The work covers new store builds, migration from Magento 1 or another platform, version upgrades, theme and frontend development, custom module development, extension audits and replacement, ERP, PIM, and WMS integration, catalog and customer data migration, performance tuning, and ongoing support. Where the platform decision itself is still open, e-commerce consulting runs first as a separate engagement.

Magento earns its cost when your catalog is large, your pricing or B2B rules are complex, and you need control over the checkout. It stops being worth it when your store is essentially a template with a small catalog, since licence, hosting, and maintenance then buy you flexibility you never use. The audit compares your current running costs against both options before anyone commits.

Magento 1 stopped receiving security patches in 2020, so payment providers and insurers increasingly treat it as a liability. Practical routes are three: migrate to Magento 2, replatform elsewhere, or build custom. A Magento 1 to 2 move is a rebuild rather than an upgrade, because the codebase differs, so we scope it as a project with catalog and customer data migration included.

Yes, and it is a large share of our commerce work. We start with a code, extension, and performance audit that reports on technical debt, security exposure, and which customizations are safe to keep. Then we agree what gets fixed before new features start. An undocumented store adds a handover period, and we scope that separately instead of hiding it inside an optimistic estimate.

We set up and manage the infrastructure on Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud, including the deployment pipeline, monitoring, and backups. Support runs on an agreed model that covers security patches, version updates, bug fixes, and reserved capacity for new features. During your peak weeks, releases pause by default and an engineer familiar with your setup stays on call.

Custom marketplaces are built by a software development company from scratch. In this case, a client pays for the development and maintenance of marketplace solutions. SaaS marketplaces are those offered by third parties. If clients use a SaaS marketplace (like Amazon or Etsy), they pay a regular fee for the use and not for the creation.

et’s mention a few:

• Healthcare. The healthcare marketplace platform can connect doctors with patients and be the place where patients can find a doctor, view their rates, book an appointment, and more.
• Logistics. A custom platform marketplace for logistics is a portal where businesses access information on logistics providers and order their services.
• Education. These can be education marketplace platforms where learners look for a tutor, evaluate eLearning services, share their feedback, etc.
• Fashion and apparel. Fashion industry marketplaces can connect fashion retailers with manufacturers and suppliers or/and customers. Such marketplaces gather many brands in one place and help them promote their goods to a bigger audience.

Rules first, review second. Category templates define required attributes, so incomplete listings never reach the queue. Automated checks catch duplicate GTINs, image resolution failures, restricted terms, and price outliers against category medians. Everything flagged lands in a moderation queue with seller-level trust scores, so proven sellers publish instantly and new sellers get sampled. Sellers who fail repeatedly get throttled automatically.

A first cohort typically goes live four to six months after kickoff for a build on top of an existing eCommerce platform, with the money layer and seller portal in the first releases. Open seller intake follows two to three months later, once moderation and payouts run without manual steps.

A licensed payment provider handles the money — Stripe Connect, Adyen for Platforms, and Mangopay all support marketplace flows. The buyer pays once; the provider splits the amount between your commission and the seller balance, holds funds through the return window, and releases payouts on your schedule.

We build the ledger that sits above it: order-level commission records, adjustment handling for refunds and partial returns, VAT treatment per market, and reconciliation exports for finance. We stay out of custody of funds, which keeps licensing requirements with the provider.

No. Unlike other consulting firms, Forbytes offers ecommerce business consulting as a separate service independent of web development. If you hire our ecommerce consultant and we create a plan for your ecommerce strategy, it does not obligate you to hire our product engineering team for the plan execution.

Nonetheless, you can scale our cooperation whenever you need it. If you like our ecommerce solutions services and want to continue working with Forbytes — our specialists will be glad to study your business requirements and help you achieve your goals.

Forbytes is one of the ecommerce consultancy companies that can help you build custom enterprise solutions, web and mobile applications, Product Information Management (PIM) systems, etc. We also assist offline businesses in the process of moving online. Our ecommerce advisors ensure effortless migration, with all data preserved and managed online.

Besides, we offer customization services and help with the integration of third-party digital products into ecommerce websites. Our solutions accelerate growth and always are secure as well as forward-looking.

Your engineers sit in the audit sessions and review our findings before anything reaches the board. They know where the problems started, and skipping them produces a report that reads well and helps nobody. Where your team disagrees with a conclusion, we record the disagreement in the report.

Yes, we can. Forbytes runs modernization, integration, and platform teams, so the engineers who scoped the work can build it. Handing the roadmap to another vendor also works — we write it so any competent engineering group can execute it.

Not to overload you with text, we’ve listed only the most common eCommerce consulting services that we offer. However, our approach to ecommerce solution services is human-centric, meaning that there are no strict limits on services. We always can adjust our strategy to the client’s expectations. So, if your request does not fit into any of these categories — you are always welcome to get in touch with Forbytes and get answers to your questions.

The work covers building or rebuilding the storefront, connecting it to the systems behind it, and keeping it running as you grow: platform selection, custom development, Magento work, marketplace builds, composable commerce architectures, ERP and PIM integration, catalog and customer data migration, performance tuning, and post-launch support. Where the decision itself is unclear, eCommerce consulting runs as a separate engagement first.

Replatforming is the expensive answer, so it needs a reason beyond frustration. Improving the current setup usually wins when the platform still receives updates, when the problems are performance or integration related, and when your team can work in it. Replatforming earns its cost when licence and hosting fees keep climbing, when the vendor blocks integrations you need, or when every change requires workarounds. The audit gives you both numbers before you commit.

Magento sits at the core of our commerce work, alongside custom builds on Microsoft .NET, Node.js, PHP, and React. For composable setups we assemble the storefront, PIM, search, and checkout from separate services rather than one suite. Platform choice follows your catalog size, integration needs, market count, and who maintains the store afterwards.

Yes, and this is common. We start with a code, performance, and integration audit that reports on technical debt, security issues, and what the previous setup automated versus what your team does by hand. Then we agree what gets fixed first. Handover of an undocumented store adds a discovery period, and we scope that separately rather than absorbing it into an estimate that later slips.

Load testing runs on production-scale catalog and traffic data before your high season, not after an incident. Support during peak periods works on an agreed model with response times and an on-call engineer who knows your setup. Releases stop during your peak weeks by default, and we plan the schedule around your commerce calendar from the start.

This depends on a variety of factors, including your business goals, software requirements, scalability requirements, number of software components within the system, etc. The approximate lower bound of the work volume is around 1800-2500 hours. This includes core integration of a headless front-end, ecommerce site, and PIM. The more customizations and composable apps are needed, the more time it will take to complete the project.

That is the default approach. Most retailers detach the storefront and search first, keep checkout and order management inside the platform, and stop there for a year or more. A partial architecture that ships is worth more than a full MACH stack.

An orchestration layer sits between the storefront and the services. Vendors talk to it through defined contracts, not to each other. It owns retries, idempotency keys, event ordering, and data mapping, so a vendor swap changes one adapter rather than eight call sites. We also cap the vendor count — every added service needs a named owner and a replacement plan.

Each detached service runs behind a proxy alongside the old path, and we compare latency and error rates on live traffic before shifting users. If the new path loses, traffic routes back to the monolith in minutes. We publish p95 numbers per domain at every cutover.

Your team. We build with your engineers in pairs, write runbooks per service, and run the last two cutovers as observers. Where you need ongoing capacity, our engineers stay on the platform team rather than in a separate vendor lane.