How to develop an online store in Java

Whether you have an offline store or are planning to launch a startup, selling products online is a must for success in the modern world. E-commerce gives a company many advantages: expanding the audience and geography of sales, minimizing the cost of maintaining retail space, automation and much more.

Plus, consumers are increasingly choosing to shop online because it is much easier and faster. In this article, we will talk in detail about how to launch an effective online store in Java, what team is required for this, and look behind the scenes of workflows to understand how they work in practice.

During the development process, various difficulties may arise, but all of them can be solved with the help of technology. And in this sense, Java stands out favorably against other programming languages.

The thing is that Java has its own virtual machine – JVM (Java Virtual Machine), which is adapted for executing not only Java code, but also other languages, such as Python, PHP and many others. This makes the technology as flexible and universal as possible.

But the benefits of Java certainly don’t end there. Here are some more strengths of the language:

• Stability and reliability. The Java compiler detects problems in code early, before it is executed. This prevents any errors and memory failures.
• Cross-platform. Java code does not depend on the operating system and hardware – all that matters is the presence of the runtime environment and the JVM. Therefore, if, say, in a year you want to launch a mobile application in addition to the website, you can easily use the existing backend. And this is a significant budget savings.

• Safety. Java uses numerous APIs, security protocols, and internal protection mechanisms that are extremely difficult to bypass or hack.
• Backward compatibility. Like other technologies, Java is constantly evolving and changing, but this will not affect the operation of your online store at all due to the full backward compatibility of language versions. This is one of the main reasons why large businesses choose Java.
• Ability to work with microservice architecture. Microservice architecture is when your online store is not a monolithic program, but consists of many independent modules interconnected via API. This improves system performance, fault tolerance and stability. In simple words, if a monolithic site “falls” due to a large influx of traffic, it will fall completely, but in a microservice architecture only some part of it may stop working.

An online store is a complex software product, the creation of which involves a whole team of specialists. At a minimum this is:

• UX – designers think about UX and functionality.
• UI – designers create recognizable and user-friendly user interfaces.
• Frontend developers – implement the client part with which users interact on the browser side.
• Backend developers – create the server part that processes data and user requests.
• QA engineers – perform testing of finished software and monitor debugging.
• PM is a project manager whose responsibility is to organize work processes and communicate with the customer.

The bad news is that finding and hiring the right specialists for your staff is time-consuming and expensive, since the IT market is highly competitive. In addition, when choosing this path, you must have a good understanding of technical details and processes, because you will have to set tasks and monitor their implementation yourself. But the good news is that most often this is not necessary. After all, it is much easier to outsource development to an already well-coordinated team that understands this, and pay for the result.

How not to make a mistake when choosing an outsourcing team

Today there are many companies that offer outsourced development of online stores – in Ukraine alone, according to the IT-rating portal, there are more than 1000 of them. Therefore, before signing an agreement, we recommend that you perform several important steps:

• Check the portfolio – see what projects the potential contractor has completed in the past, and whether he has the necessary experience to create your store.
• View reviews – learn what previous clients say about the company, whether they are satisfied with the result and what difficulties they encountered during the development process.
• Compare companies – don’t stop at the first outsourcing company. The more options you consider, the better, because even if someone is right for you, it’s always good to have an alternative.
• View the contractor’s rating – if a team takes leading positions in various thematic IT ratings, it most likely does its job really well.
• Finding out whether the company provides post-release support is important if, after completing development, you do not want to be left alone with a new project. In order for an online store to be in demand on the market, it needs to be constantly developed and refined, so this point is extremely important.

Now let’s talk about the main stages of developing an online store so that you understand what and how will happen after signing an outsourcing agreement. And since each company builds processes in its own way, we’ll tell you how everything works in our team:

Stage 1. Collection of information. You tell the specialists your idea and vision. We study your request, analyze the market and competitors, and then offer a specific solution. When goals and expectations are coordinated, we move on.

Stage 2. Prototype. Taking into account the data obtained, specialists create a prototype of the online store, which allows us to understand how it will look and function after release. As a rule, such a mockup includes warframes and a mindmap of the interface, a description of all planned functions and block diagrams of modules. Additionally, we record demonstration videos for the client and conduct a presentation of the prototype to eliminate misunderstandings and errors in communication.

Stage 3. Design development. Using modern UI trends, designers create a unique and user-friendly interface.

Stage 4. Frontend development. Frontend is the client part of an online store. Its function is to display data and generate requests for the server. To implement it, we can use standard HTML, CSS, JavaScript technologies or the Vue and React frameworks.

Stage 5. Backend development. The backend is written in Java, and its main tasks are data processing, ensuring system performance and security. During its implementation, programmers write functional code, build a client-server architecture and perform API integration with external services: payment systems, CRM, warehouse software, etc.

Stage 6. Testing. One of the most important stages aimed at identifying and eliminating bugs that could have been introduced during the main development.

Stage 7. Support and development. After the release, the online store enters the stage of technical support and development: developers ensure stable operation of the project, fix bugs found by users and work to improve functionality.

At first glance, developing an online store may seem lengthy, complicated and expensive. However, with a carefully thought-out business plan and competent technical implementation, the payback of such a project will be very fast. To minimize risks, we suggest creating an MVP first.

With its help, you can check the viability of an idea and lay a good foundation for the smooth development of your business. If you are ready to act now, fill out the feedback form, and we will contact you shortly to discuss the project.