How To Write an Ecommerce Website Requirements Document: Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices

Launching an ecommerce store sounds simple enough. Just add some products, images, and descriptions, and you’re good to go, right?

Well, not quite. 

If you want an ecommerce store that stands out and scales, you need more than just a few pretty pictures. You need a solid project plan. And it all starts with a website requirements document—your roadmap to bringing your vision to life.

Since 2009, Elogic has built over 500 ecommerce projects across multiple platforms. We involve a business analyst (BA) from the start to define ecommerce system requirements—so you won’t need to rework your website later.

And we’re here to share those insights.

Read on to learn about ecommerce website specifications—what they are, why they matter, and how to write them like a pro. And keep an eye out for a handy website requirements template we’ve included to help you along the way.

If you’re a fan of video guides, check this one on our YouTube channel.

What Is an Ecommerce Website Specification Document?

An ecommerce website specification document (WSD) is a set of requirements that define website behavior and user interaction. Essentially, it is your project’s blueprint that defines what features it should have and how users will interact with it.

It ensures that every stakeholder—whether it’s you or the development team—knows exactly what’s expected from the final product.

A WSD is crucial because it sets clear expectations, minimizes misunderstandings, and helps keep the project on track. It serves as an agreement between the store owner and the development agency, aligning everyone involved on the features, functionalities, and overall goals of the ecommerce website.

Mind that this is not the same as the final scope of work or statement of work. It is also different from the website functional requirements.

Each document has its distinct purpose, contributing to the overall clarity and success of the project.

Who Writes the Ecommerce Website Specification Document and What Is It Used For?

An ecommerce website specification document is usually put together by a business analyst, project manager, or project lead. The goal is to create a cohesive, unambiguous guide that ensures everyone is on the same page.
Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Outsourcing Ecommerce Development: Risky or Worth It?

“A solid ecommerce website specification document keeps your project aligned with strategic goals and maximizes ROI,” says Ivanka Pop, a lead business analyst at Elogic. “It’s about turning strategy into actionable website business requirements—leading to real results. Investing in a comprehensive spec from the start, even before implementation, is key to avoiding costly rework down the line.”

What are the main purposes of a website specification document?

• Establish an agreement between the client and IT team/development agency on the deliverables of the project.
• Reduce miscommunication, rework time, and development efforts/resources.
• Reduce the need to redesign, recode, and retest.
• Ensure that you have a realistic timeline and budget expectations.
• Define the project’s success criteria.
• Serve as a baseline for future enhancements and post-deployment support.

You might wonder: is it even practical? Where would I use this document? Depending on your role in the project, you might use ecommerce website specifications document differently:

• As a client, you need it for validation and contractual purposes.
• Business and systems analysts use it to analyze how the business goals are being achieved.
• Developers, designers, and technical leads use it as a guideline for implementing the solution.
• QA testers use it to make sure the requirements have been met.
• Project managers use it to manage and control the project.

What Should Be Included in a Website Requirements Specification Document?

An ecommerce website requirements specification document includes general sections and some ecommerce and platform-specific sections.
Get the website design requirements template below:

Here’s the structure we use at Elogic:

Project overview

Describe the business and industry in detail, including your ecommerce business model (e.g., B2C, B2B, marketplace), your niche, target audience, and market landscape. Outline your main business goals, such as revenue targets, customer acquisition objectives, or market expansion plans. Clearly specify what services or products you want to provide, how you will differentiate from competitors, and how these offerings will meet the needs of your target audience.

Basically, introduce your company.

Project overview example:

Whola is an online fashion wholesale marketplace targeting fashion retailers who want to stay relevant with the latest trends without the hassle of pre-ordering months in advance. The main goal is to double the retailer customer base within the next year by focusing on reducing inventory lead times and emphasizing “buy today, sell tomorrow” capabilities.

Purpose

What’s the main goal of your ecommerce website? Are you here to sell directly to consumers, connect businesses, or build a multi-vendor platform? 

Whatever your purpose, make it crystal clear. 

Whether it’s boosting online sales, generating leads, building brand awareness, or improving customer experience—this section sets the direction. Everything you build should tie back to this purpose, aligning with your business strategy and driving real results.

Purpose example:

The purpose of Whola’s ecommerce website is to enable fashion retailers to keep their inventory instantly relevant by offering next-day stock availability. The objective is to improve retailers’ stock efficiency, cater to changing fashion trends, and increase retailer satisfaction by 40% within the next year.

Technologies and system requirements for ecommerce website

• Content Management System (CMS) – Which CMS are you planning to use? There are a variety of options, from the simple and user-friendly Shopify to more complex systems like Magento. The key differences between these platforms lie in their customization options, functionality, and design flexibility. Magento is ideal for large-scale online stores, while Shopify is a great choice for small, non-tech merchants with smaller catalogs, offering simplicity and ease of use.

Read more: Top Ecommerce Platforms Overview: How to Choose the Best Solution for Your Business Size 

• Web framework – What technologies do you plan to use for building your site? Bootstrap is a popular front-end framework known for creating responsive websites.
• Web server – What web server do you want to use? Nginx is a top choice—it’s versatile, functioning as a web server, reverse proxy, load balancer, and more.
• Programming language – Which programming or scripting language will you use? Platforms like Magento 2.3.x support PHP 7.1.3+. This will vary depending on your chosen ecommerce platform.
• Communication – How will you stay connected with developers and your team? Email, Skype, Slack, and video tools like Zoom are common, but ultimately it depends on what works best for you.
• Hosting/Scaling – What kind of hosting setup do you want? Cloud server or virtual private server hosting? Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a leading cloud platform that makes managing cloud-hosted databases simple and scalable.
• Web application accelerator – How will you ensure your website is fast, reliable, and cost-effective? For Magento, Varnish Cache is an excellent choice—it’s a web accelerator and caching solution that speeds up load times.
• Data structure store – How do you plan on structuring and storing data? Redis is an open-source, in-memory data structure store that can function as a database, cache, and message broker.
• Tag Managers – Which tag manager will you use? Google Tag Manager is a popular option for managing JavaScript and HTML tags, offering support for third-party analytics and advanced tag management.
• JavaScript frameworks – Which JavaScript frameworks do you want to use? JavaScript is everywhere, and new frameworks pop up constantly. Popular choices include jQuery, Underscore, and Owl Carousel.
• Mobile frameworks – How will you ensure your site is fast and responsive for mobile users? jQuery Mobile is a great option for building mobile-optimized websites and apps.
• Widgets – Interested in adding responsive carousels and sliders? There are many widgets available—just pick ones compatible with your ecommerce platform.
• DNS hosting – What domain will you use, and where will you host it? There are lots of options, and ecommerce experts can recommend the best hosts for your platform.
• Others – This will vary depending on your project’s unique needs.

If you’re a non-tech founder and have no idea what these terms mean, don’t worry! Reach out to us with your idea and we’ll help you compile the website specifications document.

Business requirements

• General – Company description with general business goals and guidelines.
• Scope – A breakdown of the project, from development to release, to support. Specify how many hours per role you plan to have.
• Team – Roles and responsibilities for each member of the project.

Tasks & Release management

• Task workflow – Who creates tasks? Where do they create them? Who decides if a task is completed?
• Deploy workflow – How many deploy environments are you going to have? Who has access to them? Who decides when and where to deploy?

Functional ecommerce requirements list

• UX requirements – What should users be able to do? How can they interact with your website? Examples: buy products, add products to cart, go through the secure checkout process, pay online, etc.
• Management requirements – What should staff and management be able to do? Examples: access admin panel, check order history, create invoices, etc.
• Marketing requirements – What type of marketing activities should your website support? Examples: launch email marketing campaigns, create discounts and promo codes/gift cards, change cart price rules, etc.
• Sales requirements – What should your sales/management team be able to do? Examples: add payment and shipping methods, change prices, manage categories, etc.

Example of functional requirements of a website:

Add the following product filtering features to our home improvement webstore: price, popularity, power rate (Watt), heating area (m2), and usage (bathroom, kitchen, etc).

Features

This section is all about the features you want on your ecommerce site—the bells and whistles that make shopping an experience and not just a transaction. These features will help define how users interact with your site and whether they stick around or bounce. 

No matter what ecommerce platform you’re using, you’ll probably want to include some of the following website requirements examples:

• Customizable menu: Let shoppers easily navigate through product categories, collections, and key pages. Help your users to find exactly what they need—fast.
• Carousels: Use image or product carousels to highlight featured products, special deals, or new arrivals. They keep users engaged and make it easy to spotlight key offerings.
• Product wishlist: Let users save products for later. This not only keeps them coming back but also boosts your conversion rates by nudging customers to complete their purchases when they’re ready.
• Product inventory management system: Keep an eye on stock levels, automate updates, and manage inventory efficiently. This way, you’ll always know what’s available and can avoid disappointing your customers.
• CRM integration: Gather and manage customer data, streamline communications, and deliver personalized marketing campaigns that actually work.
• Multicurrency and multilanguage support: Make shopping a breeze for international customers by offering localized pricing and language preferences. 
• Advanced search (Algolia, Elasticsearch): Enhanced search engines make it super easy for users to find what they’re looking for, leading to a better overall shopping experience.
• One-step checkout: Fewer steps mean fewer reasons for customers to abandon their cart, which means more completed purchases.
• Integrations with review sites: Feature product reviews from trusted platforms. Reviews build trust, and trust translates into higher conversions.
• Payment processor integrations: Make sure your site connects with popular payment gateways. Offering multiple payment options makes the checkout process smoother.
• Product recommendations: Use AI-powered recommendations to suggest related or complementary products. Not only does this enhance the shopping experience, but it can also bump up your average order value.
• Customer chat support: Add live chat or chatbot support to handle customer questions in real time. This helps keep customers happy, reduces bounce rates, and leads to higher conversions.
• Mobile responsiveness: Make sure every feature is mobile-friendly. Shoppers use their phones—make sure they can buy from yours without any hiccups.
• User roles and permissions: Set different roles for team members—give admins full control while allowing content creators to update blogs or manage product descriptions. Keep everything running smoothly without micromanaging.

User roles

Basic Permission Scheme – This is where you specify which permissions and restrictions are in place for specific roles and responsibilities. Usually, there are four basic options available for every feature: Create, Read, Update, and Delete.

For an ecommerce site, there are three main roles: admin, customer, and customer support. Outline these roles according to their abilities (permissions/actions) within the system. Group actions according to something general, then break it down into smaller, more specific components, when applicable.

Here are some examples:

• Admin
  • (General) As an admin, I want to manage all products
    • (Specific) As an admin, I want to create products
      • (More specific) As an admin, I want to add a valid product name
• Customer
  • (General) As a customer, I want to buy a selected product
    • (Specific) As a customer, I want to create an account to proceed with the order from the shopping cart
• Customer support
  • (General) As customer support, I want to send order confirmation emails

Appendices

This is where you list all the third-party extensions you need to buy/subscribe/integrate to complete the project.

If you set up SEO objectives, you can write them in a separate appendix. Examples of objectives include page speed, link building, branding, lead generation.

All of these points should definitely be used for compiling a requirements template for an ecommerce website.

The Elogic Process: From the First Contact to the First Line of Code

Clients come to us with their ideas and problems. It’s our task to turn both into deliverable ecommerce solutions that will help our clients grow their businesses. This is the customer lifecycle from the first contact to the first day of ecommerce development.

Read more: What Does an Ecommerce Agency Do and How to Choose One? 

Step 1 — Initiation

Our partnership begins with an initial discussion that doesn’t go too deep, but is deep enough for us to get an idea of a rough estimate for budget and timeline.

Step 2 — Brief

Our next objective is to help our clients fill out a brief. It includes questions related to functional and non-functional requirements. Depending on the type of project (migration, a project from scratch, a custom module), the brief has its distinctive features.

Examples of questions for a project from scratch:

Non-functional

• Who is your target audience (geography, tastes, needs, gender, age)?
• What are your marketing channels and selling points?
• What are your scaling plans for the next 3-5 years?
• Who are your closest competitors?

Functional

• What is your country’s tax policy?
• How many currencies/languages will you have on your website?
• What are the user roles and desired access/actions for them?
• Do you plan on having third-party integrations (CRM, ERP, PIM, etc.)?
• What payment methods/payment gateways do you plan on using?

Get a website requirements document template of a brief for your webstore migration or contact us if you already have your ecommerce website specification document.

Send us your brief with website requirements and get your project estimate in a matter of days!

Send a brief

Step 3 — Research

After we finalize the brief, our business analysts do a full competitor and market analysis. We identify market trends, perform an SEO audit, and do research on technologies and services that may be required.

Step 4 — Prepare the ecommerce website requirements specification document

Once we go over the research and brief, we start working on the business requirement document for online shopping. If we have additional questions or concerns, we get in touch with the client. By ironing out the specifics ahead of time, we reduce the chances of something going wrong during development.

Step 5 — Multiple rounds of editing

Multiple rounds of editing ensure everything is included in the development plan and ecommerce website design requirements document. This may take some back and forth, and may require additional research.

Step 6 — Planning stage

The planning stage includes writing a work-breakdown structure (WBS). A WBS outlines the project in smaller components.

Here’s an example of a WBS for building a bicycle:

For an ecommerce website, you would break it down by headers, footers, text blocks, and sections for each page.

Step 7 — Roadmap

With all the necessary documentation for ecommerce website in hand, we can accurately estimate the timeline and cost of the deliverables. We agree to set up a schedule and a scope of the project.

Step 8 — First line of code

Once everything is planned and agreed upon, we start coding.

Takeaways — Things to remember

Having ecommerce website requirements won’t guarantee your project succeeds, because having a plan and executing a plan are two very different things.

However, a specification requirements document for an ecommerce store is essential because, without a clear understanding of all elements, features and requirements, no one can give you any guarantees that development and implementation will stay within your budget and timeline.