As E-Commerce is very popular these days and almost every organization is moving to online business for their growth and success.
But those who are planning to move to this platform, don’t know various aspects of e-commerce portal and due to this, they are unable to take right decision of choosing a correct portal.
So, here this article may help you in this regard.
1. Choosing a platform
When choosing an e-commerce platform for online business, following factors need to be considered:
Own website or their portal
Next, you need to decide, whether you wish to host your online store on your site or on an e-commerce platform. If you chose your site, you need to take care of everything from beginning to end, which is quite difficult as everyone is not technical expertise.
That’s why max companies used e-commerce platform for hosting their stores. But before selecting the one, go through all the features offered by e-commerce platform.
Options for Design
Some of the E-Commerce platforms offered pre-built themes to design your online store to give a good look. You can choose one of them or if you have some specific needs for your online business, then to meet some platforms offered designers or developers who can design your store accordingly.
What your business is selling
Before choosing a platform, first, your product options must be defined, as what you are selling, determines which e-commerce platform can be used by you. All E-Commerce platforms do not support every kind of product. Some platforms built to handle the only physical product, some to handle digital product and some both or one. Some platforms support unlimited products and some charge according to their qty.
So, before selecting the one, read its terms and conditions carefully, whether the platform supports your product or not.
Tools for Integration
Many E-Commerce platforms offer tools meant for integration with various services such as marketing, finance, reporting, inventory, and others. So, try to choose the platform which offers you those tools which you are already using.
Pricing and Features
Different E-Commerce platforms offered different features and thus their price also varies. So, choose the one which satisfies you in terms of features and fits in your budget.
Payment Gateways
Various payment gateways are available such as Strip, PayPal, Authorize but choose the platform which is using your ones.
Extra Fees
Read the terms and conditions carefully to know if a platform is charging any additional fees in the name of setup fees, processing fees, themes fees etc.
2. Most popular e-commerce platform
There are various e-commerce platforms but the best ones are as follow:
- Magento – Small businesses who are hosting storefronts so that their customers can be enterprised, for them, this is a good option. It offers community edition for free. For 100 SKU’s, pricing begins at $15 per month. Price for Enterprise edition is not on the list.
- BigCommerce –
This platform is meant for both small to big businesses. For supporting unlimited products, pricing starts at $34.95 per month.
- Shopify – Shopify is a very popular and best e-commerce platform which permits their clients to have good storefronts. They provide various themes and apps integrated with famous services. For physical storage, it has POS. For unlimited products, it costs starts at $29 per month.
- InfusionSoft – This is having an option of e-commerce and it is especially meant for automation of sales, automation of marketing and for customer relationship management. Its pricing starts at $299 per month.
- Selz – It is an e-commerce platform which is recently introduced and allows you to have embeddable widgets and storefront, hosted on Selz. Like others, it does not charge on monthly basis. They only charge a commission of 5% + $0.25 for the transaction occurred.
3. Selection web hosting
After following the above steps, choose the web hosting provider who may host your online store properly on your site or at chosen e-commerce platform.
4. Good Domain name
After selecting a hosting provider, assign a good domain name to your online platform, by which people know you. And then start conducting online business with your customers.
