How does our team handle Sylius E-commerce Development?

Using open-source technologies in e-commerce development often allows companies to reduce the cost of online store development. Still, there are various open-source e-commerce out there. Which one to choose for your project?

Among the solutions we use on a daily basis in our projects there is Sylius — PHP-based framework for creating e-commerce websites. Learn, how our experts use an open-source e-commerce platform built on top of Symfony. Sylius may be all you need for developing a functional online shop for your company.

Why do we use Sylius framework in our e-commerce projects?

You may wonder, why Sylius? Is it better than other e-commerce frameworks? Here is the list of the features that we like in this solution:

• Good for various business sizes and models — Sylius is available in two versions: Standard (which is free to use for everybody) and Plus (commercial one). Of course even in its’s free version, Sylius provides more than enough e-commerce features for many companies, but it can also be used in more complex, corporate projects, as the commercial version comes with many practical, additional features (like loyalty systems, multi-store and others).
• Scalability and flexibility — Sylius shop can be fully customized to meet your customers needs. If you expect your business to grow dynamically, selecting Sylius as a part of your stack would be wise, as it can be deployed on both single server or in the cloud on a multi-server architecture (that ensures autoscaling).
• Vast community — having an active community focused on certain technology simplifies solving problems during and after development. Developers keep working on new solutions for e-commerce projects and provide useful tips for teams. Building an online shop in Sylius is a good approach for companies that would like to maintain it in-house after launching. Staying in touch with the rest of the Sylius community will allow your specialist to solve eventual problems on their own with ease.

Good testing environment — Sylius has built-in API design and testing framework, and uses Business-Driven Development (BDD). This means that tests performed on applications are written in business language, which improves efficiency of the testing process.
But how does the Soft Gorilla Sylius e-commerce development process look like?

Soft Gorillas Sylius ecommerce development process

We carried out many e-commerce projects using Sylius. Shops built with this e-commerce platform can be highly customized thanks to the modular architecture of Symfony framework and Sylius components. The Sylius e-commerce development project consists of several processes.

Workshops with the customer

All our projects start from intense workshops. A customer and our experts (designers, developers, consultants) participate in the series of meetings during which we try to understand the vision of a certain company. We discuss customer’s requirements and the potential e-commerce solutions to various challenges. Taking all the necessary time, to learn as much as we can about customer’s expectations allows us to make a client’s vision a reality.

We encourage our customers to engage in the entire development process from the first workshop. To enable them to do so, we leverage various tools that improve communication between development team and customer. This way, a client can be regularly updated about the progress and challenges on the project, and share feedback.

Planning phase

Once customer and development team agree on the details, the official list of requirements is created and the entire development is planned step by step (including tasks, deadlines and future meetings). It is quite important. The specific plan allows evaluation of the Sylius shop development process and ensuring its efficiency.

Sylius e-commerce design and development

Close collaboration with customers during the design and development stages is essential for the project success. Each design has to be approved by the client. We really want to make sure, that the online store we built in Sylius is unique and works
exactly as it should.

Thanks to modern communication solutions, we can deal with small and more serious challenges in the development process almost immediately as they occur. Customers can provide us with additional information about suggestions or make decisions about modifying original requirements and plans without unnecessary delays.

Testing and launching

Sylius e-commerce platform is a great environment for application testing. Before the online store is launched, we check its functionalities, speed, performance and security. At the end of the project customer is also provided with full, technical documentation of the project. Of course, we offer our customers assistance when moving the new online store to in-house team if they would like to take over it after the launch. Sylius administrative panel is very user-friendly and intuitive even for non-tech users.

Improvements

The E-commerce industry is very dynamic and with a modern online store built in Sylius and good strategy, your business will probably grow in the future. If you decide to develop your e-commerce website with Soft Gorillas team, we will be happy to help you scale and improve your project by adjusting it to the newest standards and developing new features.

SoftGorillas Sylius e-commerce development services

Sylius extreme flexibility makes it popular among developers specialized in e-commerce projects. It can be used for creating a business solution adjusted to your unique business model and requirements. Use cases of this tech stack include corporate online stores as well as smaller and medium projects. An e-commerce website has to deal with heavy traffic and webpages built in Sylius can handle it easily. Allow us to tell you more about our experience in e-commerce. Contact us and we will be happy to describe some of our’s most successful projects.