eCommerce Project Management: Complete Build Guide

The more people involved in an eCommerce project, the harder it is to get the thing across the line on deadline day. I’ve seen it happen dozens of times. Once multiple stakeholders and their egos are in the room, expert project management stops being a nice-to-have and becomes essential.

Stakeholders vary wildly - from senior management who want to add to the bottom line, right down to data entry clerks in human resources who have very strong opinions about how job application forms will display on their section of the website. Everyone wants their say, and I’ve learned that managing those expectations is one of the most critical parts of the entire process.

Whether you’re building an eCommerce website in the hope of generating a second income, replacing your full-time income, or managing the website redesign for a global entity, following an exact process will save you enormous amounts of time and money. Here’s my guide to getting your eCommerce website project built right the first time, big or small.

Risk Assessment and Evaluation

Budget Analysis

• I tell clients to expect to pay £2k-£5k for a well-designed Shopify eCommerce website. After that, your maintenance costs are just your monthly subscription. Get an accurate quote for your specific requirements.
• If £2k-£3k upfront is out of reach, pay monthly website plans offer professional design from £49/month with no deposit. I set these up regularly for clients who want quality without the lump sum.
• Open-source platforms like WooCommerce or Magento start at £5k-£15k to develop, with hosting and maintenance costs that run £2k-£5k per year. These require more technical oversight, and honestly I’m seeing them decline in popularity for smaller businesses.
• Enterprise platforms (SAP Commerce, Adobe Experience Manager) start at £50k+ and are only relevant for large organisations with dedicated technical teams. If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need one.
• SEO and digital marketing require a realistic ongoing budget. My marketing approach provides affordable options for growing businesses. I’d be wary of companies promising top rankings for £100 per month - effective SEO requires genuine investment in content and technical quality.

Competition Analysis

• Who are your competitors? Competitor research and uncovering their use of technology is an essential part of the process. As well as discovering the eCommerce platform they use (I use Wappalyser for this), I also need to analyse where they get their backlinks from (SEMRush), how they manage their PPC campaigns (SpyFu), and any other business intelligence I can get my hands on.

Business Requirements

• How do the pricing rules work? B2B (Business to Business) accounts have very different requirements from standard B2C (Business to Consumer) retail accounts. If flexibility in pricing is a significant consideration, Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise offer advanced B2B pricing rules, customer-specific catalogues, and wholesale features.
• How do the shipping rules work? Some products may have country exclusions or special requirements such as palletisation or shipping via freight. For UK businesses, I’d strongly recommend you configure Shopify shipping correctly to handle postcode-based rates. I’ve seen too many stores bleeding money because they didn’t get this right.
• How does the order fulfilment workflow account for your business practices, for example dropshipping?
• What are the legal requirements of doing business in your jurisdiction?

Functional Requirements

I base functional requirements on the person who will actually use the service. Some examples:

• Product reviews increase conversion rates and highlight product strengths. I always ask: who will moderate user reviews and will you accept anonymous reviews?
• Product tours (photos, videos, 360-degree images) increase user engagement and differentiate your products from the competition. I’ve written about the power of product images in eCommerce, and I really can’t overstate how much they matter.
• Shipping calculators set expectations and decrease cart abandonment. I see this one overlooked constantly.
• Drop-shipped products increase the variety of products you can offer. I’d recommend looking at multi-channel selling to expand your reach.
• I implement saved shopping carts or printable quotes for B2B clients, because their shoppers often need a manager’s permission or purchase order before checkout.
• How will the account creation routine function? I always map this out before the build begins.

Stakeholder Management and Staff Training

I’ve found there are really only two ways of approaching stakeholder management, and neither one is perfect. The first is to include the minimum number of stakeholders possible to avoid creating excessive workflows. Unfortunately, I’ve seen this lead to significant disaffection within some groups, but it does ensure the project runs on time with minimal distraction. The second is to include as many stakeholder groups as possible and seek opinions from everyone. The collaborative approach adds to the project overhead, but it appeases stakeholders, and in my experience it’s generally the preferable route.

• I identify relevant contacts within each stakeholder group and gather requirements. The objective is to get a picture from every angle of the business. Surveys, workshops, meetings, and external agencies are often utilised to collect the bigger picture across the company.
• I discover what forms, feeds, and database integrations are required.
• Prioritising the requirements can be a genuinely challenging exercise when I’m dealing with many senior stakeholders who all think their thing is the most important thing.
• I assign timeframes and create a roadmap to execute the requirements.
• I ascertain staff training requirements - content editing, writing blogs, order processing, SEO and PR.
• I assign documentation detailing responsibilities early in the process.

For smaller projects, you could use Trello as your roadmap. I use it myself to manage content planning for multiple projects here at We Build Stores.

Milestone Dates for the Project Plan

• Agree on a Content Delivery Date
• Agree on a Site Architecture Freeze Date
• Agree on a Site Functionality Freeze Date
• Agree on a Design Freeze Date
• Agree on a Launch Date and Domain Transfers

Website Design

How many design mockups will the client expect to review? I find 2-3 is usually sufficient for most projects.

• I examine competitor websites for themes that look good and feel right for the niche.
• eCommerce website builders make it easy to choose a theme which can be modified. Need help with the design process? I’d love to chat about my Shopify website design services.
• I ask early: are we using the existing logo or designing a new one? If existing, what formats are available?
• I establish a colour theme that works across all devices.
• I establish the design elements: buttons, calls to action (square or rounded edges, gradients), borders, headers, padding and margins. Less padding and smaller margins provide tighter content. More padding and margins create white space. I make this decision based on the brand personality.
• Images: I discuss a content to image ratio with every client. I set a proper aspect ratio (1:1 for product images), I organise photoshoots where needed, and I manage photos in a database. I also determine which payment gateways are available.
• I organise SSL Certificates if we’re using a self-hosted solution.
• I produce a site plan covering every page and its purpose.

Content Migration

• The migration process can be quick and painless if the new and old sites have structurally similar databases or there isn’t too much content. But for sites with a significant amount of material that needs to fit in more complex layouts, I’ve found that migration can actually take longer than the build itself.
• I always start with a spreadsheet of all pages I plan to migrate, with separate columns for links (old and new), status (open, in progress, done) and notes highlighting, for example, if a page needs copy-editing or rewriting entirely.
• I use shared Google Spreadsheets to create the master list of content and track what pages to migrate, their migration status (To Do, In Progress, Done), and notes. I use cart2cart to move from one eCommerce platform to another or to automate data emigration.

Content Writing and Style Guides

• I always produce guidelines for content creation. For example, embedded link content, anchor text rules, and how to structure headings and subheadings.
• I determine the type of “case” the client wants for headings - All Caps, Title Case, Sentence case. It sounds like a small detail but it makes a surprisingly big difference to consistency.
• I check whether specific departments have a different style from the “house” style.
• I ensure all CSS documents are annotated so they can be maintained by whoever comes after me.

User Testing

• An often overlooked part of building a new website is usability testing, and I think that’s a mistake.
• Forms can often be challenging to fill in or allow for the entry of erroneous characters. I user test every form to spot flaws and remedy them before launch.
• User testing is particularly valuable for eCommerce websites where cart abandonment is a concern. I eliminate doubt by having the website extensively user-tested before it goes live.

SEO and Other Technical Setup

• I set up redirects from old pages to new. I cannot stress enough how important this is for preserving your search rankings.
• I configure the robots.txt so that private parts of the site don’t appear in search results.
• I create and submit a sitemap.
• I implement Google Analytics from day one.
• I set up a dedicated SEO project manager admin or webmaster email address for all enquiries.
• I run an internal survey before launch. I’ve found that you can fix a surprising number of problems by making your website visible internally before it goes live to the public.

Launch

Need help with your next eCommerce project? Get in touch and I’ll walk you through how I’d approach it.