If you’re thinking about moving your business or store online, then you’re probably want to know which eCommerce platform you should use. The platform for your website will determine how your business will be run, so it’s vital that you choose correctly.
Keep reading to find out which questions you should ask yourself, how you should choose your eCommerce platform, and how your individual needs will affect which platform you go with!
Thinking Of Choosing eCommerce Platform
You need to be prepared and think about several important things. First of all, you should
ask yourself the following questions:
What Is Your Budget?
Your business won’t go very far if you can’t manage how much money you’re willing to spend on it. Knowing your budget will help you to narrow down which platforms and packages you can choose.
What Is the Size of Your Business?
This question is vital if you plan to upgrade its capacity in the future. A more massive company will need more forward-looking and more expensive plan, and a smaller store will need smaller packages. If you’re thinking about upgrading your online shop from a small business to an enterprise quickly and can afford a more expensive plan, then you can do so right away; otherwise, you can upgrade late on.
How Many Products and Categories Will You Have in Your Online Store?
If you’re running a primary store with simple products, product descriptions, and categories, then you don’t need much to run your online store.
For smaller businesses, you can smoothly go with WordPress or WooCommerce because they have some basic, customizable plans that suit your needs. If you’re trying to run a small, local tea shop, then WooCommerce is the best for you because you can create a WordPress site where you can post all of your products with a small description.
If, on the other hand, you’d like to open a clothing store, then you should look toward Magento® because you’ll probably have a lot of categories and subcategories, as well as clothing sizes and customizations. Larger enterprises, though, will probably want to go with a larger eCommerce platform. It is especially true if you have a lot of products and subcategories for your customers to file through. In these situations, you’ll want to go with a larger eCommerce platform like Magento 2 or Shopify.
That’s because Magento 2 is more versatile and has more force behind it. You can add as many subcategories and descriptions as you’d like as long as you have the right extensions. Also, it provides advanced SEO features that will help you to build a robust marketing strategy for your online store and attract more customers. Companies like Ford, Nike, and Louboutin use Magento 2.
What Payment Systems Are You Going to Use?
The payment system you use will determine which add-ons and extensions you’ll be using as well. Not only this, but you’ll want to make sure that whichever platform you use can integrate your payment method into your site. You should consider that including add-ons on your site could be more expensive.
Magento, for instance, uses payment gateways like Paypal online and cash on delivery offline; meanwhile, WooCommerce uses major credit cards, PayPal, and cash on distribution. If you need the additional options for payment gateways, you’ll need to install some free payment extensions, or you can buy the available ones.
How Your Requirements Match the Out-Of-Box Solutions of Existing Platforms?
If you’re working on a budget, you probably don’t want to buy a custom solution because these are significantly more expensive than other options. Instead, you should consider going with a platform that is flexible. If you need a site that has custom colors, for example, then you can find this with plenty of flexible, existing platforms like Magento, or even Magento 2.
Magento 2 is flexible because it’s an open-source platform, which means that you can edit your site’s code at any time. By doing so, you can always alter the information in your online store. You can also create many stores so that it’s available in different languages; thereby, increasing your exposure around the world and generating more revenue.
Depending on your needs, you can find plans that match them! Magento, for example, has thousands of available add-ons that will allow you to develop your custom site.
Choosing eCommerce Platforms Solution: Criterias You Should Consider
When you’re looking at the differences between platforms, you need to pay attention to a few things:
- Out-of-the-box functionality. You want something that is out-of-the-box and something that isn’t like all the other sites out there. Because of this, you need to choose a platform that functions the way you want it to, as well as one that allows for flexibility.
- Scalability and flexibility. A platform that is scalable is one that will allow you to grow as a company, and one that is flexible is one that will allow you to modify your website as you do.
- Technical requirements and costs. We’ve already spoken a little about the hosting costs, but won’t be any good for your company if you’re paying more than you can afford. You’ll be using money that you can otherwise be using in your business.
- Website security. With any online business, you need to make sure that your customers, and your company, is safe. Your platform needs to have some form of online security.
- Easiness in use. If you can’t code, then you shouldn’t go with a platform that requires you to. Likewise, your platform shouldn’t be too hard to customize or modify.
Easy-to-Use eCommerce Platforms
Some eCommerce platforms are much easier to use than others. These include:
- WooCommerce
- Shopify
- Prestashop
They each have their reasons for being easy to use, but the main reason is that none of these require extensive coding. Magento, on the other hand, requires much more coding, and you many companies hire developers.
Top Enterprise eCommerce Platforms
The main competitors in this category are:
- Magento 2 Commerce
- Oracle Commerce
- SAP Hybris
- Demandware
- Shopify Plus
- IBM Websphere
- Intershop
While critics have claimed that Magento 2 isn’t easy to use as because it may involve coding, every update makes it easier and more user-friendly. It is one of the leaders on the USA market and it allows for thousands of add-ons so that each site is completely customizable.
Which eCommerce Platform Is the Most Powerful?
Overall, Magento 2 is the more powerful platform. It allows for large enterprises to create sites that suit their needs. You get to choose your add-ons, consider your wished website functionality and choose a good web development team. When you’re choosing how your online site is run, you have to decide which platform suits your needs best.
There are lots of other things you should think about, such as:
- required functionality;
- 3rd-party integrations;
- marketing tools you want to use;
- the way of communication with the customers;
- specific shopping and selling features.