Fostering Your Business Performance with e-Commerce Platforms

Launching a website for your online storefront is a big step already, but it’s actually not enough to start selling and managing your online sales effectively. You also need to connect your marketplace to the right e-commerce platform to provide a relevant shopping experience on multiple platforms and stay competitive enough in your niche. This guide by Riselane.com experts will shed light on everything you need to consider while choosing an e-commerce platform for your business.

1. Types of e-Commerce Platforms

There are 5 types of e-commerce platforms at the moment, and you need to know the difference to make the right choice:

1. Proprietary – creating a custom e-commerce solution is the least popular option due to rather high development costs, but you may have no other choice if your business niche requires features that aren’t available on ready-made platforms.
2. Traditional – this type of platform provides a software “basement” that can be customized to match your business needs and installed on your servers or cloud.
3. Open-source – this type involves the same development efforts as the traditional type, but it doesn’t require you to purchase an annual license.
4. Cloud-based – these are hosted platforms that don’t require proprietary hardware solutions.
5. SaaS – this type of platform provides you with a fixed set of features along with hosting, maintenance, security features, and updates. This type is the least flexible, but usually the most affordable for small businesses.

2. Processing Costs

Processing costs are perhaps the most important factor to consider as you need to obtain the most relevant solution that doesn’t exceed your budget. Processing costs include:

• Maintenance costs – using proprietary, traditional, and open-source platforms involve higher maintenance costs and require extra workforce expenses, while SaaS solutions take care of everything for a monthly fee, which is usually lower.
• Upgrade/improvement costs – again, all but SaaS platforms require you to install the latest system updates and implement improvements with your own workforce.
• UX improvement costs – UX changes are always costly, but can significantly improve the ROI of your store. Almost all SaaS platforms allow them.

3. Main Features to Consider

Below are e-commerce platform features that you simply can’t go without:

• Scalability – if you have plans to grow your business, your e-commerce solution must be adaptable.
• SEO tools – SEO is highly important for your website search engine rankings. SEO-friendly platforms let you add a blog, use a custom domain name, and get reviews from customers.
• Mobile-friendliness – as most online purchases are done via mobile devices, you must avoid platforms that are not up to date.
• Security – this feature is the most important as an unsecured online marketplace will be quickly spotted and attacked by hackers, causing chargeback problems and customer identity theft cases.
• Website personalization – a personalized UX is a huge sales driver, so your platform must have at least a recommendation engine for personalized suggestions.
• Analytics – consistent KPI and metrics analysis is necessary for timely improvements, so your platform must come with a proprietary analytic solution or offer a list of integrations.
• Integrations – integrations with Google Merchant and Facebook are necessary to drive more organic traffic from the search engine and social media, such as Facebook and Instagram.
• Multiple payment options – the more payment options your website offers, the better. PayPal, credit cards, and debit cards are an essential minimum today.
• Headless commerce – headless commerce is a key to users who prefer using their voice assistants and wearables for shopping.

Stay Flexible

The only way to keep afloat in the ever-changing market is to keep up with actual customer needs to keep your storefront appealing. It all starts with choosing the right e-commerce platform, so don’t hesitate to try different options until you find which one brings the highest ROI. No one but you knows the real needs of your business, so the earlier you start, the better.