eCommerce has become a popular business model and its popularity has grown steadily in the last few years. Online sales jumped to nearly 40% in 2020, and they’re predicted to the only surge in the future. If you’re starting an online business, an eCommerce site is important in order to capitalize on this trend. Opting for a reputed and feature-rich eCommerce platform saves you time as well as money. There are tons of platforms available for eCommerce development and choosing the right one is a challenging job.
This blog outlines key parameters to consider when looking for the best eCommerce platform for your online business.
Tips to Choose the Best eCommerce Platform
1. Pricing and Payment
The first thing to consider when looking for an eCommerce platform is the price. Whether you own a startup or an established business with the plan to move online, you need to know exactly what you’ll be paying.
Depending on the platform the costs may vary. You should consider processing fees related to the platform. Don’t compromise the quality for a cheaper price. Try to analyze the pros and cons of each as per the budget. As per experts, Magento 2 development is a great platform to start an online business.
Some platforms are not compatible to work with third party vendors. This cause serious troubles for customers leading to shopping cart abandonment. Avoid this risk; consult experts to integrate different payment models.
2. Third-Party Integrations
Another factor to make a selection when looking at eCommerce platforms is the third-party integrations. A number of platforms, such as Magento, will have a range of tools to run online business. Your business requirements will be a key factor when deciding plugins and extensions that are worth valuable. When searching for multiple platforms, look for the tools you’ll need for your business.
Here are some of the most popular extensions that you should consider:
- Accounting extensions for managing sales, taxes, revenues, and profits
- Marketing extensions to keep you in contact with your customers
- Extensions to reward customers for buying different products and shipping your products
3. SEO Friendliness
eCommerce business success relies on how SEO-friendly it is. In fact, it is highly advantageous to reach top ranks in search results for better sales. You want your customers to reach you organically when they’re searching for services like yours. Take guidance from Magento developers to integrate SEO features for desired business results.
Some of the most significant factors when searching for an SEO friendly platform comprise:
- Feature to add a blog to your website
- Feature to use your own domain name
- Platform for customers to leave reviews
4. Customer Service
A key feature that makes or breaks a business is its customer service. To provide customer service like traditional brick-and-mortar businesses is a challenge. eCommerce is a different setup; software outages and server downtimes are common. The worst moment is when servers get crashed. This simply impacts both revenue and your brand image.
Reaching out at any time to help you get things up and running again is an important factor when selecting eCommerce platforms. Check whether the platform is offering customer service 24/7. How many levels of support is provided and at which price? Learn about these questions before you decide a platform.
5. Security
Buyers prefer shopping from website having secure interface. No one want to share their credit card details on a suspicious website, which is why security is the biggest concerns among consumers. While most software nowadays have robust security as standard, always make sure your platform supports HTTPS/SSL for a secure checkout. Also, check whether the platform you choose is PCI compliant or not.
6. Mobile Friendliness-]
It is a game-changing fact that around 60% of searches are done from mobile devices. Often those searches result in purchases from a mobile device. This means it is crucial to search for platforms like Magento eCommerce designs allowing customers to properly access the website using mobile device.
7. Scalability
All business owners look for a platform that is scalable as per the business growth in the future. It becomes challenging to identify a platform that will scale along with your business. No vendor will pay for features and storage that they are not using. But they definitely want to keep up with higher demands once the business takes off. Select a platform that is scalable to meet your business size and won’t charge extra for doing so.
So, these are important tips to make a proper and smart eCommerce platform selection for online business.
Conclusion
Starting a new online business is challenging, but moving from the conventional store to an online version is challenging especially with so many options available. To start with selecting an eCommerce platform check the different set of requirements and keep up with the latest trends. But it is well worth creating processes that work and scale with your business. Seeing every parameter of Magento eCommerce development is worth investing in to start an online selling platform and surely help you find success in the competitive world.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a good eCommerce platform?
Good eCommerce web design is all about using the right colors, fonts, images, words, and graphics to convince visitors to make a purchase. Your eCommerce website design should attract potential customers, provide a great user experience and present your shop in the best light.
What are the unique features of eCommerce?
Unique Features of eCommerce Technology:
- Ubiquity
- Global Reach
- Interactivity
- Universal Standards
- Information richness
- Information Density
How do I choose an eCommerce platform?
Besides looking at development, there are other factors to consider when selecting an eCommerce platform.
- Security
- Support
- Scalability
- SEO-friendliness
- Mobile-friendliness
- Vendor experience and expertise
