How to Select an eCommerce Platform?

Would you like to do any online business? Then, it is necessary to have an eCommerce Platform. This is one of the important as well as basic decisions as the entire business is dependent on the same. One must select such an eCommerce platform which offers necessary tools for managing back office.

There are thousands of eCommerce platforms available in the market and here the thing is to choose the best among these. Retailers sticking with current solutions face problems to keep up with the industry.

Due to increase in the competition, it is necessary to select right platform which leads to the success of the business. For many traders, small electronic store can be a way to promote physical store. When we have an online shop on a very difficult platform then it is impossible to get sufficient profit.

Why there’s a need for top eCommerce platform?

A perfect eCommerce platform helps you to add tools which will aid in the growth of the business. Various platforms are designed for assisting an online store up to a certain point. After that particular level, one needs a more advanced platform to handle the business.

Well known e business platforms like Shopify and Magento provide a set of additional functions which can be installed on the shop. For most of the platforms, such functions are known as extensions.

Some of the well known functions are as follows:

• Sales and Marketing
• Shipping Fulfillment
• Order Management
• Customer Service
• Accounting
• Reporting and Analysis

The accounting function can combine the online shop with accounting software that is used to maintain the complete accounts of the organization. This is the easy way to link financial data and it will save many hours of work per month thus reducing the chances of mistakes being made.

If we talk about order management then these customer orders are shifted in excel sheet and then finally returned to warehouse to ship the order. Certain extensions or we can say applications offer the function of printing labels including all the customer data along with the date on which the product is to be delivered.

With this function, online store can easily communicate with warehouse delivery centre to convey the required information. Hence, product delivery can be done easily without any hassle. There are also cases when the application combines all the data including shipping address, printing software and then the labels are printed automatically.

These tools reduce the manual labour thus making the work process quicker. When an order takes place, all of the functions are performed by itself and there’s no need of any order follow up. Such tools are important for any business that has grown to an extent.

Hence, while selecting any particular eCommerce platform it is necessary to keep in mind whether it will be able to perform all the functions easily or not.

Further, one must know few things to ensure whether an eCommerce platform is perfect or not:

1. Cost: A small business or we can say any start up may need a very small platform to cater its needs. There are various types of platforms available which one can select as per the need. Also, budget is an important thing that one must keep in mind while selecting the platform for your online business.

   Initially, it is advisable to go for free plan or any particular platform that offers free tier. Platforms like Hybris can also be considered. Such eCommerce grounds levy costs based on the proportion of sales generated by its assistance.

   For this, it is necessary to take out the estimated cost that you will be able to afford for basic software every month. This will include all the expenses like as hosting fees, payment card fees as well as transaction fees.

2. Time taken to get started: Various Software as service programmes can be used while will help to take business live within few hours. While there are other solutions available that take months to make the project live.

   So, here you must be aware how much time you need for setting up your eCommerce site as well as developing your eCommerce store. Platform is only a small part of an online business start up but it is very important as if the base is strong, the building is definitely going to be stronger.

   An online store requires product photos, descriptions, proper content for about us page, payment gateway and many more. Hence, it is advisable to identify an eCommerce solution which will be ready when the entire business is ready to be set up.

3. Will your store look attractive and have smooth functioning: Success of an online store depends on factors like store functioning as well as its look. Usually first time shoppers will trust any online business if and only if its design is good.

   Yes, we can say this may not be the right thing but actually this is the real scenario because majority people believe in the concept of ‘Seeing is Believing”. If you the layout is good, business is good and if it is bad then business may be doubtful.

   It is like the look matters a lot whether it is an offline or an online store. Well, will you love to purchase things from any shop that has broken floorings or is situated in very congested place? Definitely not, instead you will prefer to go to any showroom that is fully furnished with AC.

   Same is the case with online store. The better the look and feel, the more visits the website has and also now days, an important thing is that it must function well on mobile devices. Hence, this thing must also be borne in mind.

Wind Up

Well, these were some important things that one must keep in mind while selecting an eCommerce platform. Apart from this, there are few more factors that must be considered such as Page load, Hosting, flexibility with other solutions etc.

Hope this blog post will be useful to you. For more such tips about eCommerce platform; stay tuned with Softqube Technologies, eCommerce development Company India.