Launching an ecommerce store sounds simple enough — all you have to do is add some products, images, and descriptions, right? Nothing could be further from the truth. If you want to create a great ecommerce store, you need a great plan. Before ever adding products, design elements, or anything else, you need to have an ecommerce website requirements specification document.
The late Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
In this article, we’ll focus on ecommerce website specifications — what they are, what they’re for, and how to write them.
What is an ecommerce website specification?
A specification is a set of requirements that define website behavior and user interaction. In other words, requirements are capabilities and functionalities that are required in the end-product.
An ecommerce website requirements document describes your ecommerce website in detail. It also serves as an agreement between a store owner and the development agency, ensuring both sides are on the same page.
There are two main sets of requirements: functional and non-functional. Functional refers to the technical functionality of the website — how the website should function. Non-functional requirements are how the website is supposed to perform a certain function.
For example, among the essential functional requirements for an ecommerce website are the following: adding items to the cart, navigating the website, interacting with the user interface, etc. Non-functional requirements would be how the server handles requests, how it stands up to increasing amounts of logins/users, and other concerns like security and usability.
Who writes the ecommerce website specification document and what is it used for?
This document is usually put together by a business analyst, project manager, or project lead, and must be cohesive and unambiguous.
What are the main purposes of a website specification document?
Establish an agreement between the client and IT team/development agency on the deliverables of the project.
Reduce miscommunication, rework time, and development efforts/resources.
Reduce the need to redesign, recode, and retest.
Ensure that you have a realistic timeline and budget expectations.
Define the project’s success criteria.
Serve as a baseline for future enhancements and post-deployment support.
Where do online store owners use ecommerce website specifications document?
As a client, you use it for validation and contractual purposes.
Business and systems analysts use it to analyze how the business goals are being achieved.
Developers, designers, and technical leads use it as a guideline for implementing the solution.
QA testers use it to make sure the requirements have been met.
Project managers use it to manage and control the project.
Our process: From the first contact to the first line of code
Clients come to us with their ideas and problems. It’s our task to turn both into deliverable ecommerce solutions that will help our clients grow their businesses. This is the customer lifecycle from the first contact to the first day of ecommerce development.
Step 1 - Initiation
Our partnership begins with an initial discussion that doesn’t go too deep, but is deep enough for us to get an idea of a rough estimate for budget and timeline.
Step 2 - Brief
Our next objective is to help our clients fill out a brief. It includes questions related to functional and non-functional requirements. Depending on the type of project (migration, a project from scratch, a custom module), the brief has its distinctive features.
Examples of questions for a project from scratch:
Non-functional
Who is your target audience (geography, tastes, needs, gender, age)?
What are your marketing channels and selling points?
What are your scaling plans for the next 3-5 years?
Who are your closest competitors?
Functional
What is your country’s tax policy?
How many currencies/languages will you have on your website?
What are the user roles and desired access/actions for them?
Do you plan on having third-party integrations (CRM, ERP, PIM, etc.)?
What payment methods/payment gateways do you plan on using?
Step 3 - Research
After we finalize the brief, our business analysts do a full competitor and market analysis. We identify market trends, perform an SEO audit, and do research on technologies and services that may be required.
Step 4 - Prepare the ecommerce website requirements specification document
Once we go over the research and brief, we start working on the business requirement document for online shopping. If we have additional questions or concerns, we get in touch with the client. By ironing out the specifics ahead of time, we reduce the chances of something going wrong during development.
Step 5 - Multiple rounds of editing
Multiple rounds of editing ensure everything is included in the development plan and ecommerce website design requirements document. This may take some back and forth, and may require additional research.
Step 6 - Planning stage
The planning stage includes writing a work-breakdown structure (WBS). A WBS outlines the project in smaller components.
Here’s an example of a WBS for building a bicycle:
For an ecommerce website, you would break it down by headers, footers, text blocks, and sections for each page.
Step 7 - Roadmap
With all the necessary documentation for ecommerce website in hand, we can accurately estimate the timeline and cost of the deliverables. We agree to set up a schedule and a scope of the project.
Step 8 - First line of code
Once everything is planned and agreed upon, we start coding.
What should be included in a website requirements specification document?
An ecommerce website requirements specification document includes general sections and some ecommerce and platform-specific sections.
Here’s the structure we use:
1) Project Overview
Describe the business and industry. Outline your main business goals and what services/solutions you want to provide.
2) Technologies used
Content management system (CMS) – Which CMS do you want to use? There are different options from a simple WordPress CMS system, to a more complex like Magento, which is a popular ecommerce platform and CMS. Other examples of CMS software include Drupal, and Joomla. The main difference between these CMS is in customization, functionality, and design. Magento is a perfect fit for large online stores. There is also an option to use WordPress blog CMS with the Magento ecommerce platform.
Web framework – Which technologies do you want to use? Bootstrap is a well-known front-end framework for building responsive websites.
Web server – Which web server do you want to use? Nginx is by far the most popular. It’s a web server that can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy, and HTTP cache.
Programming language – Which programming/scripting language will be used? Platforms like Magento 2.3.x support PHP 7.1.3+. Depending on the ecommerce platform, this may vary.
Communication – How will you communicate with developers and your in-house team? Common choices are email, Skype, and Slack, different video conferencing tools like Zoom, or so.
but this is all up to you.Hosting/Scaling – Do you want to set up cloud server hosting or virtual private server hosting? Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the leading cloud platforms. AWS makes it easy to set up and manage cloud-hosted databases.
Web application accelerator – How will you deliver fast, reliable, and secure web-based applications in a cost-effective way? For Magento, Varnish Cache is a good choice. It’s a web accelerator and HTTP caching reverse proxy.
Data structure store – How do you plan on structuring and storing data? Redis is an open-source (BSD licensed), in-memory data structure store that is used as a database, cache, and message broker.
Tag Managers – Which tag manager do you want to implement? Google Tag Manager manages JavaScript and HTML tags used for tracking and using analytics on websites. It supports third-party analytics and offers advanced tag management.
JavaScript frameworks – Which frameworks do you want to use? JavaScript is everywhere and it seems like new frameworks are released on a daily basis. Examples include jQuery, Underscore, and Owl Carousel.
Mobile frameworks – How will you deliver fast, responsive mobile websites? jQuery Mobile is a touch-optimized web framework used to build websites and apps for smart devices.
Widgets – Do you want responsive carousels and sliders? There are tons of widgets out there; look for ones that work with your ecommerce platform of choice.
DNS hosting – What domain are you going to have and where are you going to host it? There are lots of options. Ecommerce experts can recommend which hosts work best for your platform.
Others – Depending on your project.
3) Business Requirements
General – Company description with general business goals and guidelines.
Scope – A breakdown of the project, from development to release, to support. Specify how many hours per role you plan to have.
Team – Roles and responsibilities for each member of the project.
Tasks & Release management
Task workflow – Who creates tasks? Where do they create them? Who decides if a task is completed?
Deploy workflow – How many deploy environments are you going to have? Who has access to them? Who decides when and where to deploy?
4) Functional Requirements
UX requirements – What should users be able to do? How can they interact with your website? Examples: buy products, add products to cart, go through the secure checkout process, pay online, etc.
Management requirements – What should staff and management be able to do? Examples: access admin panel, check order history, create invoices, etc.
Marketing requirements – What type of marketing activities should your website support? Examples: launch email marketing campaigns, create discounts and promo codes/gift cards, change cart price rules, etc.
Sales requirements – What should your sales/management team be able to do? Examples: add payment and shipping methods, change prices, manage categories, etc.
5) Features
This section includes all the features (native and third-party) that you want to add. Regardless of the ecommerce platform you choose, you will likely want to add:
A customizable menu
Carousels
A product wishlist
A product inventory management system
CRM integration
A blog module
Multicurrency/multilanguage
Enhanced search (Algolia, Elasticsearch)
One-step checkout
The ability to log in with social media/email accounts
Integrations with review sites
Integrations with payment processors/gateways
6) Project Roles
Basic Permission Scheme – This is where you specify which permissions and restrictions are in place for specific roles and responsibilities. Usually, there are four basic options available for every feature: Create, Read, Update, and Delete. For an ecommerce site, there are three main roles: admin, customer, and customer support. Outline these roles according to their abilities (permissions/actions) within the system. Group actions according to something general, then break it down into smaller, more specific components, when applicable.
Here are some examples:
Admin
(General) As an admin, I want to manage all products
(Specific) As an admin, I want to create products
(More specific) As an admin, I want to add a valid product name
Customer
(General) As a customer, I want to buy a selected product
(Specific) As a customer, I want to create an account to proceed with the order from the shopping cart
Customer support
(General) As customer support, I want to send order confirmation emails
7) Appendices
This is where you list all the third-party extensions you need to buy/subscribe/integrate to complete the project.
If you set up SEO objectives, you can write them in a separate appendix. Examples of objectives include page speed, link building, branding, lead generation.
All of these points should definitely be used for compiling a requirements template for an ecommerce website.
Takeaways - Things to remember
Having an ecommerce website requirements specification document won’t guarantee your project succeeds, because having a plan and executing a plan are two very different things.
However, a specification requirements document for an ecommerce store is essential because, without a clear understanding of all elements, features and requirements, no one can give you any guarantees that development and implementation will stay within your budget and timeline.
We value client partnerships and we’re proud to be partners with leading brands across a number of industries. If you’re thinking of launching an online store, remember: if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Ready to launch or rebrand your online store?
We, at Elogic, know how to set up a website and write ecommerce website requirements document that works. We have detailed ecommerce website requirements document templates that we use in our work. Contact us, and we will help you to transform your brand into an ecommerce leader.
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