● deadlines
What kind of payment structure do you follow to bill your clients? Is it Pay per Feature, Fixed Cost, Pay per Milestone (could be in phases, months, versions etc.
We offer several approaches for collaborating on your projects (Fixed price, Time & Material). Under the fixed-price approach, the project manager sends a project description for your approval, specifying the expected outcome and the deadlines of the project. The Time & Materials approach is used for projects with a high degree of ambiguity, or when changes are going to be made in the course of development.
Do you take in projects which meet your basic budget requirement? If yes, what is the minimum requirement? If no, on what minimum budget you have worked for?
We do not have specific budget requirements. Min budget is USD 50.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2018?
What do you think is the future of the ecommerce industry?
The e-commerce industry is going to move towards: ● Personalization and customer engagement ● Interactive product visualization ● Full shopping experience on all devices
