In this realm of digital entrepreneurship, establishing an online presence has become necessary for all kinds of businesses. The eCommerce industry is also rapidly evolving at a rate like never before. Here are some latest statistics which prove the same.
So, whether you are an entrepreneur, business owner, marketer, or developer, you need to be utterly conscious in choosing an eCommerce platform, as it will be the reason behind the success or failure of your online store.
But the question is, what is an eCommerce platform? An eCommerce platform is an end-to-end technology solution allowing businesses to build, manage, and operate online stores efficiently.
To simplify your task, here will look at how to choose an eCommerce platform. We will walk through the benefits of selecting an eCommerce platform, essential factors for choosing an eCommerce platform.
So, let’s get started.
Choosing the right eCommerce platform offers numerous benefits to store owners including:
User-Friendly Experience: The right eCommerce platform ensures a seamless user experience, keeping your customers hooked and engaged in all stages.
Scalability: The suitable platform upscales your business, adapting to changing customer preferences and growing traffic, expanding your product offerings, and allowing you to thrive in the changing digital environment.
Cost-Efficiency: Cost efficiency can be promoted by avoiding expenses and allocating resources where they are most needed by choosing a platform that fits your business requirements.
Customization Options: An excellent eCommerce platform gives you customization and design freedom, enabling you to establish a distinctive brand identity and make a name for yourself in a crowded industry.
Marketing Tools: With integrated marketing tools like social media integration, email marketing, and SEO optimization, the suitable platform may help you efficiently reach a larger audience and increase sales.
In a nutshell, choosing the right eCommerce platform can transform your business while delivering a smooth shopping experience and streamlining behind-the-scenes operations.
Choosing the right eCommerce platform is not just about finding a place to display your products online. The platform you select will influence how your business operates, grows, and interacts with customers over time.
In fact, your eCommerce platform will directly affect several key areas of your business:
Growth:
Your platform should be able to support your business as it expands. This includes handling increased traffic, adding new products, entering new markets, or integrating additional sales channels such as mobile apps or marketplaces. A scalable platform ensures your store can grow without constant technical limitations.
Running Costs:
Beyond the initial setup, every platform comes with ongoing costs. These may include hosting, software subscriptions, payment processing fees, maintenance, and potential development work. Choosing a platform that fits your budget while supporting long-term growth is essential.
Customer Experience:
The platform you choose shapes how customers interact with your store. Features such as fast page loading, smooth checkout processes, mobile responsiveness, and personalization options all influence how customers perceive your brand and whether they return to buy again.
Business Goals:
Your eCommerce platform should support your overall business objectives. Whether your focus is improving operational efficiency, increasing conversions, or delivering a unique shopping experience, the platform should align with your strategy and allow room for future improvements.
While design and branding are important, the real value of an eCommerce platform lies in how well it supports your operations, customer engagement, and long-term profitability. Keeping these factors in mind will help you choose a platform that truly supports your business goals.
WebDesk Solution has over a decade of experience in the eCommerce industry. We can help you find the right eCommerce platform.
Let’s ConnectHere is the list of factors you should consider while choosing an eCommerce platform for your business:
When discussing hosting, you have two options: self-hosted and hosted platforms.
Self-hostedYou are the sole owner of the self-hosted platform. Hence, you have to look after hosting, installation, and updates. This platform offers higher control, better flexibility, and more security.
Hosted PlatformsTalking about the hosted platform, you get a built-in hosting service. The platform is quick to set up and easy to maintain. Hence it’s an excellent choice for anyone with less technical experience. In addition, this platform is cost-effective and offers better support. However, you have limited control over the servers.
In the platform ownership, you have three options: Open-source, SaaS, and Headless Commerce. Let’s look at all of these options in detail.
Open-SourceYou have complete control over the source code in the open-source platform. Hence, you can change the code and modify your online store. Some popular examples of open-source platforms include WooCommerce and Magento.
These platforms come with extensive support from online communities and various built-in integrations & extensions.
The open-source platforms are ideal for IT software solutions providers, as they require technical knowledge and regular maintenance. Lastly, with this platform, businesses of any size can offer a tailored experience to the audience.
SaaS eCommerce PlatformsThese platforms provide a convenient and user-friendly approach when considering platform ownership. The SaaS provider looks after the security, hosting, updates, and other essential management tasks, thus enabling you to focus on your business.
The platform has a built-in subscription-based model, offering you a pre-built system that you can leverage to customize the store up to a certain level. The only drawback with the SaaS platform is that it has limitations when it comes to flexibility and level of customization.
Headless CommerceNowadays, people love shopping online devices like smart wearables, laptops, smartphones, etc. Hence, providing a flawless experience for you to users across different devices is essential. That’s where the need for headless commerce comes in.
In headless commerce, the front-end layer is decoupled from the back-end. The developers can transfer information from the front-end to the back-end with an API (Application programming interface) and offer a personalized experience to users.
One of the key advantages of headless commerce is the flexibility it provides in designing and delivering content across various channels. Businesses can easily adapt their content and user interfaces to suit different devices and platforms, ensuring a seamless experience for customers.
The only concern is that the platform requires proper technical expertise to build and maintain. Some of the best headless commerce platforms are Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, and Commercetools.
Choosing an eCommerce platform involves considering important factors like the theme and user experience. These factors play a vital role in not just attracting potential customers but also in ensuring their return.
Let’s start with themes. Imagine you walk into an offline store, and the overall atmosphere urges you to buy something due to its attractive and unique layout.
The same applies to an online store; people like to purchase things from a store that offers an immersive experience. On the other hand, 38% of people leave a website if the layout is not up to the mark.
Therefore, you need to choose an eCommerce platform that offers a range of beautiful free & paid themes. Then, you will find a theme that aligns well with your business & industry.
In this modern age, people don’t look at the product or the price but the experience they get from a store. According to statistics, 88% of users are less likely to return to a website if they have a terrible user experience.
To avoid this, you should look for an eCommerce platform that helps you deliver a smooth user experience. To offer a great experience, check whether the platform provides features like quick checkout, robust search, and effective product management.
Inventory and order management directly impact the operational efficiency and satisfaction of the customers. Therefore, you should give importance to this factor. Here are some crucial things to consider regarding inventory and order management systems.
Robust Inventory Tracking: A standard eCommerce platform should provide extensive inventory management with features like real-time stock tracking, automatic stock updates, and low stock levels. By having all these things, you can ensure that the store has the right amount of inventory, protecting you from situations like overselling or out-of-the-stock.
Demand Forecasting: A modern inventory management system lets you forecast demand, which means you know in advance the total stock you need to fulfill the needs of the customers.
Streamline Order Processing: It should enable you to process the orders without any hindrance. It helps you satisfy your customers’ needs and minimize any order-related orders.
Backorder Management: At times, products might go out of stock. A powerful order management platform comes with backorder management; it lets customers place orders even when the product is out of stock. The customers also get the estimated delivery date of the selected product.
Integration with ERP systems: ERP is one of the essential eCommerce integrations. If you use an ERP system to handle your business, choosing an eCommerce platform that integrates well with the ERP system would be beneficial. This integration would properly synchronize customer, order, and stock data.
By choosing an eCommerce platform with such capabilities, you will deliver a better customer experience and drive business growth.
You should ensure that the eCommerce platform offers some of the best functionalities to operate your online store without any hindrance. Here are some of the functionality & usage features to check out:
Product Management: The platform should have advanced product management, allowing the admin to create, manage, and update the product catalog. It even lets you offer a better experience to the customers.
Customer Management: The eCommerce platform should help you track all the orders, look after various customer accounts, and offer valuable support.
Checkout: A frictionless checkout process is vital—follow these checkout page best practices to reduce abandonment rates.
Shipping Options: The eCommerce platform should let you iterate shipping partners and instantly check shopping rates and print labels.
Dynamic Filters: It should allow you to integrate dynamic filters such as price, color, size, and more.
Payment Processing: It should enable you to include different payment gateways so that users can make payments using their desired method.
Customization Options: The eCommerce platform should offer various design tools, editing features, and more.
Reporting: The eCommerce platform should provide you with necessary reports related to traffic, sales, conversion rates, etc. This lets you know where your store is heading and make essential shifts to achieve your business goals.
Our team of eCommerce experts can assist you in every aspect of choosing an eCommerce platform for you!
Let’s TalkWith time, you will aim to scale your online store and take your business to the next level. Hence, the eCommerce platform you choose should also scale with your online store. In simple words, the eCommerce platform should have the capability to handle additional traffic, product catalog, etc., without any reduction in performance. Here are some points to look after to analyze the store’s scalability.
Infrastructure: Do research and find a platform that can handle higher traffic. A progressive eCommerce platform would possess necessary resources like processing power and memory to provide desired output to users without any crashes.
Adaptable Architecture: The architecture of the eCommerce platform should be versatile. The platform should let you include new and essential eCommerce features, integrate various services, and grow your business efficiently.
Load Balancing & Caching: Load balancing will bifurcate the requests into different servers, thus preventing overload on a single server. Caching mechanisms save the relevant user data and instantly offer it to users whenever needed.
Security is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing an eCommerce platform. Since an online store handles sensitive customer information such as personal details and payment data, protecting that information should be a top priority.
For this reason, it is essential to choose an eCommerce platform that includes strong built-in security features. Below are some key security aspects you should evaluate before selecting a platform.
Effective Encryption:
The platform should support strong encryption protocols such as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security). These technologies encrypt the data transferred between the customer and the website, ensuring that sensitive information like login credentials and payment details remains protected.
PCI Compliance:
Make sure the platform follows PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requirements. PCI compliance helps protect cardholder data and reduces the risk of credit card fraud or data breaches during online transactions.
Fraud Prevention Measures:
A reliable platform should include tools to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions. Common security measures include address verification systems (AVS), card verification value (CVV) checks, and suspicious activity monitoring to identify potentially risky transactions.
Regulatory Compliance:
In addition to payment security, the platform should also help businesses comply with data privacy regulations such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). These regulations focus on how customer data is collected, stored, and used, helping businesses protect user privacy and avoid legal issues.
Search engine optimization is crucial to bring organic traffic to the website, increase site visibility in search engines, and get more sales.
The eCommerce platform you choose should have some primary SEO features. Firstly, it should let you optimize the structure, content, and keywords. It should also allow you to include meta descriptions, add a blog, use your domain name, enable customers to leave reviews, optimize URLs, include sitemaps, and more. In addition, it should integrate with SEO plugins.
Page load speed is also essential when we consider SEO. Therefore, you should always choose a platform that emphasizes more on page speed optimization. By this, your online store will load without any hindrance.
Nowadays, many people purchase most things, like groceries, food, clothes, etc., from different devices like tablets, smartphones, laptops, and more. In short, mobile commerce has become a need of the hour. Therefore, you should focus on mobile-friendliness to provide a smooth shopping experience to users on any device.
At the initial stage, consider a platform that has built-in responsive design templates. The main benefit of these templates is that they are flexible and ensure your online store looks great on most devices and screen sizes.
Other than this, you should check whether the platform has mobile wallets or one-click payments. It allows customers to purchase the products efficiently and decrease the cart abandonment rate.
People worldwide now use different social media platforms not only to connect with friends but also to discover and purchase products from brands. According to Sprout Social, around 56% of users buy something through social media at least once a week. Therefore, choosing an eCommerce platform that supports selling across multiple channels is important.
With cross-platform selling, you can promote and sell your products on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and other online marketplaces while managing everything from one place.
Some leading eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and PrestaShop offer built-in multi-channel selling capabilities. Other platforms such as Squarespace, Wix, and Square Online also allow merchants to connect their stores with various sales channels.
Using a platform with strong cross-platform support helps you list and manage products across social media, marketplaces, and your main website, making it easier to reach customers wherever they prefer to shop while keeping inventory and orders organized.
While choosing an eCommerce platform, you should consider a platform that provides multiple payment gateways. In general, a payment gateway is a technology that offers secure & reliable transactions between the customer’s bank and your online store. Here are some of the most crucial things you should consider in an eCommerce platform.
Initially, you should ensure that the eCommerce platform is compatible with some leading payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, Square, etc. Another thing you should check is that the eCommerce platform supports local payment gateways that fulfill the needs of the potential audience.
Ultimately, you should ensure that the eCommerce platform offers better flexibility when considering payment gateways. In other words, it should let you integrate eWallets, credit cards, debit cards, Bank transfers, etc.
Even though the eCommerce platform offers a range of features & functionalities for running an online store, you would need to integrate something different to meet your business needs. That’s where the need for integrations & plugins comes in.
Select an eCommerce platform that integrates with CRMs, payment gateways, shipping providers, marketing tools, POS systems, etc.
In addition to this, you should also identify whether the platform allows custom integrations.
Considering all these things, you will find an eCommerce platform that offers better flexibility.
Many businesses overlook an important factor when choosing an eCommerce platform: the quality of customer support and documentation. However, reliable support can make a big difference when you face technical issues or need guidance while managing your store.
Here are a few aspects you should evaluate before selecting a platform.
Instant Support:
Customer support becomes essential whenever you encounter issues while using the platform or need help managing your online store. It is best to choose a platform that offers support through multiple channels such as phone, email, and live chat so you can get assistance quickly when needed.
Availability Matters:
Before committing to a platform, check the availability of their support team. Some platforms only provide limited support hours or restrict the number of support requests based on your plan. Having access to timely assistance can save you a lot of frustration when urgent issues arise.
Access to Human Support:
While many platforms use automated chatbots for initial responses, it is important that you can easily reach a real support representative when necessary. Speaking with a knowledgeable support agent can help resolve complex issues much faster than relying solely on automated responses.
Reputation of Support Services:
It is always a good idea to read user reviews and community discussions to understand how responsive and helpful the platform’s support team actually is. Real experiences from other merchants can give you a clearer picture of what to expect.
Comprehensive Documentation:
Good documentation provides self-help resources that allow users to solve common issues independently. These resources usually include blogs, step-by-step guides, tutorials, and frequently asked questions.
Online Learning Resources:
A reliable eCommerce platform should also provide educational materials to help users learn and grow. Resources such as video tutorials, webinars, and community forums can help store owners better understand the platform and stay updated with new features and best practices.
Being a new-age business owner, you want an eCommerce platform that offers you all the necessary functionalities for your business, plus its cost fits well with your budget. The pricing of an eCommerce platform varies depending on its type, development, maintenance, and more.
Here, we will walk you through some of the most crucial aspects while choosing an eCommerce platform based on price.
Cost Structure: Different eCommerce platforms have diverse pricing structures. Several come with a subscription-based model, while others have a transaction model. Choose an eCommerce platform depending on your current business operations and future growth.
Additional Fees: Consider all the additional fees associated with an eCommerce platform. These would be payment gateway charges, add-on charges, or transaction fees.
Maintenance & Upgradation Costs: These costs vary based on the type of eCommerce platform you choose. If you go with an open-source platform, you will need assistance with maintenance and upgradation. For the same, you should hire an eCommerce developer. Talking about the SaaS platform, you don’t require additional maintenance, plus you don’t have to worry about any updates as the platform does itself.
Here are some of the most crucial things you should avoid while selecting an eCommerce platform for your business.
Investing in an outdated eCommerce platform with a rigid monolithic infrastructure reduces your online store performance and leads to slow growth. It even lacks the required features, updates, and compatibility a modern store needs. In addition, it results in a poor user experience.
Other than this, it is really challenging to update a thing in such an eCommerce platform as you need to deploy the entire system, which leads to a huge downtime.
Rather than this, you should focus on an eCommerce platform with a microservices architecture that is quick to upgrade, update and manage.
An eCommerce platform that is challenging to scale affects the long-term scalability of your business. In general, such eCommerce platforms are unstable as they do not offer support for multi-tenancy and multi-site and depend heavily on local servers or poor infrastructure.
These eCommerce platforms have low performance, slow loading times, and bad user experience.
While having too many features refers to scalability, choosing an eCommerce platform with many features can be counterproductive. Firstly, this makes the platform complex and leads to a clustered UI. It even affects the site’s performance. In addition, you are paying more bucks and not utilizing the features of the platform.
Instead, you should go with a platform with a minimal set of features that lets you integrate more features & functionality as your business grows.
WebDesk Solution can help you build a user-friendly eCommerce store that exceeds your expectations!
Let’s DiscussWe hope that you have understood how to choose an eCommerce platform. By defining your business needs & and budget, carefully considering all the factors mentioned above, and avoiding unnecessary things, you can choose an eCommerce platform that aligns well with your business. Choosing the right platform will help you grow efficiently in the digital landscape.
If you face any challenges in choosing the right eCommerce platform, feel free to reach out to us.
WebDesk Solution has an expertise in eCommerce development. We have delivered some of the best online stores to businesses using the leading eCommerce platforms. Hence, we can help you choose the right platform and provide you with a modern and customized online store for your business.
No matter what stage you are in, we would love to talk to you about your project. No pressure, no obligation, just straight talk and helpful insight.
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