Choosing an eCommerce Platform Today Is Hard
Choosing the best eCommerce platform is one of the most important decisions you must make at the very start of your eCommerce journey if you want to have a jaw-dropping, money-making storefront.
6 minutes
The global eCommerce market reached a US $13 trillion value in 2021 and is forecasted to reach a whopping US $55.6 trillion by 2027.
With such growth of eCommerce year over year, it's essential for online retailers (and other businesses) to have the right technology to support their business and strategy. But with so many eCommerce platforms available, how can you tell which fits your business best?
How do you pick the one that suits your needs, keeps up with the development and market trends, and ensures your business's online success?
In part two of the five-part article series, we discuss choosing an eCommerce platform that's the right one for your use case.
eCommerce platforms are a crucial part of any online operation. They give your company an accessible way to share and sell product goods or services online to potential customers and directly impact your business growth.
Simply put, you can't compete online if you don't have an eCommerce platform. Building an eCommerce business takes more than just posting your product listings online. Without things such as inventory management, order management, payment, multichannel availability, marketing tools, and more, you won’t be able to compete in today’s eCommerce landscape.
Thankfully eCommerce platforms of today come with many of the features mentioned above, with some minor differences that really help you move the needle in the right or wrong direction. The right choice can provide a seamless online shopping experience, fostering customer satisfaction, retention, and growth. The wrong one will most certainly hinder your efforts to build a reliable online business.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but choosing an eCommerce platform based on its popularity is probably the worst one. The ideal eCommerce platform is the one that successfully delivers the outcomes and objectives that you have set for your business, not the one that’s most popular today.
Do not fall for the hype. For example, headless platforms are all the rage now, but if you’re just starting, have a couple of products to offer, a limited budget, and do not have a dev team to help you out, you’ll probably be better off with tried and tested solutions for small MVP types of businesses like Shopify or WooCommerce. On the other hand, if you already have a huge shop (1000s of products) and you are looking to future-proof your store and utilize the best-of-breed approach (composable stack), then one of the headless options (including Crystallize) is a perfect fit.
To make the decision-making a little easier for you, we have made a list of things you’ll need to consider while searching for the most compatible eCommerce platform for your business.
Let’s start👇
In general, ease of use means choosing a platform that offers an intuitive interface and user-friendly features. In reality, it depends on how proficient and experienced your team is with what the platform is offering. Ask yourself whether you have a dedicated dev team that can help you with setting up the platform and maintaining it or only editors that are used (or not) to the UI platform is offering.
Did you know that over 51% of users prefer mobile web apps to other shopping channels? A study shows that almost 80% of users have bought online using their mobile devices within the last year.
A mobile-friendly, visually appealing website will give visitors the best user experience. Funny as it sounds (it’s 2023), mobile friendliness or adding different screen sizes is still a problem for many businesses.
You want your business to expand in the future, right? Can the platform you are looking at scale as your business grows?
That might happen when you least expect it, which is why it’s essential to look for an eCommerce platform that will scale along with your business and keep up with the dev trends, demands, growing product inventory, and traffic.
Scalability ensures your platform can handle increasing traffic and sales volume without affecting performance.
Does the platform allow you to customize your store to align with your brand? Customization capabilities give you control over the design and functionality of your store. Further, it allows you to tailor your store to your customer needs and reap the benefits that come with eCommerce personalization; a must sought-after feature customers today value.
Look for compatibility with essential tools like email marketing, payment gateways, analytics, marketing automation solutions, or other systems such as PIM, PLM, ERP, CRM, etc.Â
Most eCommerce platforms will have different integrations and plugins to help you run your business, streamline your operations, and improve customer experience. It’s on you to decide which addons work best for your company and carefully select the platform that is the right fit.
Developer experience is the quality of tooling to comply, satisfy, and exceed the developer's expectations (source link). If you rely on devs to help you build your storefront, then dev experience is crucial to your decision-making.
Pay attention to the price because you must know precisely what you will pay and how much. Almost all platforms have a monthly fee, and depending on the type of platform you get, the costs may vary. You should also consider all the hidden costs that may be included (like maintenance costs, transaction fees, add-on costs, and/or the cost of third-party services.). Budget smartly, and don’t sacrifice the things you will definitely need for a lower price.
We’ve already talked about the most popular eCommerce platforms on the market in the previous part of our series, so go ahead and check it out.
Selecting the correct eCommerce platform is akin to picking the proper foundation for your house. The entire structure can crumble if it's shaky or not suited to your needs. Your choice can influence sales, user experience, and overall growth. The most common mistakes businesses make are the other side of the coin of considerations mentioned above.
Like overlooking scalability and ignoring future product expansion, forgetting about mobile users and different screen UIs, or neglecting payment gateways and regional restrictions, and transaction fees.
By being aware of common pitfalls, you can sidestep them and choose a platform that propels your online store to success.
Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, and the best choice depends on your specific needs, resources, and long-term goals. Make a side-by-side comparison of the platforms you're considering to make an informed decision.
For example, say you are juggling between a self-hosted and a cloud-hosted solution. How would you choose? Well, do you have a dedicated dev team, is the one question to start with. Then look it through the lens of your budget.
Ultimately, the final decision depends on a holistic evaluation of your business's needs, budget, and growth plans. Evaluate every feature of an eCommerce platform and avoid mistakes we often see companies make when choosing a platform, as switching eCommerce platforms can be pretty expensive and time-consuming.
The sheer number of available options can be frightening. However, keep in mind it's not about everyone's favorites. It's about which platforms tick the most boxes for your use case.
We can help with that. Seriously, we can!
START building for FREE with Crystallize, or schedule a 1-on-1 demo so we can show you if and how Crystallize fits your use case.
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