AdVision eCommerce Development Team

There are two sides to development that are considered.

The first is the client will need to build their own product catalog, and in doing so needs to be very consistent in formatting. Depending on how many products, this can take a client many weeks to create initially.

During that time, AdVision would commence our pre-scripted 3 Stage Development Process, starting with Design, then Programming, and finally Launch.  AdVision will address about 240 development considerations while guiding the client on about 30 or so, they need to attend to locally.

Therefore it usually takes between 8 - 12 weeks to fully customize and launch an eCommerce Web Store.  Having said that, in almost all cases, clients need a few more weeks, as they come up to speed on a host of learning curves.

A fully customized eCommerce Theme which is the design and programming of a series of templates, homepage, category page, product page, cart and related PCI complaint static pages, will run about $7500 - $15,000 USD, and most are just in and around 10k with add-on functionality.

This is primarily a one-time development fee, but some add-on functionality may have subscription pricing attached to them as they host external content.

Other considerations on a budget are your own subscription costs for the eCommerce platform with Shopify, Lightspeed, or Ecwid, for example, and labor on your side in setting up products, photography, and image sizing etc.

There is about 30 or so consideration we will guide you on during development, but the most important and time-consuming are outlined here.

Building The Product Catalog - the client will need to build their own product catalog into their Point-Of-Sale and/or within the eCommerce administration portal depending on if they use Lightspeed Retail or eCom on a standalone basis.

This involves creating individual products, containing the details, such as title, description, and price along with associated images.  As you add your product, you can define categories and feed the product data to the public viewed web store. 

Sizing Images: There is one way to do this correctly and too many ways to not do this the right way.  Once a fixed size for products has been determined based on the design, you will be guided as to the format and sizing.  You need to size your images accordingly to maintain consistency of presentation on the site for your viewers.

Product Descriptions: Meaningful descriptions with a minimum of 2 or 3 sentences.  The description forms the base indexing of your site, so the more detail on each and consistent lengths on each will help keep attention and index better.

Other areas of consideration would be to setup the eMail configuration and templated content for your customers along with Payment Gateway setup for online transactions and Shipping Methods.

Yes, in fact, you are in control of the majority of content and can choose to edit as you need.

First of all, you control all your products and all their elements, being loaded into the site. 

On your Homepage, you will be able to add and update as you need via our administration panel. Other PCI static pages, such as T&C, Privacy, Shipping, About are all pages you have access to edit in realtime as well.

The only things you would require AdVision support are changes to the templates for each page or specific add-on functionality.

Generally, when a web store is launched, it doesn't require too much support or attention, if it is left alone and just managed by the web store owner via the tools they have had setup for them.

Yes, any work that Ad-Vision does whether it is a fully customized eCommerce Web Store or a Support Request, all of our work is covered for one year from the completion date of the Development Task(s). 

This means that if there are any issues, you can create a Support Task 24/7 through our Support Portal, and we will address it in a timely manner and is not subject to any additional cost unless caused by a third-party.

Not all businesses signing up initially for an e-commerce platform would need to have a fully customized site and some businesses, do okay with an off-the-shelf theme for a year or so before recognizing possible limitations that hinder future online growth.

If your business has a very specific 'Visual Look' or 'Brand 'which is not easily replicated with an off-the-shelf theme, or you want to fully control your visitor's overall shopping experience, then you can consider a customized eCommerce Web Store. 

By doing so, not only can you control the visual look and feel, but also all of the functionality presented to the visitor along with expanded administrative tools within your control.

At some point, most companies will opt for a Custom eCommerce site, once they have had the experience with an off-the-shelf theme, and learn more and more about what they need to grow their online presence.

An analogy you can consider is that an off-the-shelf theme is like having an 'apartment' vs a custom theme is more like owning your own 'home'.

Visit : Benefits Custom eCommerce Development

The Lightspeed eCom Web Store Platform like other eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento etc all have at their core the following basic functionality.

A viewer can navigate to product categories, see a product of interest usually presented in a thumbnail view, they can select that product, to go to a detail page, add product to cart and checkout. This is referred to as the 'Core Functionality' of the eCommerce platform.

In addition, it is very common and highly likely that 'add-on functionality' may also be required, based on the design or specific to the type of business you operate. Some examples of 'add-on functionality' would be 'visual' as in showing color swatches of your products color availability rather then depending on the drop-down text menu. Or, 'functional' such as adding in the ability to use Gift Cards as payment options during checkout.

AdVision has available both within Lightspeed's App Marketplace or directly from us, a host of existing apps that you can easily subscribe to. We are also available to build custom applications specific to your requirements or install 3rd party integrations such as custom payment or shipping gateways. Add-On Functionality, can be added during the development, or at any future time after launch.

Lightspeed has been established for over 15 years and boasts some 51000 Customers in over 100 countries and offers a Suite of business applications.

Lightspeed Retail Point-of-Sale, eCom and Restaurant and are ideal for small to medium sized Retail and Restaurant businesses.

Considered within North America, Europe and Australasia, the Top 10 best choice for - Point-Of-Sale applications (2022) and in the Top 5 for it's eCommerce and Restaurant applications, Lightspeed is a dependable and reliable technology resource for Retailers.

Lightspeed continues to grow it infrastructure on these platforms and along with 3rd Party Applications & Services that are customizable to fit most businesses requirements they are the online solution for today's Retailer.

Yes, Lightspeed Retail Point-Of-Sale (LSR) can be connected to a Shopify or Ecwid, but each has a degree of limitations when it comes to full connectivity of data between the LSR and the chosen eCommerce platform.  

3rd party eCommerce platforms need to have a separate connector and this is achieved by using a 3rd Party such as Accumula to replace the OmniChannel connector that works between LSR and LS eCom, so you are connecting LSR to Shopify.

The only primary consideration on changing the connector from Omni to Accumula's connectors is that when it comes to customizing functionality that you would like featured on your eCommerce platform, using a 3rd party connector will likely limit the level of customization on your eCommerce web store and any other integrations.

Lightspeed Retail Integration with Shopify & Ecwid, does allow you to keep track of sales, and manage inventory and customer data between the LSR and these eCommerce platforms, but historically have had some issues on how much data can they administer and to what level they can control their customized development.

Summary : If you are happy with your Lightspeed Retail POS and for the most part it is meeting all of your business needs and you don't see yourself moving from it for many years if at all, it would be AdVision considered recommendation that you stay within the Lightspeed ecosphere of applications and build your eCommerce site on Lightspeed eCom, and not on a 3rd party platforms.

Having said that, if your functionality requirements on your eCommerce web store is recently straightforward and you don't really require a lot of interaction back to LSR, then you might find Shopify a worthy option for your consideration.

Today the eCommerce industry is primarily developing mostly on Cloud-Based eCommerce platforms such as Lightspeed and Shopify vs Self-Hosted options such as Megento.

Well over 95% of our customers fit comfortably with cloud-based eCommerce solutions, albeit sometimes with a small degree of compromise.  AdVision has successfully been able to develop Add On Functionality, feeding these cloud-based platforms and integrating the vast majority of third-party requests that we get via API onto these platforms.

One consideration on what eCommerce platform to choose would be, if you are going to operate a Point-of-Sale application in a store or for inventory management overall, you need to determine what POS you are going to use.

If you have already chosen and are using a Point-of-Sale such as Lightspeed Retail and it is addressing your needs, you then should make your eCommerce decision based on how 'connective' that POS is to your eCommerce platform of choice.

Generally staying within the ecosphere of one companies applications will make for a more customizable development environment then having a POS by one company and an eCommerce platform by another.