This is a guest post by Vikrant Shukla – CEO at Envision Ecommerce. He's a certified Magento Solution Specialist, eCommerce consultant, eCommerce evangelist and a writer. He's passionate about eCommerce product development & consulting. When not working with Magento and learning about the latest tech trends, he loves to spend time with his pet dogs. 

Magento has become a lifeline for a great chunk of eCommerce businesses. For online merchants that want to have absolute control and authority over each aspect of their eCommerce business, like managing billing, shipping, products, localizations and design - there's nothing that comes close to Magento. And these are not just words: according to Build With, Magento is leading the web with the highest number of installations and live eCommerce stores.

However, this extraordinary set of options and opportunities comes at a price. You can't just assign your Magento project to anyone. Especially, if you want a stable, fast and productive eCommerce store. That's why going with a certified Magento team is a solid guarantee of your project's success for many years to come. Here're some of these advantages.

Live Tech Support and Knowledge Base

As in many cases, it's sometimes more about the journey than about the destination. A certified Magento developer has to go through some extensive learning in order to successfully pass the exam. This means that they're exposed to a great number of eBooks, webinars and study guides, which can make them an invaluable member of your development team. This means that you basically have unobstructed access to Magento resources and tech support at any time. Magento certification validates and highlights developer’s knowledge, their understanding of the best coding and development practices.

Comprehensive Understanding of the Framework

Development of a successful Magento site requires knowledge of a comprehensive set of coding standards & development methodologies. Magento certification tests this knowledge and its depth. A certified development team is guaranteed to meet all of the coding standards and frameworks, required for any Magento store. This in turn, ensures smooth operations, better maintenance and project's longevity. 

Optimal Path for an Optimal Solution

With Magento and its complexity, you have dozens of ways for doing certain things, be that coding, store management or other operational procedures. Many developers usually stick to the one solution for a particular problem that might have worked for them in the past. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the solution is right for your store. Certified developers are required to get acquainted with all of the possible solutions during training and exam preparation. This means that a certified team simply has more tools at their disposal and can really pick something that is more fitting for your particular business. This leads to better problem-solving, cleaner code and overall stability of their final product. 

Return on Investment

A certified Magento team is simply better at building scalable eCommerce projects. This is achieved with their extensive knowledge of Magento's architecture, application flows and maintenance practices. What comes out in the end is a better store with less bugs and less lost sales due to any possible unforeseen issues.  Yes, you're paying more initially, but the hours and dollars that you'll save in the future overwhelm any immediate benefits. It can be even bigger than that - a certified Magento development team may be the piece of the puzzle that your business needs in order to succeed. 

What are some of the other advantages of hiring a certified Magento developer? Let us know in the comments below.