E-commerce website design embroils creating and launching an essential store to sell products. We’re not talking about listing your item on a third party online marketplace like eBay. It’s your store, and you have creative control.
While website design isn’t the only thing customers look at, integrating it with social media marketing, digital campaigns and search engine optimization (SEO) will provide a better user experience that drives traffic to your store.
What is an eCommerce platform: An e-commerce platform is software that an online store organizes to meet all of its merchant buying essentials and those of its own sellers. These needs contain product pages, reviews, transactions, order fulfillment, and returns etc.
The best e-commerce web design platform comes down to your unique business model and growth plan. Here is an overview of some of the best e-commerce platforms for 2023 to help you evaluate the best option for your business.
The best E-Commerce web design Platform:
OpenCart
- Shopify
- Magento
- Ecwid
- BigCommerce
- WooCommerce
- Wix
How to select the right eCommerce website building platform for your online store:
If you are fresh to eCommerce platforms, it can be a bit prodigious. The primary things you should consider while making your choice are:
Budget: Start small, and scale up as needed. While it’s hard to find a strong free alternative, you can get a feel for the lower tiers of a product before you commit to something that breaks the bank.
Features: Of course, your modest will affect the structures. Entirely of the eCommerce website builders on this list bid basic features, but if there’s one thing that’s a deal breaker for you (say, the ability to sell in person), start there and work backwards.
Your familiarity with website builders: Some apps are more beginners friendly. Your time is valuable, so even if you’re not super technical, make sure you feel okay navigating the interface.
Support: When you run into problems, are you comfortable troubleshooting on your own? If not, you might want to prioritize support features.
Analytics: As you grow, robust analytics are critical, so make sure the platform you choose is reporting on your metrics in a way that you can confidently analyze and act upon.
Factors to consider while choosing the best eCommerce platform:
As you market your goods and services, eCommerce platforms specialize in crafting and communicating their offerings. Yet choosing the best eCommerce platform for your business can be complicated, with around 370 eCommerce solutions to choose from around the world. And, of course, you may decide that a custom-built solution is best.
Primarily, you should help customers engage with the brand and manage your cost-to-sales ratio. You should also make sure that the staff has full support to implement the sales and marketing strategies.
Hosting and Platform ownership: eCommerce platforms can be self-hosted or on the cloud. In the former, you’d have to find hosting, deal with installation, and watch for updates yourself. This can be costly at times. The advantage is greater control over online platforms and better security management. Plus, you can see your data more clearly.
With open-source platforms (WooCOmmerce and Magento, for example), you can have better control and ownership because the source code is not only accessible but can be modified as well. You will be responsible for web hosting, security issues, integrations (with CRM, CMS, or ESP), and analytics. Growth or IT-infected businesses would prefer this type of platform.
However, you may not update or use any method to change features. They can also be very cumbersome and expensive to maintain. They also demand a lot of technical knowledge.
SaaS eCommerce solution meaning is that you are renting a platform. Which essentially means that it is a cheaper option than open-source solutions? Updates, security, hosting, and other software management tasks are left to the SaaS provider. Go-to-market time is also fast. But the lack of flexibility and adaptability is a matter of concern.
Today’s consumers guzzle content and make purchases concluded digital touch points ranging from smart wearable to voice-assisted devices, progressive web apps, and more. This puts the burden on the eCommerce platform to keep up. Leadless commerce depends on your ability to stick to your word and provide a seamless shopping experience across devices.
Headless commerce separates the front-end user experience (“head”) from the back end. By passing information between the front-end and back-end layers through application programming interface (API) calls, developers can engineer fast, dynamic, personalized UX.
The best eCommerce platforms make it easy for you to deliver an Omni channel experience that engages customers wherever they are, whenever they want to make a purchase. It helps you build customer trust and gives your brand a competitive advantage. Headless commerce provides faster time-to-market with a significant cost reduction.
Cost of Ownership: Pricing is one of the first things to consider when assessing each eCommerce platform. Whether you’re a small business just starting out or an already established brick-and-mortar store running online, you need to understand the total cost of each platform.
Almost all platforms will have a monthly fee. There are besides processing costs associated with each platform. Initial and ongoing costs should be considered when making your choice. Don’t sacrifice the things you’ll need for the low price. Consider the pros and cons to get the best value for your budget.
Integrations: Integrations and plugins are other significant factors when appraising whether your platform is one of the best eCommerce platforms. Not all platforms offer every integration, so make sure you understand your business needs to properly assess the features and functions available. Here are some of the most popular plugins to look at:
Accounting: Provides financial information including sales, taxes, revenue and profits.
Email Marketing: It empowers you to be in touch with your customers.
Customer Loyalty Programs: This allows you to reward customers for using your products and making repeat purchases.
Payments & Shipping: It makes it easy and accurate for you to process payments and ship products.
Third Party Digital Tools: Facilitates easy integration with tools such as marketing automation systems, CRMs, and ERPs; Allows for additional customization.
Themes & User Experience (UX): A theme defines the design of your online store, and most eCommerce platforms offer a variety of options to choose from. Some themes are free with a subscription, while others are premium and require an additional fee to use. It’s worth the investment to stand out from the competition, as a well-designed experience is key to turning browsers into buyers.
eCommerce Platform Speed & Scalability: In the age of “micro-moments”—which Google terms as “the intent-rich moment when someone turns to a device to act on a need to know, go, do, or buy”—your platform needs to power up. The experience should deliver fast. And it should be consistent as you grow and scale the business. Select a platform that best suits your business with one of the best eCommerce platforms.
While evaluating platform performance and scalability isn’t simple, you can see where the holes may be, from slow load times to frozen pages, 404 errors, and other sluggish performance indicators. Understanding how many customers the platform can handle simultaneously at peak traffic times—how it scales horizontally and vertically—and reviewing typical site speeds is an important part of your evaluation.
Our advice is to look for a cloud-hosted, scalable solution with out-of-the-box features and functionalities that meet the needs of your growing business from day one. Things like advanced caching methods and the ability to automatically purge content when updating product details are also worth considering. Also, make sure to provide good customer/technical support to your users.
Store Functionality & Ease of Use (Product Management System): Product Management System is the lifeblood of your business. Today’s admins need advanced eCommerce product management out-of-the-box to create a compelling shopping experience.
While assessing store functionality to build the best eCommerce platform, consider bulk product upload (csv, excel file), categorization, advanced features (i.e., wishlist, product comparison, recently viewed), shipping options, and the like. It is important to consider the features and functions. Dynamic filters (ie, sorting by price range, color, size, location, etc.). The more power an administrator has over designing a strong, dynamic store, the more opportunities there are to maximize revenue.
Multiple Payment Gateways Support: Make it easy for customers to pay for your goods and services and offer a range of options. This means your store needs to be connected to a trusted, secure eCommerce payment gateway – a dedicated processor that moves funds from customers’ bank accounts securely to your bank account. It sounds like a no brainer, but the reality is that not all eCommerce platforms are compatible with every payment gateway. The most important factor is geography – it is important to localize the payment process.
SEO Friendliness: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a vital factor for the success of your store, and the best eCommerce platforms will build their infrastructure with SEO in due consideration. Organic SEO takes time to build up, and when best practices are built-in to the platform you choose — and Google’s algorithm changes are a priority, the task becomes much easier.
Not all eCommerce platforms are generated equal when it comes to SEO. You essential to check what SEO capabilities are included – from simple options such as updating metadata (tags, description) and description to images and descriptions to more advanced features such as adding canonical tags and pagination to product search results.
