Online retail space is very competitive as it has flourished out of bounds. And it will be more pervasive by 2023 due to a sharp increase in the eCommerce business. As per Statista, retail eCommerce sales worldwide are projected to reach 31.7 trillion U.S. dollars by 2025. Entrepreneurs are investing wholeheartedly around the world in eCommerce development as it yields higher returns on investment.
Moreover, developing an eCommerce website is the real challenge, as an entrepreneur has to choose from various platforms to create the desired website. Choosing the right eCommerce platform is vital to building the best quality eCommerce websites. But, the availability of a plethora of these platforms makes this task considerably difficult.
So, here we have come up with a few things that you should look for in an eCommerce platform to choose the right one for your eCommerce web development project.
Although there are many eCommerce platforms to choose from, only a few of them can be considered the best for developing online stores. Nevertheless, there is no hard-and-fast rule to decide which platform is best and which one is not.
We are providing some tips here to help you find a suitable eCommerce platform that you can choose for your eCommerce development project.
Start your search for the perfect eCommerce platform by looking at the ease of setting up an online store. You might be a person with or without technical knowledge. If you lack technical knowledge, you would like to choose an eCommerce development platform that does not require a complex and highly technical installation process.
Even if you dabble in web development, having an easy eCommerce platform would always be your first choice because it saves time and effort. Thus, you can start by looking for an easy-to-use eCommerce platform.
There are possibilities that you may find your audience on various platforms, such as social media channels. Thus, to capture that market and increase your business sales, you need an eCommerce platform that allows you to sell via multiple channels.
Selling on multiple channels, such as online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, as well as your own store and social media channels, is an excellent way to maximize sales volume. Having an eCommerce platform that supports multi-channel selling lets you collect all those different sales channels in one spot.
Online stores are a big target for hackers who often steal sensitive information like credit/debit card details, user ids, passwords, etc. Thus, website security is a significant concern that you should consider when choosing an eCommerce platform.
Many eCommerce platforms offer in-built security features, while others come with top-of-the-line safety features that enable you to develop highly secure eCommerce websites. Look for an eCommerce platform that supports HTTPS and other advanced security features and complies with PCI-DSS to build impregnable websites.
A product management system is designed to allow the admin of an eCommerce website to upload products and manage product listings. You may need more than that, and you will require some advancements for this. You need an efficient and better product management system to ensure smooth updating and management of your products.
Here are some features that an eCommerce platform should offer with a product management system
As per a report, approximately half of the web traffic worldwide comes from mobile devices, which tells how important mobile devices are in the world today. Indeed, mobile devices have overtaken desktops in terms of usage as more and more people use mobiles for online searches. You cannot ignore this fact, so you must create a mobile responsive website to offer an optimal user experience on different devices.
It has become essential to have a responsive eCommerce website these days. By choosing a mobile-friendly eCommerce platform, you can ensure that your website is responsive. You can hire web developers to develop a mobile-responsive website.
If shoppers are looking for something that your online store is offering, they should be able to find your store to buy from you. Shoppers can find your online store if it is visible on search engine results pages, primarily on the first page. This is where you count on search engine optimization or SEO for short. You will always want to have a high-ranking eCommerce website to get the most web traffic on your site.
Choosing an SEO-friendly eCommerce platform is the best way to achieve this objective as these platforms allow you to build well-optimized websites that will have a good ranking on search engine results pages. Thus, it would be best if you look for an SEO-friendly platform for eCommerce development.
Look for a platform that offers basic SEO features like:
Scalability is an essential factor when it comes to choosing an eCommerce platform. In the future, you may plan to expand your business, and if the platform you have chosen for your eCommerce development project does not support scalability, you might have a hard time scaling up your site. Thus, you must look for an eCommerce platform that can allow you to scale up your website, considering your business needs in the future.
This might seem a trivial thing to many entrepreneurs, but tech support can come out to be an essential thing in the long run. Websites are subject to regular maintenance and overhauling due to technological progress, business changes, new trends, etc. All in all, technical glitches may occur on your website that only an expert can resolve. Hence, it would help if you look for an eCommerce platform that offers reliable tech support readily available when you need it.
Besides this, many eCommerce platforms also have huge community support that serves as a robust means of resolving issues and finding solutions when you’re stuck somewhere in the platform’s functionality. This kind of platform will make your eCommerce web development project go smoothly and stress-free.
Managing product returns is another crucial feature that allows you to take care of the return policy of your online store. You shouldn’t ignore this aspect if you want happy customers who believe in your eCommerce website.
Typical return management features include:
There are many top eCommerce platforms today, like Magento, Shopify, PrestaShop, and WooCommerce. To choose the right platform, you need to list the various merits and demerits of these top platforms to determine which might best fit your needs.
By doing proper research on different platforms that you have on your list of possible choices, you can figure out which one best meets your requirements. Your research can be helpful in determining which eCommerce platform is the right option for your online store.
Prior to your research, it is crucial to understand those parameters that go into your considerations before selecting an eCommerce platform. These parameters include cost, flexibility, ease of use, time to set up and launch a site, and so on.
Like you test-drive a car before deciding to buy it, you can also take a trial of an eCommerce platform prior to making a final choice. Indeed, free trials can help you determine the feasibility of an eCommerce platform for your business.
While in the case of a free platform, you don’t need such a step, it is relevant if you are considering investing in a premium platform to build your eCommerce store. A free trial gives you the opportunity to test various features and functionalities of an eCommerce store before committing to a subscription.
Taking a quick experience with the platform will help you determine if it fits your requirements by figuring out if it is suitable for a specific product and your workflow. You can also compare different platforms by taking advantage of free trials. All in all, it is helpful to make an informed decision about which eCommerce platform to choose for your project.
Let’s check the top eCommerce platforms in 2023 that you can pick for creating any eCommerce website. Also, the detailed overview of the best technologies for eCommerce web development can help you select the most suitable option for your eCommerce project.
Magento, which has now become Adobe Commerce, is one of the top eCommerce platforms with amazing features. It is widely used for developing advanced eCommerce websites because it offers customizable themes, modules and extensions, and more that help in creating complex eCommerce websites. It lets you build flexible, scalable, and multilingual eCommerce websites.
Another feature-rich eCommerce platform is Shopify which is user-friendly and best to start an eCommerce store within a few clicks. Indeed, Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform, so you don’t require anything separately to start a basic eCommerce store. Also, creating a website is a straightforward process without any coding or configurations.
It is an open-source eCommerce platform that allows different businesses to build and manage eCommerce stores. The platform offers a plethora of user-centric functionalities that enable any business to set up a robust eCommerce store. This platform is easy to use and suitable for well-customized eCommerce websites.
PrestaShop offers a wide range of features and functionalities, including order management, inventory management, customer management, and product management. This platform has a great suite of tools and features to build and manage a myriad of eCommerce sites.
It is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress, which is open source and hence available for free. This plugin allows you to transform your WordPress website into a full-fledged eCommerce platform conveniently. It lets you create a website with diverse functionalities and features.
WooCommerce is user-friendly and easy to set up, as you just have to install a plugin on your WordPress website. It lets you easily manage inventory, products, orders, and customers from a single dashboard.
We didn’t discuss generic eCommerce features but tried to determine the essential functionalities you should expect in an eCommerce platform. You can find a combination of mentioned features that most platforms may offer, and you can test out different e-commerce platforms to judge them more accurately.
You should review different platforms more sensibly to understand which one fulfills your needs more precisely. Businesses differ in their needs and requirements; thus, you can consider a platform that best fits your website. You can also leave this task to a professional eCommerce website development company.
CSSChopper is a leading eCommerce development company that you can trust for this job. We can help you choose the right platform for your eCommerce website and create a modern, feature-rich, user-friendly online store for you.