For me, the first step before starting work on an unknown existing Magento installation, is always a shop analysis. Not only to understand the requirements and processes of the merchant, but also and above all to evaluate the quality and recognize possible problems early on. Unfortunately, many shops are tinkered without any knowledge of conventions and best practices, which leads to:
- Suffering performance
- Security vulnerabilities
- Impossibility to update
- Unmaintainable code
Points 1 and 2 directly affect the merchant, point 3 and 4 lead to bugs being accumulated over time, which results in new changes causing bugs in different places, that get harder and harder to solve.
This bug-ridden cycle is often the reason merchants try a new agency or developer to “fix everything”, so it is no coincidence that most shops that land on my desk are in such a degenerated state. The more important it is to analyze first, before any quote for further development and maintenance, to not fall into the same trap as the predecessor and to add clarity on both sides.
Three-Tier Analysis
The analysis has a three-tier design such that after the first tier (1 to 2 hours of effort) there is already a rough estimation of quality and need for action, and after the second tier it is possible to make a quote for cleaning and updating the shop.