E-commerce battle - Choosing the right platform for your business
E-commerce is one of the most used and applied concept in the business world today. E-commerce provides a platform for the businesses to continue purchase and sale online, through the Internet. Though e-commerce seems to be a magical business model, helping you to enrich your business, it is not so simple. In order to ensure that ecommerce works effectively and to incorporate the full advantages of e-commerce into your business, choosing the right platform is essential.
It is advisable to use a pre-built platform, rather than developing a brand new one, from the scratch. In order to build an e-commerce business, you need to leverage and deploy a third party platform like the Big Commerce, Shopify, Woocommerce. However, it is difficult to choose from a wide variety of available platforms. The chosen platform has to exactly match your business requirements.
Before deciding on the best e-commerce platforms, here is a quick checklist. Be sure to verify these, before finalising and integrating an e-commerce platform.
1. Calculate and compare the prices: It is essential to calculate the prices of various e-commerce platforms that are available and compare the implementation price of each of these. This will help you to calculate the exact price that will be invested in order to integrate and use that platform for your business.
2. Carry out in-depth research: Do not base your purchase on the reviews of the product. Carry out in-depth research. The platform that is most appropriate for your business might not be the same for another similar business. Rely on the results in hand and not only on the reviews. For example, if your business is related to selling clothes, digital books and furniture, you can choose Shopify. However, if you business ideas have to deal with home types of equipment and outdoor equipment, you can go to Volusion.
3. Select the appropriate hosting company: It is important to select your hosting company with diligence. Selecting a poor web hosting platform will make your e-commerce business ineffective and lower your search rankings. Oiit may also result in site downtimes. It is essential to know, whether the selected hosting company provides 24*7 support and whether they have provision for daily backups. Be sure to know whether your site will be on a shared server. If so, how many sites would share the server at the same time? Verification of these points will guide you choose the most appropriate hosting company for your business.
4. Make sure the chosen platform can be used by your team: Before you finalize on the e-commerce platform that you would like to choose for your business, make sure that your team of developers have the expertise to use the chosen platforms.
E-commerce platforms are supposed to make your business easier for you. Remember this goal of the e-commerce platforms. If they fail to ease your efforts, it is not the most appropriate for your business requirements. Choose the right platform wisely.