How To Pick An E-commerce Platform: The Information You Need

It goes without saying that the growing e-commerce industry is experiencing is only going to increase. According to the stats, global e-commerce sales are going to increase by 4.8 trillion U.S. dollars by 2021. And that’s why integrating e-commerce features or picking the right e-commerce platform for your business might be one of the smartest business decisions you are ever going to make. 

But what are the questions you need to ask before picking the right e-commerce platform? What do you need to know? Let’s find out. 

1. Cost And Payments

The first consideration when looking for an ecommerce platform, the first thing to be considered is how much it is going to cost you. Whether you are an established enterprise or a startup, the cost is an important consideration you have to pay attention to. 

Whether you are going for a hosted solution or a self-built one, you have to pay an amount to get your ecommerce store up and running. The cost is going to vary depending on the type of solution you choose to go with. And that’s why you have to check whatever solution you choose to go with is the best choice for your business. That’s why you need to consider both the pros and cons of the solutions and then you have to choose the best one for your budget. But do not compromise on quality because of the cost. 

2. Various Integrations And Features

The features and integrations will be affected thoroughly by your decision. Depending on your solution, the features and tools available for your e-commerce platform will vary. 

For example, if you are building your own platform, you will have a better chance of integrating the features and tools you need. These tools may include accounting tools to keep track of sales and revenues, email marketing tools, etc. 

On the other hand, a hosted platform such as Shopify, you will have all the proper tools, but it might still feel very limited. There is not going to be but not as much of a chance to modify them as you will have in case of a self-built platform. 

In the end, it is the features and integrations that are going to make or break your platform. But you don’t need super-advanced tools from the very beginning. As the business progresses, you can choose to hire a website development company for ecommerce solutions to build your own platform and integrate the necessary tools on it. 

3. Mobile-friendliness

The matter of mobile-friendliness is an absolute given, considering almost half of the online shopping community is shopping from their phone. And that’s why whichever solution you choose, you have to make sure that it is a mobile-friendly solution that can help the users to shop from their phone anytime anywhere.

4. Security

Since ecommerce websites deal with a lot of online payments, security becomes a necessity. The users will be using their credit cards as well as online banking, which means that you have to choose a solution that provides the maximum amount of security to the users regarding their banking data. 

While most of the hosted platforms provide proper security, you also need to make sure that they support HTTPS/SSL for additional security. And if you are choosing to build your own platform, ake sure to implement the right kind of security features on your platform. 

5. Scalability

When done right, all businesses are supposed to grow with time. And that’s why it is important that you choose a platform that helps and accommodates your business growth. 

It is not important for you to get a lot of features and tools that you are not going to need from the very beginning. Which is why you shouldn’t have to pay for extra features that you are not going to be using. However, you have to be ready with the increasing demands of your business once it starts to take off. So make sure whichever solution you pick, it helps your business to scale and improve.

Choosing an e-commerce platform is not an easy task, and there is a lot more for you to find out about before you make your choice. And that’s why you have to make sure that you find out the above information and choose a solution that helps you the best. Alternatively, you can hire a reliable ecommerce web design company to build and design your own ecommerce platform.