Why is Node.js the Best Choice to Develop an E-commerce Website?

May 27, 2022 Editor

From 2014 to 2021, the number of digital buyers has increased from 1.32B to 2.14B worldwide. In 2020, eCommerce sales surpassed $4.2T worldwide.

If the trends tell us anything, the numbers of digital shoppers will continue to increase. And so will these revenues. An eCommerce store a must-have for businesses that want to grow rapidly.

To build an eCommerce website, the first thing you need to choose is the right tech stack. It is one of the crucial decisions as it will become the foundation on which your website will be built.

How To Choose The Best Platform To Build eCommerce Websites?

Keep the following factors in mind before selecting a tech stack to build an eCommerce web application.

Security: Protecting your customers’ and vendors’ data should be your first priority while setting up your eCommerce store.
Scalability: Choose a platform that can keep up when your business becomes large.
Flexibility: The internet is a volatile place. Make sure that you can continue to add/remove features from your eCommerce site as per the market demands.
Usability: Your developers should find it easy to work with the framework. Choose one that has good support and lots of ready-to-go modules.

But how many tech stacks are there to choose from?

JavaScript: Unlike Java, it only runs on browsers and is easily embedded in HTML.
PHP: Famous, and is a great choice for website development.
Python: Easy to use, but have a relatively slower execution time.
Ruby on Rails: Average performance but offers great customizability.
Node.js: Relatively newer but is fast, scalable, and lightweight.

Node.js is quickly becoming the favorite for eCommerce business owners for a variety of reasons.

Let’s start by understanding what it is.

What is Node.js?

Node.js is a server environment. It is open-sourced, which means it is free. It runs on all platforms. On the server side, Node.js uses JavaScript.

Node.js is used to build web applications, including eCommerce websites.

In fact, 96% of businesses agree that using Node.js has a direct positive impact on your business.

Let’s take a look at the reasons.

Why is Node.js the Best Choice to Develop an E-commerce Website?

Extremely scalable

You can scale up your eCommerce business with Node.js both vertically and horizontally. Horizontally, you can scale it up to use it on multiple servers and you can scale it up vertically to increase its performance on a single server.

How?

Node.js uses single thread non-blocking I/O operations that can serve multiple requests through one single process at the same time. Because of that, it will consume fewer resources to accept simultaneous connections.

This makes Node.js a great choice for ambitious eCommerce businesses.

Efficient performance

Every eCommerce business owner wants their website to load up fast. It can be tricky as eCommerce websites need to connect the customer immediately to the server with the latest updates. This is also true for other aspects of eCommerce websites like support, updates, etc.

It is crucial for web developers to choose a platform that can handle data efficiently. Thankfully, Node.js delivers data to customers with lightning speed.

There are three things that make Node.js fast.

Uses V8 engine: It was developed by Google for the Chrome browser to compile data and execute functions fast. Node.js leverages that.
Tasks are asynchronous: They don’t hinder each other’s execution. As a result, the number of tasks occurring has little impact on speed.
Implements a single thread: Tasks take place concurrently in a single process. It also means that less processing power will be spent.

The above properties make Node.js a great choice for eCommerce website development.

Better for developers

Being an open-source platform, Node.js is developers’ favorite for a number of reasons.

Lightweight framework: As it implements an event-specific, non-blocking I/O model, it is quite lightweight. This makes the compilations fast.
Packages: The NPM registry contains 350,000 packages with more added regularly. The availability of these packages, or blocks of code, for free, makes the job easy for developers.
Excellent support: Joyent, a company that supported the development of Node.js created the Node.js Foundation in 2015. The foundation has proceeded to partner with different open-source frameworks including the Linux Foundation.

Linux is considered one of the most chosen operating systems for developers for its versatility and this partnership is music to the ears of developers. Fortunately, hiring Node.js programmers have become really easy as more and more developers are learning the tech stack.

Economical for businesses

Apart from the fact that it is open-source (free) and loved by eCommerce website developers, Node.js helps businesses by saving them resources.

Scales up and down automatically: You will spend less when you are using it less. This comes in handy when the product demand is low.
Versatile across all devices and platforms: Reduces the load on the developers as there is no requirement to repeat huge blocks of code. This increases the potential user base for eCommerce businesses.
Shorter app development tile: We mentioned here multiple times that Node.js is quite fast. It is so fast that it makes the time-to-market time significantly short.
Better applications are created: All the above features of the app make it possible to create eCommerce web applications fast and secure resulting in great UX. With it comes great values such as increased retention time, improved customer lifetime value, better ratings, and more.

There are a lot of integrated development environments (IDEs) that make Node.js development even easier. Here are a few of them.

Cloud9: Free and cloud-based. Also supports technologies like PHP, C++, and Meteor.
Komodo: It is compatible with multiple platforms and has useful features like syntax highlighting, code intelligence, and more.
Visual Studio Code: Developed by Microsoft and is free to use. It supports multiple languages and operates on all platforms.
IntelliJ IDEA: Crafted by JetBrains for professional developers. It comes with a lot of development aids that help developers that are starting out.

That’s a Wrap

Node.js is arguably the best eCommerce development framework so far. It is lightweight, agile, versatile, easy to use, and comes with ready-to-use packages. To sweeten the deal, there is also a very active online community that will help you when you get stuck.

We hope that we have helped you understand why Node.js is the best platform for developing eCommerce web applications or websites.

Appendix

Sources

https://www.esparkinfo.com/blog/why-nodejs-best-choice-for-ecommerce-site.html

https://mobiosolutions.com/why-nodejs-is-the-best-choice-to-develop-an-e-commerce-website/

https://keenethics.com/blog/4-reasons-to-use-node-js-for-e-commerce-platform

https://www.purchasecommerce.com/blog/best-technology-for-ecommerce-website

https://www.w3schools.com/nodejs/nodejs_intro.asp

https://nodejs.org/en/about/

https://codecondo.com/best-ide-for-node-js/

https://www.cmarix.com/blog/7-top-nodejs-ides-to-develop-modern-applications-in-2022/