Factors to avoid before choosing an Ecommerce Platform

Now it’s a lot easier to pick the right e-commerce platform for your company because there are literally hundreds of options at your fingertips. They have their unique features and can be suited to your budgets. However if you find the process overwhelming or picking the site of a client becomes tricky, then you have to focus on what is more important for your site. There are 10 important factors that you can take into account to make the right choice for your business.

Nature of your business

You have to understand that not all e-commerce platforms work for all businesses, which is why you need to start by determining the nature of your own business. From the products you want to sell to what your site should look like; various considerations come into play. You also have to figure out how extensive you want the site to be before narrowing down on your options.

Simplicity

You will find that there are several e-commerce platforms that are easy to use. They are quite simple and of course they don’t come with the frills that you expect from more robust options. However if you have websites or blogs that only need to sell a few products, the simplicity of these platforms might work as an advantage.

Comprehensive packages

Comprehensive packages that have multiple solutions for site hosting, ecommerce web development, and order processing transaction management should be given precedence when making your decision. When you get a package that offers you different options, not only are you able to save costs but you can also ensure that all the different tasks are managed effectively as well.

Platform integration’s

If Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) systems are already a part of your business, then you have to think of platforms that can integrate these systems and make sure the procedures and workflows are streamlined too. You might also want to integrate social media platforms into the mix because it has huge advantages for your business. You can bring advertising, content and engagement to one place, which makes things easier to manage for you.

Think about scalability

The company you decide to work with should have the ability to ensure that it can keep up with the traffic your site can get. You also cannot afford to have any downtime’s because your business depends on your website. The scalability of features has to be taken into account too. You might not want to sell in different currencies or have sub categories for your business at the moment, but its needs can change over time and your platform should be able to adapt to it.

Evaluating the shopping experience

Simple and convenient merchandising tools, easy to follow checkout and discount modules should be paid attention to as well. Overall, the platform needs to have everything so that you can sell more online. From intuitive navigation structure to support for extensive product information, easy product upload process and features like image zoom, reviews, color swatches and comparisons; it can have different features for the complete experience.

Design flexibility

When you think about the design you have to think about page layout, branding, design applications, site navigation and a lot more. According to forecasts, 87% of online shoppers will use their mobile devices and tablets for purchases this year and that put the focus on simplicity and agility, which has to be incorporated in your ecommerce strategy.

Importance of being search friendly

When you switch platforms, you can lose position with search engines; hence it’s important to ask the provider if the platform is search friendly. You need to know if you have control over on-page SEO, metadata and URLs. Improved sitemap and ability to generate product feeds should be elements of the platform.

Type of shopping cart

It’s imperative that your platform has a shopping cart that can be seen by users because after all, that’s the first thing they look at. Shopping carts are quite handy when users are buying multiple products as it helps them keep track of their purchases.

Security

Encryption tools for the ecommerce platform cannot be overlooked at any cost either. These tools are important for security of transactions on your web store and ensure that no third party can get the payments made to you by the customers. Personal information of customers including their shipping address is also protected and you are secured from fraudulent payment attempts too.

For any ecommerce business, picking the right ecommerce platform is one of the most critical choices that have to be made. These are some of the factors that you can consider when making this crucial decision to ensure that it turns out to be the right one for your business.

Author Bio

I’m Ramya, a freelance web designer/writer based in India. I have an experience of about 8 years in content writing and have worked for top blogs and websites. I’m generally an extrovert; I like photography, anthropology and traveling to different countries to learn the culture and living of the local inhabitants to do travelogues.
Website: http://www.colorcharacter.com/uk/services