When you decide to start your business in digital commerce, you come up against a few points: how to choose an Ecommerce platform for your online store. This doubt is one of the most common at this stage. It is a normal question, as there are hundreds of platforms on the market. In this article, we will show you some of the most important features that the platform you will choose needs to have. Thus, you can evaluate each option and choose the one that best suits your business.
How to Choose an Ecommerce Platform?
- Initial Analysis
- What platforms do your competitors use?
If you search for “Ecommerce” or “Ecommerce platforms” on Google, you will see a plethora of ads and organic results from different platforms. However, the first step is to write down, who your competitors in the market will be. At the bottom of your competing stores, you can find out which platform each one uses. Click on the platform logo or search for them on Google. All you need to do is read the online ecommerce platform reviews and choose the best platform according to your requirements, budget and products. Access the website of each platform and do a search for them on the internet. Look for terms like: “complaints platform”, “review platform” or “evaluation platform”.
- How much do you have to invest?
Before the list of important resources, you need to take as a parameter the amount you have available to invest in your virtual store platform. This is necessary, as the market offers options. Therefore, there is no point in evaluating a high cost platform if you do not have the resources to invest in it. Another important point regarding your platform is about customization. The higher the level of customization required on your platform, the Learn more about hubspot apps you need to invest in a “stiffer” platform.
- How to Choose an Ecommerce Platform: Important Resources
- Payment methods
This is one of the most basic features, but it is extremely important on your online store platform. Offering the right payment platforms to your audience can have a big impact on your online store revenue. Therefore, it is important that your platform offers the ability to integrate with the most used channels on the market.
- Shipping Methods
Your virtual store needs to offer the possibility of implementing the shipping methods necessary for the operation of your business. Direct integration with the Post Office is essential, but that is not enough. Courier offers several important services.
- Layout customization
Having a beautiful, modern and exclusive layout in your virtual store is very important after a certain moment in your virtual store. Your platform needs to allow you to do this or hire a professional you trust to do so. The platform needs to offer you access to customize the store’s CSS code.
- Marketing and Advertising
Pay close attention to these resources, as marketing is the most important point of your Ecommerce. Some of these features are vital to generating visits and sales at your store.
- Creating Custom Pages
It is important that you can create personalized pages in your online store, pages that you can use for different strategies, the most common are: the company, payment methods, how to buy, shipping policy, exchanges and returns and privacy and security policy.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Generating organic traffic in the long run is fundamental to your marketing strategy. However, positioning yourself at the top of Google is not easy. You need to have access to modify some attributes of your store pages: Meta Title of Category and Product Pages, Category and Product Pages Meta Description, Customize URL for category and product pages, etc.
Mobile matters a Lot – Approximately 46% of accesses in virtual stores worldwide are already done through cell phones. This number tends to increase in the coming months and years. Your platform MUST offer a mobile version of your online store, this is crucial today.
- Important Integrations
- Integrations with External Tools
Eventually, you will need to hire external tools, which will help at various points in the management and evolution of your business. The annoying thing is that to integrate these external tools it is necessary that your platform allows, enables and facilitates the process.
Market Places are the wave – Selling your products in stores has been a reality since the market places have emerged. Obviously your store cannot be left out of this trend. You need to have a system that allows you to do this as soon as you and your business are ready to do so. For this, your platform needs to integrate with the main Market Places in the market.
- Capacity and Security
Capacity and Security
The security of your store and the privacy of your customers’ data is of paramount importance. It is vital that your platform allows your store to use an SSL security certificate. See also the certificate values and how this feature is supported and installed. It is ideal to hire an SSL Expert for the installation and configuration of the SSL certificate. There is various SSL certificate installation service provider which can help your store running and never stop.
- Support and Updates
One more important question. In case of problems, how is the platform supported? What service channels does it offer? You need to take care tests to make sure you get the help you need when you need it. Important support channels are: Ticket System, Online Chat, Email, Telephone and Facebook Group.
- Platform Updates and News
Regardless of whether the Ecommerce platform has good functionality or not, it is important to identify whether it continues to evolve every day or if it is accommodated and stopped in time. Ask for the platform’s Change log, which is a kind of update history where the changes in the system are listed in chronological order.
- Migration (Platform Switching)
Migration is what we call the process of moving your online store from one platform to another. This action is necessary in many cases. Especially when you mistakenly choose a platform, you have opted for a poor quality service and are facing difficulties in several points.