If home is where the heart is, then in this day and age, home is online. Everybody is online. At any given point. They are all buying something, or reading something, or learning something, and if nothing else they are learning to sell something.
The online world is endless and never quite ceases to fascinate. Only thing to consider is, ‘what am I going getting out of this?’ Be it online businesses, or the consumers.
It is understandable that audiences/consumers online don’t exactly stay loyal to a particular website to buy their essentials or their favourite brands.
With most websites selling or offering the same things as their competitor, the vivid point to look out for is – what exactly is your e-commerce website offering that’s different from the rest and adds that edge to the customer’s buying moment?
A lot of parameters influence a website’s ranking on Google, and most importantly in the minds of consumers. Before flirting with Google or playing marketing games with your target audience, you need to have that perfect platform to get your business going.
There are a number of platforms to set your e-commerce business on. To name a few, there’s Magento, Shopify, Weebly, SquareSpace, ZenCart, PrestaShop, and many more.
These platforms come equipped with all the set ups that are essential to run your e-commerce business.
Some of the questions that you should be asking yourself before you choose a platform:
You are unique: So is your business. No matter how clichéd your business is in your industry, your business will have something unique. Likewise, e-commerce platforms are just not a one-size-fits-all. Since they are available in all sizes and price ranges, you have got to see what fits your needs. Do you need multiple applications, or just a few basic ones to get your business going?
Agility: The good thing about online businesses is that they are updated. If their catalogue is not updated, there is always another eager competitor who is itching to revamp the offering on his own website. So how comfortable is a particular platform when it comes to changing the catalogue often?
The bad thing about an e-commerce business is that it can be quite a chore to keep changing the set ups and adding newer collections on a hyper-regular basis.
Speed: Since the dawn of the digital age, online business owners are crying about design. But as we have come to see of late, it is not just trendy designs that matter. It is also speed. How fast is your website! What’s the load time for a particular item? No matter what, you have got to understand one thing – customer’s time is valuable and you just cannot afford to understand that.
Marketing: Another concern for e-commerce retailers is – will the platform help market the catalogue. Through SEO, email integration, cross-selling, etc.
Self-hosting or third-party hosting: SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) is a good choice for e-commerce businesses that do not have a lot of technical bandwidth.
LIVE: How long does it take to set up and when the business can go LIVE is also a concern for e-commerce startups, especially since they are funded and they have budgets to monitor and income targets to achieve
One word of advice. Ask for a ‘trial’ before you induct any platform officially.