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E-commerce Platforms: Understand How To Choose Yours And Learn About The Main Ones
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E-commerce Platforms: Understand How To Choose Yours And Learn About The Main Ones
Presented By
Black Pearl Matrix
Best E-Commerce Platforms to Use This Year
- 1- Sellfy
- 2- Wix
- 3- VTEX
- 4- Volusion
- 5- Shopify
- 6- Shift4Shop
- 7- ShopWired
- 8- Zyro
The accelerated growth of e-commerce in 2020 brought to light several services that make up day-to-day operations. Among them, e-commerce platforms are at the heart of this operational routine.
Responsible for managing the offer of products on the site, in addition to orders, customers, payments and cart pages, these tools are essential for any e-commerce. Developing your own solution can be much more expensive, especially for early stage companies.
The Advantages of Using an E-commerce Platform are:
Like any service, today there is a huge range of platform options, each offering its own differential and seeking to serve a specific audience. In this text, we explore a little more about how it works and leave tips for those who are in the process of choosing one for their business.
In this article, you will understand why e-commerce platforms are necessary, you will learn about the most famous ones on the market and you will know how to choose the best one for your business.
The Role of E-commerce Platforms in Business Operation
This is an essential service for the most important part of any e-commerce:
Shopping
The e-commerce platform will be responsible for registering products on the website and for all the actions that a user will carry out from the first click to add an item to the cart until the completion of an order.
The purchase process comprises a series of steps that, if poorly implemented, can lead to cart abandonment. A product that is out of stock but still appears as available for purchase is an example of an unpleasant situation.
This is why the role of e-commerce platforms is so fundamental: they ensure that all website visitors can place their orders in the best possible way, without unnecessary obstacles or difficulties.
On paper, it would be possible to build such a system from scratch, programming it to meet exactly the needs of e-commerce. This is more common in more mature companies with a very solid development arm, as it is a process that also brings instability and security risks.
Functioning and Main Options of E-commerce Platforms in the Market
E-commerce platforms basically work like a virtual store manager. Through a dashboard, users can view purchase operations, order status, stock levels and interactions on product pages.
Other functions include the insertion of banners, free shipping promotions, among other specific actions according to the business strategy. The main objective is to provide a system in which these changes are possible, precisely to keep up with the dynamism of the digital market.
Among the market options, we find two main aspects: “ready-made” platforms, which seek to minimize configuration efforts; and those more open to customization, focused on giving total decision-making power to e-commerce.
In the first case, the target audience is usually small and medium-sized companies, which still do not have complex logistical operations and many products (SKUs) registered on the site. For them, the most important thing is to have a system that requires little maintenance and offers a basic set of essential functions.
For more mature e-commerces, which already have development partners or specialized IT teams, it is starting to be more advantageous to bet on a platform with more customization options. In these cases, it is common to find B2B companies that need to integrate with internal systems that, by themselves, are more complex.
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List of Popular E-Commerce Platforms in the Market
1. Magento
Magento is an open source e-commerce platform, which has an extensive community of developers contributing to the project. It was acquired in 2018 by Adobe (the same as Photoshop), and offers two options for customers: a paid solution that already has prompt service and support; and another, free, which provides the download for the virtual store to be built from scratch.
There are several discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of Magento. In the case of the free version, the difficulty of developing and adapting the code to e-commerce needs can be a decisive factor. There are even companies on the market specializing in the development of virtual stores in the Magento system.
2. Wix
A very popular service for building websites in general, Wix also has an e-commerce platform. With monthly subscription plans, the client has access to website templates that can be configured and customized in the tool’s own panel.
Payment options, cart recovery features, and even a logo builder are also offered. Domain settings and appearance of Wix ads are subject to different plans.
3. Tray
Tray follows the line of e-commerce platforms that offer everything a company needs to increase its virtual store on the internet. Site layout solutions, marketplace integrations and front-end code customization are among the items offered.
The different subscription plans vary in the type of support offered, the number of monthly visits that the site can support and the number of products that can be registered, among other conditions.
4. VTEX
An e-commerce platform that offers a complete solution for companies, with several integrations between internal and external services. VTEX has an order control system (OMS) capable of communicating with points of sale, different stocks and websites, in an omnichannel model.
Large e-commerces use the VTEX platform, such as C&A and Motorola. Setting up this platform requires extensive development knowledge, so there are several implementation agencies that partner with VTEX and carry out this work.
Offered as a subscription service (SaaS), hosting is out of the customer’s hands and plans charge percentages of order amounts in addition to a flat maintenance fee.
5. BigCommerce
BigCommerce Enterprise is an e-commerce platform for “high volume brands”.
The features and services offered by Enterprise are at the highest level that BigCommerce offers its customers. As it is aimed at high-volume businesses, the features are able to handle the huge flow of traffic and manage high conversion rates.
Merchants using Enterprise will experience 99.99% uptime or ensure that your site will not work the same on the days when you are at your busiest. It has made improvements regarding filtered search, built-in integrations, and also faster checkout processes.
BigCommerce Enterprise is the leading cloud e-commerce platform for companies that make $1 or more in sales each year, and there are some real high-end customers using BigCommerce companies like Toyota, Gibson, and Ben & Jerry’s.
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6. Shopify
Shopify offers a series of features through a monthly subscription, popularly known on the international scene – proof of this is that on the plans page the prices are all in USD.
With resources for the visual creation of the website, integrations with means of payment and even with physical points of sale, the platform bets on a complete solution for business management.
7. ShopWired
ShopWired is self-hosted (SaaS) software tailored for people who don’t want to worry about constantly setting up or updating their online store. With ShopWired you don’t have to worry about purchasing hosting, domains or other external services.
Getting started with this platform is easy as a 14-day free trial is available by simply providing your email address and company name. Upgrading to a paid plan can be easily done from the control panel itself.
While ShopWired’s control panel looks a bit old-fashioned to some users, it’s easy to use via a sidebar navigation menu that gives you access to all the main sections.
Likewise, ShopWired’s operation is different from other similar platforms such as Shopify, Wix or Jimdo, as it directly offers managed services that you can hire. It is worth mentioning four exclusive services that this company offers and that no other company offers.
The 4 Exclusive Services Offered by ShopWired are:
• Online store configuration service;
• Advertising management using Google Shopping;
• SEO optimization for e-commerce platforms;
• Specific solution for B2B e-commerce (wholesale).
8. Zyro
Zyro has many great features that set it apart from other website builders. One is the intuitive drag and drop editor. While this feature is available on other platforms, Zyro’s version gives users tons of flexibility and is still simple to use.
The second standout feature is Zyro’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools that help customers with branding and marketing their online business.
For example, the AI Slogan Generator can generate ideas for a brand slogan using user-suggested keywords. Users can choose one of the suggested slogans or use it to start the brainstorming process.
Finally, Zyro has essential website building tools at a lower price compared to most other website builders.
9. Shift4Shop
Shift4Shop is a lightweight and simple-to-use e-commerce platform that offers robust and flexible features for your online store. Shift4Shop offers features that allow users to create modern looks for their store, helping to make it easier and more attractive for consumers to browse their store.
Sellers have the ability to customize the appearance of the product page, delivering a visually appealing experience for customers.
In addition to visual customization, the platform offers tons of inventory management tools to keep customers’ bags full. In addition, they offer comprehensive functionality such as discount and coupon features, direct payments, and reports to track store statistics.
Shift4Shop also offers live chat and payment method integration to provide a better shopping experience for your customers.
Shift4Shop also has a product review feature so that customers can provide feedback and share their experiences with different products and services. Reviews are a great way for new customers to see what other shoppers thought of specific products, helping them make better, timely decisions.
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10. Volusion
Volusion is an e-commerce platform company founded in 1999. The brand provides shopping cart software with e-commerce web design and processing tools for small and large businesses.
We could talk about the company’s history, but we’d rather touch on a few points that should mean something to potential/current users.
The Important Points of the Volusion E-commerce Platform are:
• Volusion is really primarily focused on small businesses. It has a relatively significant number of active stores around 30k;
• Pricing plans are plentiful and quite affordable;
• Volusion has overhauled its interface several times and they’ve done a great job of making the backend easy to use for beginners and non-technicians alike.
11. Sellfy
The Sellfy platform is a viable option for sellers of all sizes who want to start selling digital products on the Internet.
The platform offers many useful features and options that can help users increase their sales and achieve greater success. For instance, the platform has email marketing tools, flexible payment options, social media features, payment security, product trial option, coupon code creators, product creation and management, and much more.
The platform also has a free version and advanced options at different price levels. All of this contributes to making Sellfy more versatile, suiting a wide variety of digital product selling needs.
In addition, the platform has professional and friendly technical support, as well as customer support features such as live chat, phone and email. To help users get started, the platform also offers detailed tutorials.
12. Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the must-have solutions for creating well-designed websites without the need to write code. Millions of websites use this tool mainly for its well-designed templates optimized for desktop and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
The platform works like any other website builder. It comes with a built-in page editor for editing templates or adding web pages to your website. Setting up a Squarespace site is very easy.
This platform comes with many features that you can take advantage of to build a robust website.
Key Features of Squarespace are:
• An intuitive page editor:
You will use this editor to edit your templates. Squarespace’s editor is also more structured, so it will allow you to edit some sections of your webpage, but not all;
• A search engine:
You can add a custom search engine to your Squarespace site to make it easier for users to find the content they need on your site;
• User Management:
Squarespace allows you to add multiple user accounts to manage your site if you want your site to be managed by multiple people. Some of the different types of accounts you can choose from when adding these users are: Administrator, Site Editor, Billing, Analytics, Calendar Editor, Reports, Email Campaign Editor, Comment Moderator, Viewer, and Store Manager;
• Mobile apps:
Squarespace also has mobile apps for iOS and Android that you can use to manage your site on the go. You can make changes to your website or answer customer questions using these apps;
• Analytics:
This feature will help you to track your site’s performance over a period of time. Information that is typically displayed as part of the analysis includes page views, the number of visitors to the site and their behavior while on the site.
13. WooCommerce
WordPress is one of the most famous systems for building websites, mainly for its content management features. In this ecosystem, there are a multitude of plugins that bring features to the site.
Among them is WooCommerce, a complete and open source e-commerce platform, available for installation in the WordPress plugin store itself. Several plans are offered, each adding more functions out of the box.
For companies that have good development capacity, it is possible to build e-commerce from the basic and free installation. However, it is worth remembering that the website hosting, which may go unnoticed as it is included in most e-commerce platforms, is the responsibility of the customer in this case.
WooCommerce also has extensions that bring new integrations, as well as paid themes with predefined layout to facilitate the initial setup.
How to Identify the Best E-Commerce Platforms for Your Business
We come to the most recurring question of all: “which is the best platform?”. Selecting from the many options already mentioned is no simple task, but a few steps can help guide you along the way.
1. Know the structure of your e-commerce
Each platform will offer a set of solutions, usually separated into packages with different prices. As a rule, the greater the investment, the more possibilities for integration, customization and support from the service team.
Therefore, the first step is to analyze the existing structure in e-commerce and list all the features that cannot be missing, such as the integration of different stocks and the possibilities of communication with third-party tools (native or via API, for example).
It is necessary to associate what other tools the business has and how easy it is to integrate them into the e-commerce platform, such as the presence of open APIs.
In this context, specific integrations for data analysis are essential to operate tools such as Google Analytics, for example.
Focusing one hundred percent on the technical side, what I consider the most important thing about the platform is having a good layer of data.
It is also worth projecting a business growth scenario and observing whether, in a few years, needs will not change. That’s because the costs and headache of migrating from one platform to another might not be worth choosing a simpler solution in the beginning.
On the other hand, if e-commerce is at an early stage, and the product offered has not yet been tested in the market, it may not make sense to invest a lot in a platform if the business model still needs to be validated by the public.
2. Research the platforms used by other e-commerces
Another valuable tip, especially for beginners, is to follow what other e-commerces are doing. Competitors and companies of the same size and with more experience probably faced the same doubts.
How an Analysis of a Competitor E-Commerce Should Be Performed
A quick tip: some internet browser extensions are able to list technologies present on websites. An example is Wappalyzer, which provides information about the e-commerce platform used when accessing an e-commerce site.
3. Calculate short, medium and long term costs
All costs need to be put on the agenda. Depending on the platform, some expenses are included in the monthly fee, such as website hosting, for example. The ideal is to calculate in the long term, projecting how each option will behave and what the impacts on the company’s cash will be.
Following these tips will help the business understand the best e-commerce platform option. It is worth mentioning that, as companies grow and their needs change, it is worth monitoring whether the platform is supplying the operation well.
As stated at the beginning of the text, there is no absolute answer. The more you know about the processes of an e-commerce, the more inputs will be generated and the more assertive the choice will be.
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FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions About E-commerce Platforms
1. How do e-commerce platforms work?
2. What types of tools and services do e-commerce platforms offer?
3. What are the main examples of e-commerce that exist?
4. What should I consider when choosing an e-commerce platform?
Conclusion
Choosing the ideal platform is one of the main definitions for the success of your e-commerce. However, your digital strategy goes well beyond that point. Digital Marketing for e-commerce has advanced a lot in recent years, solving problems such as organizing the customer base and mapping the purchase journey – in addition, of course, to generating more attraction and sales volume.
That’s where Marketing Automation for E-commerce comes in. It provides an increase in demand for your products, automates actions and shows the return on your marketing actions.
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