In the last decade, the digital transformation has fueled the flourishing of eCommerce. Businesses now focus on personalization and the ability to acquire clients rapidly in the digital medium. Online businesses require built and upgraded eCommerce portals with interactive features that can capture audience interest and convert leads into clients.

As an eCommerce firm, if you want to provide customers with access to a wide range of products to choose from, you need to have a connected, sizable, and well-organized database. To make this happen, you require the best instruments and a technical expert who can guide you. By hiring a PHP developer, you can make your online presence competitive. Additionally, you can focus on building a fulfilling and easy customer experience, along with ensuring safe transactions for your eCommerce portal.

Developers around the world prefer to build an eCommerce portal with PHP because the process of creating an eCommerce website is complex and involves key phases such as market research, Conception, analysis of client requirements, prototyping, UI/UX design, eCommerce programming, QA and testing, and website launch. To accomplish this, they can utilize various coding languages like JavaScript, PHP, Python, etc. However, in this article, we will explore the reasons behind the preference for PHP when it comes to building a successful eCommerce website or mobile app.

Here's why you must have comprehensive knowledge of PHP and its use in building an eCommerce portal.

1. PHP, its use as a coding language, and its popularity?

Before we delve into details, it's important to note that developers around the world widely adopt PHP as the most commonly used coding language. PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor and offers easy learning and high scalability. It operates as a server-side scripting language, running applications on web servers rather than web browsers.

People regard PHP as one of the most popular programming tools for web development due to its growing popularity and increasing use. It offers numerous advantages thanks to its very effective technology, which simplifies the development process by providing numerous additional tools.

Why PHP is Used and Why it is Different?

  1. Compatibility and Integration

PHP compatibility extends to operating systems such as Linux, Solaris, and UNIX, making it easy to use. Integrating existing software with PHP eliminates the need for developing everything from scratch and allows seamless integration with other technologies like Java, resulting in cost savings.

PHP also supports compatibility with web servers like Apache, IIS, and numerous other applications. You can use PHP as a module or a CGI processor. Consequently, PHP grants you complete control over the operating system and web server of your choice. Moreover, you can select between procedural programming and object-oriented programming (OOP), or even opt for a combination of the two.

  1. Performance Efficiency

Depending on how developers use it for coding, PHP has the potential to be an effective language. Developers can utilize it to create numerous web pages for a large application, making it the most preferred choice for many developers.

  1. Cost-Effective

PHP being an open-source language, it is free. There is no cost associated with buying a license or software. It can operate effectively with several databases like MySQL, Apache, and PostgreSQL. Creating a website using PHP is very affordable.

  1. Compatible Frameworks

You can always choose the PHP framework that best suits your web development task. Numerous PHP frameworks are readily available. You will never have an issue finding a PHP framework for code reuse, session management, etc., as Symphony, Zend, Slim, Phalcon, Yii, CakePHP, and other frameworks are widely used.

  1. Flexibility

Open-source allows you to code with any text editor like jEdit, Emacs, Notebook++, etc. PHP developers are not limited in creating a distinctive app. The advanced scripting language is not specific to any operating system and functions with a variety of platforms.

Here are some interesting statistics about the popularity of PHP

PHP is relied upon by 79.2% of all websites, making it one of the most popular languages among programmers and web developers due to its widespread use.

What are the advantages of utilizing PHP for eCommerce development?

  1. Responsive Designs for eCommerce

With the increasing use of mobile phones, the majority of users go online for shopping and to perform ordinary tasks. A website must have responsiveness, allowing it to be easily viewed on small devices such as smartphones without difficulty. PHP easily achieves this requirement.

  1. Header Designs

In PHP, you can add fixed headers to access the main menu and enhance the look and feel of your website and brand.

  1. Easy to Understand

If you're a new bee developer, you may find PHP to be the perfect programming language. It offers simplicity in usage and further simplifies things with features like dynamic typing and associative layouts.

  1. Simple to Operate

PHP's built-in database connection modules facilitate effortless database access, thereby saving developers time and energy during web app and website development.

  1. Issues for eCommerce Regarding PHP Security

Programming errors pose the most frequent security concern, while flaws with the language or core libraries are rare. PHP experiences security breaches due to its language features and configuration options. For example, the dynamic loading of PHP extensions can cause security threats in a shared web hosting environment.

2. What are the top PHP platforms to consider for eCommerce development?

  1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is utilized by more than 30% of all online retailers. The WooCommerce community, which is sizable and actively supports the platform, regularly conducts security assessments to maintain its integrity. WooCommerce works flawlessly with WordPress, and its CMS is its best feature. Woocommerce offers several premium and free themes, along with third-party themes.

Magento is a highly dependable eCommerce platform and shopping cart for consumers and businesses. Developers utilize the PHP framework for building e-commerce systems, simplifying the development of scalable online businesses. The PHP framework's numerous extensions facilitate easy integration of relevant 3rd party apps with an online store.

Magento initially developed the platform for developers to avoid starting from scratch, but building an eCommerce business on this platform demands a certain level of PHP programming expertise. Magento holds the position of the 3rd most popular eCommerce store builder, with a market share of 9%.

  1. Drupal

Over 600,000 websites utilize Drupal, the PHP open-source eCommerce platform. Drupal incorporates various options for shipping and payment methods, while also maintaining organized records of receipts, orders, invoices, and payments. 

Drupal's content management system (CMS) offers a comprehensive administration interface with a checkout form and support for multiple currencies. Additionally, Drupal facilitates third-party connections for accounting fulfillment and integration with social networks.

  1. Joomla

Joomla, a PHP-based open-source CMS platform, offers extensions that allow it to function as an online store. Joomla offers a list of eCommerce plugins similar to WooCommerce offered by WordPress, making it the 2nd most popular CMS.

  1. PrestaShop

PrestaShop, an open-source eCommerce platform based on PHP, offers numerous features and functionalities. It ensures safety and regular upgrades, with a highly active community providing support. The platform caters to large online stores and allows modifications at any level of its architecture due to its open-source nature. With its user-friendly design, PrestaShop facilitates international sales by supporting over 75 different languages.

  1. Laravel

Building online shops, marketplaces, and other eCommerce-related web projects using Laravel offers several benefits. Laravel, an open-source PHP web framework, enables the creation of websites and online applications. It presents a smooth learning curve and includes several cutting-edge built-in libraries, with only a few PHP construction quirks as exceptions.

Laravel provides scalability, clear code organization, and excellent performance optimization for online applications. Additionally, the framework employs enhanced security methods to further defend online retailers from malicious attacks.

3. Examples of Famous Websites that Have Successfully Used PHP

  1. Etsy

Etsy, one of the best PHP eCommerce sites in the US, significantly enhanced page speeds for its 45 million customers by implementing HHVM (HipHop virtual machine) in its documentation. This implementation played a crucial role in the consistent development of the site over the past few years, benefiting its users.

  1. Spotify

PHP is utilized by the Spotify cloud-based music service, contributing to its position as one of the most extensively utilized music platforms globally. Spotify's continued use and advancement of PHP code enable users to easily search among millions of songs.

  1. Canva

Canva's design-ready templates enable more than 10 million users worldwide to create fantastic projects easily and affordably, as it uses PHP to simplify the delivery and search of templates.

  1. Flipkart

Flipkart, a well-known e-commerce platform that currently dominates internet markets, primarily comprises PHP.

  1. Flickr

Professional photographers frequently utilize Flickr, one of the websites that employs PHP and Nginx as the webserver for rapid page loading on high-traffic websites. Flickr offers a range of amazing features, including profiles, picture streams, albums, galleries, groups, and more.

4. The most important reasons to hire PHP developers

One must pay attention to the kind of projects the PHP developer has effectively delivered while selecting them.

If possible, please provide feedback from prior customers about their experience, evaluate the website's performance, and gather any other relevant information to gain a more in-depth understanding of the creation process. You can estimate the number of finished projects by considering that some developers work on multiple projects simultaneously.

Considerably more skilled developers will be those who can let their creative side speak for themselves than the competition in eCommerce development. The website's quality constantly attracts greater attention. As a result, carefully select engineers who can understand your brand.

5. What's the Responsibilities of a PHP developer?

- We are analyzing the needs of the application and the website.

  • Create effective PHP modules and write backend code.
  • Create back-end portals with a highly optimized database.
  • analyzing application and code problems.
  • integrating storage methods for data.
  • addressing front-end developers' needs for integration.
  • Testing the web application and finalizing back-end functionalities.
  • To improve performance, update and modify application features.

Our team of PHP developers played an active role in collaborating with a client to revamp their website using the PHP Laravel framework, effectively addressing and rectifying any existing security vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

PHP powers numerous web development projects, including e-commerce websites, and facilitates streamlined web development cycles while offering high scalability.

PHP web development offers the potential to maximize the utilization of the PHP language for constructing intricate website features and functions. In comparison to other languages, PHP entails lower costs and provides an extensive range of tools and solutions.