Look first at proven experience, not the size of the portfolio. Ask to see a couple of projects that match your technology stack, ecommerce software development company and then find out which engineers actually built it. A solid partner will put you on a call with the people who would work on your project. Answers that name nobody at this stage usually mean the delivery team is not the team you were shown.
The agreement needs more scrutiny than the proposal. A few clauses carry most of the weight: ownership of the code, non-disclosure, and termination and handover. All the work product has to transfer to you on payment, along with source code, designs and infrastructure as code. Look closely at wording that keeps reusable components with the vendor, because it is usually exactly the piece that locks you in.
Ask how they estimate. An honest estimate is accompanied by a written set of assumptions, a breakdown per feature and an explicit range. A fixed price is only reasonable when the specification is complete; in any other case the provider adds a risk premium and laravel development company you pay for it anyway. Time and materials puts the risk on your side, so it demands a cap, regular demos and transparent reporting.
Process matters more than team size. Find out how a new requirement enters the plan, who signs off on a feature and how testing is organised. A well-run team should be able to show you a live build at the end of each sprint. Acceptance criteria in writing stay your only real protection against the it-was-never-in-scope conversation.
Before signing, typescript api framework think about the handover while the relationship is still good. Require that the code repository lives under your account from the beginning, and that documentation is written as you go rather than left to the end. A provider confident in its own work says yes immediately; hesitation here reveals a great deal.