7 Factors to Consider While Picking the Right e-commerce Platform

E-commerce industry has been flourishing leaps and bounds in the last decade. As per records, the online sale has increased 15% last year across the world, and the count is going to grow ever since in future too. Due to the globalization of online merchandise, every business is now selling products and services online through an e-commerce platform which is mandatory these days to stay in the business.

There are thousands of options available to you in the form of e-commerce Development Company in India offering various e-commerce Web Development Services when it comes to developing an online website for your business, the bigger question is how to know which option is best for you? Here in this piece of article, we have outlined some factors that you should consider when you’re looking for the top e-commerce platform for your business.

1. Costing and Payment

No doubt, the first thing that you should consider when searching for the best e-commerce platform is the cost. Irrespective of the nature and size of your business and whether you are a startup or a well-established firm, you need to know exactly what you’re going to pay.

Every platform will definitely seek a monthly fee. Based on the type of platform you get (self-hosted vs. hosted) the prices could vary. You must not forget considering the processing fees that will be linked with the platform. Try to analyze the pros and cons of every aspect to get the best within your budget.

You must also keep an eye on how your customers are going to pay. Some platforms are limited to some payment gateways and do not have the facility to pay via third-party vendors (such as PayPal). This might create a lot of inconvenience to your customers and you may lose some of them due to this inability and it may lead to shopping cart abandonment. Decide which forms of payment you’ll accept first and accordingly opt for the right platform.

2. SEO Driven

E-commerce businesses have to be SEO friendly to make it work well online. In fact, it can be highly beneficial to get your website rank high in search results for getting better visibility. It will help your clients find you easily and without much fuss when they’re searching for products similar to yours.

Some basic and critical aspects when looking for an SEO friendly e-commerce platform includes:

• The option to include a blog to your website
• The ability to use your personalized domain name
• The option of leaving reviews of your customers

3. Responsive Website

Do you know more than 50% of searches are performed using mobile devices? This mobile aspect is growing exponentially and people are more inclined towards purchasing from mobile devices. This means it’s now necessary to use those platforms that can create a responsive website which is mobile friendly. This will allow your customers to easily access your website and make a purchase on their mobile device.

4. Customer Service

A major factor instrumental in the success of any business is its customer service/after sale service. The experience of customer services in traditional brick-and-mortar businesses is based on a physical store, which has more control over their services, whereas in e-commerce, the scene is altogether different. Here you have to deal with the software outages and server downtimes are often out of your control, it all can prevent your customers from accessing your business.

Hence the remedy is to have someone to call at any time to help you get things up and running again. So you must keep this into consideration when selecting the right e-commerce platform for your business. Check out every platform’s customer service—are they available 24/7? How to reach them? How many levels of support are available, and what it all costs? Just pay attention to all these aspects and make sure you ask them before you zero into any one platform.

5. Integrations

Yet another major aspect of the right platform is their smooth integration and right plugins. Most platforms, like WooCommerce, Shopify etc. have plenty of tools and features to run your business seamlessly. Of course, your business nature and needs will be the determining factor when deciding on the plugins that you should have that will work best for you. When looking at the multiple platforms, check out the types of tools you will need or already use for your business. Below mentioned are some of the most popular types of plugins that you might want to integrate to your business:

• Invoicing, accounting plugins for better sales, taxes, revenues, and profit management
• Tools/ extensions to reward loyalty point to your customers for using your products
• Email marketing tools to keep you connected with your customers
• Apps/plugins to help with shipping your products

6. Security

Security is the most important of all the factors as no one what to enter their banking or credit card detail on an insecure website. Hence, security is one major factor you must not compromise as it is the biggest concerns among consumers. Although most software today will have robust security, do not forget to ensure your platform supports HTTPS/SSL for a safe and secure checkout for your customers.

In addition, do also make sure that the e-commerce platform you choose is PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant.

7. Scalability

Every entrepreneur hopes and wants to see their business flourish, but to what level cannot be predicted. So, considering this future growth in mind, you should select such a platform that will scale along with your business.

Paying for features and storage that you are not using is foolish when you first start out. Better to choose a platform that you can scale easily without paying outrageous fees for doing so.

Synopsis

Kick starting any new business that too in today’s online landscape is a herculean task—especially with so many options are open before you to start with—which is why to answer how to choose the right e-commerce platform is so difficult for many business owners. It is entirely based on your business needs and you should also keep up with the trends which are again a challenge. It is worth if the platform scales with your business. Your foresightedness can help you in choosing the right platform and can help you run it successfully! You can hire an ecommerce marketplace development services company to develop the right e-store for your business.