Do you need a Shopify Web Developer? Rates, Where to Find, What to Use For

Shopify has become one of the most well-known names in the e-commerce industry. This platform is used by all kinds of businesses in the online store scene. It is highly recommended for first-time entrepreneurs because of its user-friendly interface. However, there seems to be that ongoing dilemma among store owners whether or not they should hire a Shopify web developer to set up their website.

Let’s take a closer look at why hiring a Shopify web developer is a good idea for your business. We will delve in deeper to what a developer can do for you, where to find these experts and the rates you may expect to pay for their help.

Why Consider Hiring A Web Developer

Think of Shopify as a customized hosting service where you can create your own website to display, sell, and ship digital or physical goods. For a monthly subscription, you can easily build a fully functional online store that has a shopping cart solution and an easy to learn and operate the admin panel that you can use to manage your products.

You’ll find a wide range of demographic who are using Shopify as their platform for profits through online trade. We have entrepreneurs, internet marketers, broke bootstrappers and even rich celebrities. Take Kylie Jenner, for example. Kylie has been making a fortune selling her cosmetic products through her Shopify store.

Given the fact this popular e-commerce platform makes it pretty easy to start with zero experience building a web-store with beautiful and responsive pre-designed templates, why should anyone need a Shopify web developer?

Top 5 Things A Shopify Developer Can Do For You

There are a lot of requirements for building a winning web store. While Shopify provides templates that are pretty easy to use out-of-the-box, there are many things — other than creating an attractive landing page — that need to happen in order to create a successful business website. Setting up payment methods and other back-end development tasks may not be as easy for a non-Shopify expert as compared to an experienced Shopify web developer.

Here are some of the specialized tasks a freelance web developer can do for your Shopify store.

1.  Customize the UI of your store.

One thing you need to understand with being an e-commerce entrepreneur is that website design and usability is important. Your site’s goal is to attract customers and make sure that when they’re in, they can navigate it easily. If a few more clicks can help get them to the payment button right away, you’ll want to do it.

Understanding your customer interface design is the work of a web developer. Even the small adjustments made on your UI have a big impact on each buyer’s shopping experience. Hiring an expert for your Shopify store is the best decision.

2.  Make integrations.

One of the first few things that you will need the help of a Shopify web developer for is integrating various components of your overall online presence, sales and marketing funnels, and other tools with your Shopify store.

This may include connecting your Shopify store with social media platforms such as a Facebook store, a Google store, and Pinterest. Integrations also include store compatibility with your CRM tools such as Klavio, Aweber, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, or whatever you use to email your leads and customers.

3.  Make code changes.

Another reason you may need to reach out to a Shopify web developer is to make code changes on your website. For instance, you may want to make modifications and customizations to your website footer, navigational menu, product pages, blog pages or homepage for a more attractive look.

The template that you choose for your Shopify store may already have a lot of functionality and is available to you at the click of a button. However, you may quickly reach the limits of what you’re allowed you to do. A web developer can edit codes for you to create a better shopping experience for your customers.

Obviously, web programming is not for everyone. Even if Shopify provides good instructions on how to make changes to the code yourself to achieve the goal you want, you simply may not be comfortable doing the work. In this case, hiring a skilled Shopify web developer would be a good option.

4.  Ensure that your store is functioning properly.

There are a lot of “T’s” to cross and “I’s” to dot when it comes to building a successful web store. In all of this, it’s easy to have glitches occur on your site. When you face such issues that you can’t fix, a Shopify web developer is the exact person you need to reach out to.

You can be the type of businessWhen you experience a problem, break something or cause an error, you can reach out to the developer to help fix your goof-ups.

5.  Optimize store performance.

Have you ever experienced trying to access your favorite shop’s online store on Black Friday but the web page never seems to pull up? This can also happen to your customers. Sometimes, your website can get so much traffic that your load speed seems slow, images are not appearing on the site, buyers are stuck on checkout.

A Shopify web developer ensures that the performance and functionality of your online store are in top shape. Some of their tasks include doing quality checks such as testing and monitoring to provide an amazing experience for your buyers and potential customers.

How Much They Cost

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The freelance economy opened up the opportunity for business owners to outsource this part of their operations to skilled and experienced Shopify web developers from anywhere in the world. However, before you take the first step into hiring one, you need to understand the total expenses you will have to invest in setting up a successful web store.

There are several factors you need to consider when thinking about the cost of hiring a developer.

• First, you need to understand that these experts have different rates depending on the type, difficulty, and volume of work they will take.
• Second, their rates also vary on experience which means that the more experienced a developer is, the higher his/her rate will be.

However, you can still have a seasoned Shopify web developer to do complicated features and functionalities at a fraction of a price. How is that possible? The answer is, of course, outsourcing.

• Web developer rates can also depend on their location. Freelancers who live overseas, for example, typically follow the rates based on the standard wages of professionals in their country.

Let’s look into all of these factors to give you an estimate of your total cost for setting up your Shopify store.

US vs Non-US Web Developer

The statistics presented in this section of this article is based solely on a survey conducted by Codementor 2017 that estimated the cost of freelance web developers across the world.

• The average hourly rate of web developers is $61-$80. This includes countries in the regions of Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East
• In Canada and the US, the rate is higher at an average of $81-$100
• Developers from Australia and NZ is on par with the US, averaging at $70/hour
• From a different source, as of 2018. Shopify web developers from Asia can work from an affordable range of $20-$50 per hour, depending on the level of expertise needed. This coincides with Codementor’s results that the least expensive countries have, on average, 28% lower hourly rates.

Based on Scale of Work and Business

If you are looking at the amount and type of work of a Shopify web developer, rates can vary from hourly to a fixed price per project. Hiring a Shopify expert that will develop and do a complete setup of your web store will cost around $500, at an average. If you want to work on limited features and functionality, you can expect to spend around $100-$250.

In a 2018 article of Freelancing Gig, the cost of web developers can also differ based on how large or small your business is. A large scale Shopify store will take around $700-$1000 to complete full development. For medium to small scale Shopify stores, experts advise to get web developers who have specific experience on the work you need done to optimize your costs.

Where to Find Them

A good thing about outsourcing freelancers is that you can tap a global pool of talents that you didn’t even know you could work with. There are professional developers in almost all parts of the world and you can hire them with just a few clicks on your computer.

Here are the Top 3 places online where you can find and hire a Shopify web developer.

1. FreeeUp

The web developers on FreeUp are among the top 1% of freelancers the marketplace. They have been pre-vetted and are world-class professionals. You will find a vast array of experts here to help you with every one of your projects. Among them are developers who can help build mobile apps, do backend development, build proprietary software, WordPress blogs, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify stores among many other skills.

2 – UpWork

Previously oDesk, UpWork has been one of the longest-running freelance platforms with a global pool of talents. Unlike FreeUp who is specialized in assisting e-commerce businesses and entrepreneurs, UpWork caters to almost any kind of business. Just recently, they have revamped their application process to be able to assist their clients better. At UpWork, you can choose from different remote Shopify web developers with different rates, depending on their location, skills, and experience.

3 – Shopify

Shopify doesn’t only provide you hosting services to launch your online store but they also have a wide array of resources for you to tap into, including the services of Shopify experts. The advantage of hiring a Shopify web developer from the website itself is that you are assured that they are experts of that platform and how it works.

Conclusion

Anyone could learn and master the ins and outs of Shopify but not every entrepreneur has the time to wait for that to happen while their business is slowly going down the drain. There are a number of reasons for you to hire a Shopify web developer but the main goal is just one — to bring your online business to success.

Avoid glitches in your website’s design and overall functionality while you’re busy trying to get your e-commerce store off the ground. Promote a strong impression on your customers and potential buyers with good brand presentation. Sign up at FreeeUp as a client and hire a Shopify web developer today.