Top 10 Imperatives To Consider Before Choosing The Right Ecommerce Platform

With ecommerce looming year-on-year, online retailers need to have the right technology to underpin their strategy. But, with so many platforms coming in handy, how can you define which one is right for you? 

Nevertheless, choosing the right ecommerce platform is one of the fundamental and crucial decisions you will make in the early life of your business. The choices are never-ending, but what matters the most? 

Here’s The List Of Imperatives You Need To Consider While Making The Decisive Choice. 

Staying consistent has never been harder! 

Thus, offering the rapid pace of innovation, driven by the numbers along with a variety of emerging technologies, among other things, the global epidemic created further additional economic and operational strain.   

As part of the accelerated digitalization, online buyers expect customized, fast, and hassle-free experiences. So, if your online store doesn’t deliver, you are losing out on sales that predict 17% of goods will be brought online in 2021, approximately doubling from 2016.  

Falling on the sales is just the tip of the nasty news iceberg. 

So, better brace yourself for the impact of unfavourable reviews with the right app developers, else complaints on social media goes viral – “Is It All You Need To Make Your Customers Love You.”  

That’s the biggest reason for choosing an ecommerce platform, but you should love it, too. So, before you decide on an online store builder, ensure it skyrockets beyond the sale. 

Buyers do make the shopping lists. It’s an intelligent approach for selecting an ecommerce platform, too. What you need depends on what you sell, though there are unskippable features that belong at the top of the list. 

Here’s what to consider before choosing: 

1. Feature Set 

Opting the best eCommerce platform offers an extensive array of bells and whistles. Just a handful of features are crucial. Shed light on them.

• Payment Options: Can your customers pay easily the way they want to? What about international customers’ payments? 

• Content Creation: A weak content management platform (CMS) can create a strong ecommerce platform. Google promotes online stores with content that helps people easily navigate to things they are looking for. 

• Website security: Ask your partnered ecommerce developer in Dubai to use a platform that goes beyond the basics. Do your opted platforms offer fraud protection and monitoring against shadow characters? 

• Shopping Cart Plugins and Add-ons: An ecommerce website without offering a shopping cart option is like a store without a cash register. 

• Customized Theme and Templates: Not just every of the, but good ones that jell with your own site’s design. A buyer’s first impression makes or brakes the sales.

2. Pricing Options: 

Neither one size fits all., nor does one price. So, hire an eCommerce platform that allows you to add or eliminate what you need. But, how do they come up with their pricing issue? 

The best and most flexible platform portray it this way: 

• Shopping and marketing features
• Plan, hosting and tools
• Back office and security 
• Help and support

The epoch runs on monthly billing cycles, and so do most ecommerce platforms.

3. Design Flexibility  

The ideal eCommerce software can be up and running in just a few hours. Even faster deployment may come with a sacrifice in some scenarios, while some may surrender design flexibility. 

Also, according to VeoPix, 94% of a user’s first impression comes from the design. 

That’s not the core objective of an ecommerce platform. They shed light on making it easy for developing an online store. The result is shopping Deja Vu for clients who ask themselves, “Have I seen this before?”

The leading ecommerce companies in Dubai make sure your ecommerce platform integrates your brand identity’s design elements. Most of the templates are flexible enough for that. You can validate to be sure. 

4.  Ease To Use

“Ecommerce platform” and “shopping cart software” are two distinctive elements. They both quickly help your online store and process payments seamlessly, but one is a subset of the other. So, before proceeding, ensure which one you need.  

If all you need is the complete solution, you want an ecommerce platform. It consists of hosting, templates for design, payment processing, marketing, security, merchant tools, and the list goes on. 

So, if you already have a website, you would require an escape to conduct business with your clients. Shopping carts prove to be the ideal fit.  

Grounded by plenty of vendors who offer their option, selecting an honest answer to the daunting question – “How easy does the interface need to be to run your online store?

Simple, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Now, will the solution you choose be easy for them, too?

5. Themes and Templates 

By partnering with an experienced ecommerce development company, you can design easily from scratch. But, wouldn’t you want to focus on selling?  Ecommerce software providers offer templates to make this easy. 

The perk of using a template is that you are already familiar with its work for your platform. The drawback is that some platforms just have limited themes. It’s recommended to check out the platform’s online community forums to learn what worked for others. Besides, you will find free or low-cost themes created by other users. Visit their sites and see the theme in action. 

Independently working designers offer more template choices as they focus on creating themes for specific platforms. 

6.  Functionality 

Your online store is the most crucial connection customers have with your brand. And, a poor buying experience can damage this. 

Can an ecommerce software solution manage the number of behemoth customers who come to your online store? Undeniably, capacity is a crucial functionality. The best-crafted ecommerce platforms provide this assurance, but this is not all. 

Customers expect customized experiences. Besides, do they want to see products based on their geographical location? Will they appreciate emails based on their earlier made purchases. 

Functionality answers all this. 

Challenge the eCommerce platform you are considering to show how it will customize the customer experience. 

7. Store Size

Without any doubt, brick and mortar stores have size constraints, but your online store doesn’t, right? 

In theory, it might be a no, but you still need to track and manage inventory. That helps you figure out the capacity you require. It’s a little more complex than you might consider. 

For instance, if you sell ten products that come in different colours, you have to find and track 100 items. You can assign each item with an alphanumeric SKU (Store Keeping Unit)

The most renowned ecommerce platforms have fluctuating prices rooted in store size.

8. Product Catalog

Your online store product catalogue is the online repository for every listed item you sell. It has to promote the things you want to push. Simultaneously, it must help your customers to find what they are looking for. 

Still, some questions are unanswered! Is investing time to look at the data fields an ecommerce platform offers. 

Are they inflexible?

Will there be a need to make a substitution?

So, opting for this solution will be the ideal solution that will work against you, not for you. The right choice will answer these questions:  

• Can you associate accessories and create bundles?
• How many product categories and subcategories can the catalogue brace?
• Can the catalogue present a product with different attributes? Are there any limitations?
•  Is it accessible to product or subcategory in more than one category without data replication?

9. Payment Gateways 

This is an integrated service that automates the payment transaction between you and your shoppers. The provided choice is a good fit if you are confident with the answers from thee questions: 

What Will You Ask Customers To Enter Payment Details On Your Website?

You are offered with three options. 

• A payment form hosted on a remote site. The payment details sent from the respective browser to a safe payment gateway. 

• A payment form on your website with details will be posted on your server. It’s the seamless checkout experience for your customers but loaded with needed certain precautions. That’s because it’s not safe. 

• Redirect or iFrame. It’s a secure form portrayed within a page on your site or redirects customers to a hosted payment page. This proves to be a safer option. 

10. Third-Party Solutions

Ask your partner ecommerce development company for the choice to select features or functionality you require. If it doesn’t support what you need, you will need to connect it to a solution someone else offers. Third-party integrations add or extend these functionalities:  

• Analytics and Testing: Manage how you will market it to your customers.
• Enterprise Management: It manages the mammoth data. 
• Content Management System: It manages the customer experience. 
• Tax Calculation: It manages your local or global tax compliance.
• Shipping and Address Validation: Easily manages fulfillment logistics.
• Socially Sharing and reviews: Manages how customers spread the word and also offer you star ratings. 
• Integrated Geolocation: Manage mammoth data.
• Payment Provider: It easily manages the way customers have to pay you.
• Search: Manage how people navigate and find things in your online store. 
• Email Marketing: Manages how you stay in touch with customers.  

But there’s not always a perfect match. Moreover, you can make it ideal as long as you know that the ecommerce platform you select plays well with others. 

The Final thought!

Selecting a solution is a vital element to evaluate the profitability of any ecommerce business. Undeniably, you do utterly need to hire an ecommerce developer that is well-versed with SEO guidelines, stays optimized for mobile devices etc. Although, beyond them lies the long-term objectives, sustenances and for sure your pocket. 

But remember, with a dynamically wavering market, you should choose a solution that fits perfectly in your pocket without leaving a burning hole and also checks on your business model.