Choosing the Best Ecommerce Platform for Your Business

This is an ultimate guide to help you understand general factors to consider when choosing an ecommerce platform. Some factors may be more important than others and it will ultimately depend on your business goals.

This is a lengthy page, but filled with short yet solid information. The categories are listed before, but first let’s take a look at the way we should consider an ecommerce platform.

First determine what you’ll need a platform to do and write them down. Will you need to hire an outside consultant or can this be down in-house?

Next, what is your budget. Of course, the less expensive the better for ROI, but that should not be the determining factor. If you aren’t sure, this is where an outside company might be helpful. Or you may even want to start off with a platform that gives you the basics than scale at a later point in time.

Then you’ll want to research the platforms that you are considering. There are many out there and many offer demos or trials to help you decide. As you are going through them, write down the pros and cons of each to help you select the right one.

As I talk about each section in more detail, you’ll see a button on the bottom of each section for more information.

These are functionalities to consider when selecting an ecommerce solution to help you choose the best one.

Obviously, you want your business to grow, so lets make sure that all things are considered with the features that you need.

Before you start your search, there is current state of your business. Understand your business goals, functions, departments, roles, SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), and so on in. Having knowledge at least on decent level will enhance them with an ecommerce platform since it compliments your existing systems.

Here are some examples of questions to get you started to think about your business goals:

• What back office software are you using for different areas of your business, like accounting, fulfillment, ordering, and purchasing?
• What are critical factors for you and your business?
• What are things that you could do without?
• Do you need to hire someone to help you, even if it’s on a short term?
• What are your future business goals to grow your business?

Keep in mind that there are different platforms and offer a variety of functionalities that others may not have. If your business goals are to expand and scale, then its critical that the ecommerce platform is also scalable so you aren’t having to reconsider your options in the middle of of implementation.

Some popular and best ecommerce solutions that you may have heard of are:

• Magento
• BigCommerce
• WordPress/Woocommerce
• SquareSpace
• Shopify
• Volusion

There may be others that are industry specific ecommerce solutions as well. Different ecommerce platforms, have different options, but select the ones that a benefit to the business and not just the bells and whistles.

Platforms available may or may not function with your business needs, so be sure to do you research for the appropriate solution.

Some platforms are self-hosted while others are cloud-hosted. More details are provided in the setup and maintenance section.

The most important thing about any website is how easy it is to use.

Staff Considerations

This includes having an intuitive interface, good documentation, and makes customer support easy.

If it is not easy for staff, than more than likely it will be difficult for your customers to use.

Customer Considerations

Consider your customers and their use on your website.

• Is it easy for customers to find your products?
• Is it designed well?
• Is the navigation easy?
• Is the checkout page easy and quick?

If it’s complicated for your consumers, they will go somewhere else; if it’s difficult for staff to use, it will hinder their productivity.

When choosing an ecommerce platform, it is important to consider reliability. A reliable platform will keep your website up and running smoothly, even during high traffic periods. It is also important to consider customer support when choosing a platform, as a reliable company will be able to help you with any issues you may have.

The platform should be reliable and offer uptime guarantees. This is especially important if you are using the platform for mission-critical tasks such as ecommerce transactions or customer support. The last thing that you want are software outages especially if they are out of your control.

Some questions to have answered are:

• Has the platform been around or is completely new?
• What are their reviews like?
• Do they offer additional services and at what costs?
• Do they specialize in certain industries?
• Do they offer software updates or does that fall on your company to troubleshoot when issues happen?

Security is important for any website and is especially important for businesses. The platform should have good security features to protect your data and keep your customers safe. Your business website may contain sensitive information such as customer data and other financial information. If your website is hacked, this information could be stolen and used to commit fraud or identity theft.

This includes features such as encryption, two-factor authentication, and malware protection. The platform should also have a strong customer support team to help you with any issues you may encounter.

Hackers often exploit vulnerabilities in outdated software to gain access to websites. By keeping your software up to date, you can help close these security holes.

Even if your business website, does not have purchasing transactions, you still need security. There are scammers out there that can create emails that look like yours and pretend to be you.

Your customers should have a positive shopping experience on your website and with your company. Your website should be easy to navigate and user-friendly while your company should provide good customer service and order fulfillment.

What do your customers think about the shopping experience they have on your website? What is the customer service like? How do they feel after they purchase something or contact your company? All of those customer experiences have an impact on their overall perception of your brand, which translates into either a customer for life or a customer who writes a bad review online.

Consider having value-added services on your website:

• Live chat
• Emailing and contact forms
• Quote capabilities
• Self service areas that helps customers find answers easily instead of contacting you.
• Does the platform offer technical support 24/7 or do they charge?
• Is there documentation readily available or a community?

When you think about the customer experience, think about when you shop, what you find frustrating. and what you find easy. Implement the best.

The scalability of your ecommerce site is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a platform. If you’re just starting out, you may not need much functionality or customization. As your business grows, you’ll want to make sure that your ecommerce platform can grow, too.

The platform should be flexible enough to accommodate your team’s changing needs. This includes:

• Being able to add or remove customers and manage their orders
• Scale up or down
• Make edits to orders easily

Ideally, the platform that you choose should provide a basic online store and be upgradable to more features and functionalities as the business grows.

The cost of implementing and maintaining a business website will vary depending on the size and complexity of the site, as well as the needs of your business.

Implementation costs can vary in price and sometimes that are rolled into a contract price instead of a one-time payment for setup. The initial development costs aren’t the only ones you should keep in mind. Some ecommerce platforms offer plans that include a number of features such as web design features, security, functionality and maintenance, and periodically hosting while others don’t.

Running an ecommerce site requires maintenance, security, and other feature upgrades which can be costly affairs if you didn’t have proper research before the site launch.  Generally, small businesses can expect to spend between $500 and $5,000 per year on their website, while larger businesses may spend upwards of $10,000 per year.

Also consider the initial cost of building your ecommerce website.

Surely, knowing the cost of hosting an ecommerce store will anticipate your expenses and estimate your ROI. 

You’ll need to consider all of these factors when you’re planning your store’s pricing plans and payment options.

• What are the methods of payment that your customers typically use?
• Do they use credit or debit cards that are linked to their bank account, or do they utilize redirects and off-site payments?
• Are there international shoppers who need a payment option as well?
• You will have to take all of these things into account when you are planning your store’s pricing plans and payment options.

Some platforms have a subscription model that is per month or year and options are extra or may come in a tiered program.

Unfortunately there isn’t a one-fits-all for all ecommerce platforms, but as you do your research, make sure you will not be surprised by costs if you add other functionalities and options.

Search engine optimization helps businesses grow. When your current and future clients are searching for products like yours, you want to appear first in their searches.

I mention this, because some platforms are easier to work with than others. This may also be something that you’d want to hire out to a 3rd party provider or if the platform offers this SEO services. Many do as a monthly fee.

SEO Friendly ecommerce also includes:

• domain name,
• image seo
• navigational links,
• meta descriptions,
• titles and headings,
• internal and external linking,
• website structure and depth.
• indexability and crawlability
• Schema

There are many marketing considerations to take into account when launching an ecommerce website.

• What products or services you will offer for sale
• Having a strong branding strategy
• Driving traffic to your site and converting that traffic into sales or leads
• Will you be using google ads

Having a solid plan for each of these areas will give you the best chance for success.

Self-hosted ecommerce websites

Self-hosted ecommerce websites are usually more affordable than other types of ecommerce platforms, but maintaining them are your responsibility. You do have full control over the design and functionality over the site, within limits of the platform.

All of this sounds good, but you will either need to outsource this or have someone on staff that is capable of this.

Cloud-hosted ecommerce websites

By hosting their ecommerce website on a cloud platform, businesses can take advantage of the many benefits that the cloud has to offer, including pay-as-you-go pricing, automatic scalability, and high availability. Some functionalities may be limited to certain 3rd party integrations, this will vary per platform and is something to consider.

While cloud hosting tends to be more expensive, you don’t have to worry about maintaining the website yourself.

There are also companies that will do a lot of the legwork for you as they are an extension of your company