Top Features to Discover Prior to Choosing an eCommerce Platform

Want to build your eCommerce store? Looking to understand how to choose the best eCommerce platform? Here is your list of eCommerce platform features you should look into before finding and selecting the right platform.

If you choose an effective eCommerce solution offered by an experienced eCommerce service provider, you will go online significantly faster. So, we will even explore and discover the market leading eCommerce platforms you can leverage for your upcoming projects.

With the current growth in the eCommerce industry, it is expected that this domain will continue to mature with digitalization. New entrepreneurs are looking to capitalize on the explosive potential of this sector by setting up pioneering eCommerce stores and selling services/products to people more innovatively.

If you want to go down the same path, you need a progressive eCommerce portal for your brand, which is highly robust, flexible, and scalable. You could hire a web developer or web development team to build a customized online portal or go with an already-built eCommerce platform that helps save time, effort, and money.

There are numerous eCommerce platforms available that you can choose from that offer effective functionalities and enable groundbreaking features. So, let’s take a look at some market-leading eCommerce platforms and later discover how to choose the best eCommerce platform for your business.

Market Leading eCommerce Platforms:

1) Shopify Development:

If you are looking for a leading eCommerce platform that is flexible, secure, efficient, and offers 24/7 support, then Shopify development is for you. A Shopify eCommerce Web Development Company can help you build, maintain and sustain an eCommerce platform.

2) Magento Development:

If you want to set up multiple stores from one admin panel, then Magento is the best option. The platform also has multi-language support, with international currency options and a Magento eCommerce Web Development Company that can enable your demanded requirements.

3) OpenCart Development:

This eCommerce platform supports over 40 languages and multiple currency options. The platform is highly flexible and helps make user-friendly websites. It is also easy to maintain, and the operational costs are less.

4) WooCommerce Development:

WooCommerce is another eCommerce platform built for all types of the user base. It offers multiple features such as order tracking, customer engagement, delivery status updates, inventory management, and much more.

Now that we know the different eCommerce platform market leaders let’s take a look at the key features of an eCommerce platform.

Significant Factors and Features Impacting an eCommerce Platform

1) Security Aspects

Security is one of the most important eCommerce platform functionalities that your website must have. If your site is not protected, people will not share their personal or financial details with you. Also, the security breach scenario would become easier on your website as hackers and data thieves may want to steal your data

For this purpose, when choosing an eCommerce platform, look for essential in-built security features like Payment Card Industry (PCI), Compliance, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates, or fraud protection and data backup facilities.

The platform should also regularly conduct security upgrades and modernization to identify any potential risks. You also need to choose a platform that has an object-oriented programming language that contains embedded security protocols in place.

2) Easy Checkout

Once a user finishes shopping, he clicks on checking out, and if he does not find it easy, he will move away from your page. Then all your efforts are wasted, so you need to focus on keeping your checkout options as easy as possible.

The only issue that people have while buying online and successfully checking out is looking for secure payment options. So, you should look into different and safe payment options like Card payment, COD, Wallet payments, and net banking.

3) Pricing Model

The pricing model is another important aspect you need to know when choosing a particular eCommerce platform for your store. The pricing of your eCommerce platform depends on various factors like setup configuration, design, custom development, maintenance, and self-hosted vs hosted.

Different eCommerce platforms are available at different prices. For example, the Shopify platform has a per-month start cost of $9 per month while going up to $299 per month. On the other hand, BigCommerce has a starting price of $29.95 per month, which goes up to $249.95 per month.

4) Compatibility

Complaint web pages can work stress-free on any screen or device, as not everyone will open your page on a laptop or PC. Your website should be such that it allows users to work on it without any disturbances and also lets them continue their shopping from wherever they left off.

Take time to evaluate all your features and see if they are compatible with your target consumers. Look at how effectively these eCommerce platforms operate, how they work with other integrated components, and what their reviews are online. The answers to these questions will help determine if they are a good fit for you or not.

5) Scalability

As time passes, your eCommerce business will grow. So, you can choose the platform that scales up per your business size. Also, the platforms should not charge overpriced fees for providing extra features and storage for increased business needs.

Cross-check if the platform can handle the online traffic and data that you have. Evaluate how each platform behaves in heavy traffic and whether it is flexible and scalable enough to fulfill your website’s futuristic needs.

6) Backs Multiple Selling Channels

Today eCommerce stores increase their revenue by offering products and services on multiple selling channels. So, choose a platform that effortlessly allows you to sell products or services across various channels like Instagram, FB Messenger, and Amazon.

Branded eCommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento are some of the best in the market and support innovative features. For instance, by adding centralized management to your inventory data, these platforms can help you create a diverse selling platform to increase revenue generation and bring swift ROI.

7) Support Integrations

Another important aspect to consider when choosing an eCommerce platform is its technical support. Undesired situations like server downtimes, software outages, and server crashes can happen anytime. This can hinder your customers from accessing your website and making purchases.

So, in these scenarios, to make your store’s functionality perfect, you need prompt technical support from your platform. For this reason, you need to go with a platform that provides support when you need it.

8) Mobile Site

A mobile-first platform is one of the key features of eCommerce platform to look at when choosing an eCommerce solution provider. Standard eCommerce platforms are mobile responsive, which means they are optimized for users on large desktop screens and shrink the design to fit a mobile screen. This can lead to users being overwhelmed with multiple options and texts.

In contrast, if a website is mobile-first, the elements are prominent on a small screen, creating a frictionless experience across any device.

Key Takeaways

Picking an eCommerce platform to host your website is an important decision. So, finding the correct list of eCommerce platform features is vital as it will answer your question of ‘how to choose eCommerce platform.’

Selecting the right one will help enable your business, improve operations, and increase sales, making your customer experience seamless. So, picking an eCommerce platform can be pretty challenging, but in the long run, it is worth it.

FAQs on How to Choose the Best eCommerce Platform