Introduction
In today’s era, every business needs to maintain its online presence. Building an e-commerce website for your business is the best option to do that. It doesn’t matter if you have a small business or a large scale business, an e-commerce website will support you irrespective of that. Even if you have a small scale business, you can easily expand it with the help of an e-commerce CMS platform.
Hiring an eCommerce development company is the easiest medium and the most effective one to look for while planning to get an intuitive eCommerce CMS platform developed. They will help you to build a website as per your requirements and your customer demand.
What Is An E-Commerce CMS Platform?
eCommerce CMS (Content Management System) platform is used by businesses to publish, edit, make changes in the content, and to modify the visual look of the content. This platform allows businesses to maintain their online presence by maintaining their website, online sales, revenues, offers, customer relations, and all the operations related to this. This is the foundation for the online presence of your business. If you don’t choose the right platform for developing your eCommerce website then this can have a lot of side effects and your business can suffer in the future.
If you don’t have a CMS platform then you won’t be able to centralize your business or your content will not be as effective as it should be. This can bore your potential customers and they may get attracted to some other websites that offer better deals and content. Hence, the quality of your eCommerce CMS platform will directly affect your business. If it is good then there is a higher probability that your business will flourish. And if it is not as per your requirement then chances of failure will increase. Hence, it is always advisable to be very prudent while choosing the right eCommerce development solutions for your business.
The Future of E-Commerce CMS Platform
With the increasing demand for online products and online businesses, the demand for eCommerce development services is also increasing. Ecommerce websites and apps not only help the businesses to maintain their online presence but also helps them to unify their data in one place and make it secure. Along with this they also provide secured payment gateways for secured transactions. All these features have made the E-commerce CMS platforms more trustworthy and secure over time, and it will definitely increase in the future.
There are a lot of eCommerce CMS platforms available in the market for you to choose from for your business. The success rate of your website depends on whether you are choosing a platform that is the right fit for all your requirements or not. It is very important to research everything first and then choose the platform. In this article, you will read about all the aspects of an eCommerce platform that you need to know. Here is the list of some of the features of eCommerce platforms that make its future bright.
1. Open Source
Most such CMS platforms these days are open source which means that servicescan be accessed free of cost and use all the resources without any hassle.
2. Design Element
The design element is very important because it makes a fundamental impression on the user’s mind. If the design of your website is complicated then the users will find it difficult to use and navigate, which can lead to frustrated users. How to make a strong impression on the user’s mind? How to make the user stay longer on your web page? The answer is too long. Therefore it is always a better decision to hire eCommerce developers as they have both experience and expertise. Complex and catchy designs are not the solution every time, sometimes the sober design also works.
3. Unification Of Data
Even if you have multiple physical stores, you can manage them all online just with the help of your eCommerce website. Today, the market is all about managing the data and handling it most conveniently. The unification of data is possible through your eCommerce website if it is integrated with the advanced marketing and sales automation tools such as Salesforce. Integrating the third party tools and making them accessible is not a cup of tea for a non-tech person. Instead, it is better to look or hire eCommerce developers.
4. SEO friendly
SEO is the most important factor in the success of any website. Without proper SEO, no website can be promoted easily. Before the starting of the project, you must ask your web development agency to make your website SEO friendly. Responsive websites are the demand of time and Google has also unrolled its guidance for the same. Check your website responds to different sizes of screens.
Self-Hosted vs. Hosted Platform
Before selecting a web development company you need to know the difference between self-hosted and hosted platforms. The self Hosted platform is different from the hosted platform in its responses, although looks the same superficially. You need to know the difference between the result you will get and what you will have to invest for both the platforms in terms of cost, customizability, and technical support. Both of the platforms are very different in terms of all three factors. Here is the list of key differences between self-hosted and hosted platforms and you can choose accordingly as per your requirements.
1. Cost
The comparison between the costs of both the platform will enable you to choose the one which is suitable for your budget. For hosted platforms like Software as a service (SaaS), you will have to pay a monthly fee for utilizing the services. Plus point of the hosted platform in that you don’t need to invest a huge amount at the starting of the project, you can pay small amounts monthly. There can be some added costs later but initially, you don’t have to pay a large amount.
On the contrary, self-hosted platforms will not cost you much but instead, it will consume a lot of your time. And sometimes, it is not reasonable to spend a lot of time on something which you can get done for a few hundred dollars.
2. Customizability
One size does not fit all and the same rule follows for eCommerce software. The nature of business demands customization. It is a good idea to discuss your plan with a web development service provider. This way you can get a good idea about the customized features. Also, it is always better to know what to avoid. If you don’t have enough time or you don’t have the proper knowledge to understand the tech-how hosted platforms are always recommended. You will have a lot of options of readily available templates and website frameworks but they have very few customization options.
On the other hand, if you want a highly customizable website then you can build it from the scratch and opt for self-hosted platforms. This may take a lot of your time, energy, efforts, and capital but the results will exactly look like the one that you pictured in your mind.
3. Technical Support
Issues can come uninvited anytime. Therefore, your eCommerce website must have technical support. The tech support differs in both hosted and self-hosted platforms. If you are opting for a hosted platform then the technical support is included in the monthly fee that you are paying and you will not have to pay extra money. They will always be available to help you out in any kind of technical crisis that you face.
On the other hand, if you opt for a self-hosted platform and you face any kind of software issue then you will have to resolve it on your own because your service provider will only solve the server related issues.
Tips To Choose E-Commerce CMS Platform
Here is the list of key features that you must think of before choosing the eCommerce CMS platform.
1. Set Your Goals
You will have to be very clear about your goals. Where you think of taking this website? Do you want to commercialize it globally or you just want to focus on the local audience? The growth or the success of your website will only be measured if you have a particular goal or if you pass all the short milestones that you have decided.
First, you have to set your business plans and decide your commercialization strategies, and then only you can set your budget and choose your eCommerce CMS platform according to that.
2. Range Of Products
Always pre-plan the range of the products that you want to display on your website and then promote them accordingly. Quality is always preferred over quantity. It is better to have fewer products or services of good quality than to have hundreds with thousand defects.
3. Target Audience
Always research your target audience. This will give you a good idea of how much traffic you should expect at the beginning. This will also help you to focus on your users and give you a personalized experience. This will also help you to give special features or VIP access and services to your regular customers. You can also focus on your potential customers and will help you to focus on them as well.
4. Tech Stack
This is the most crucial aspect of any kind of website. If the company providing eCommerce development services does not have the proper skill set to use the tech stack that is required then all the time and money that you are spending is of no use. So, before hiring any web development company, discuss the tech stack first.
Read Also: Things to Consider for eCommerce Website Development
How To Decide Budget For Selecting Your CMS Platform
It is very difficult to decide the budget of any project before even starting it. There are some factors that you must consider and they will give you an estimate about what you have to spend and save for this project. You will have to think over it wisely or it can cause a lot of issues like you can run out of the budget while the project is still running. Here is the list of some of the features that will affect the budget for selecting your eCommerce CMS platform.
● The first main purchase that you will have to make is to purchase your CMS, then install and configure it. This can take a ton of money as it is one of the major purchases.
● Then you will have to spend on the customization of the template and all the other functionalities of your website. This will be your second major purchase.
● Then you will have to spend money in small amounts like for any update or changes in content, site hosting, payment gateway, or promotions, etc.
Top E-Commerce CMS Platform
After learning about all the features that you should look for in an eCommerce CMS platform, here is the list of all the top eCommerce CMS platforms.
1. Magento
Magento is one of the most popular eCommerce CMS development company. If you want your website to be exactly what you pictured and to be on the top of the list of the eCommerce websites then you can opt to hire an agency offering Magento development services. Numerous websites are supported by Magento. The platform uses PHP at its backend, which offers the user-centric feature and has vast community support.
2. Shopify
If you are more into extravagant and modern designs then Shopify can be your option. They have easy to use and develop templates which also makes the user experience swift and easy. Irrespective of whether you have a small business or a medium business, you can easily build your website with Shopify.
3. WooCommerce
WordPress is already very famous because of its user compatible templates and ease to use. Even if you know a little bit of coding, you can use WordPress easily. WooCommerce is also a WordPress based eCommerce CMS framework, which is now one of the largest CMS platforms for eCommerce development solution. Making a step forward, now the platform also supports the plugin which converts the website into progressive websites. Alongside, Woocommerce also helps you in making SEO friendly website.
4. BigCommerce
If you want to develop your eCommerce website with SaaS then BigCommerce is the best you have. Even if you are a beginner and you have a small business then BigCommerce has a wide range of flexible pricing plans and you can choose the one that suits your budget. Along with this, it also has highly flexible APIs.
5. OpenCart
It is one of the leading hosted platforms which fit well for the development and designing for your website and that too at a very minimal monthly subscription. If you want to improve the scalability of your website, in that case, you will have to use a third-party framework.
6. PrestaShop
If you have a low budget or even if you are a beginner and you do not want to risk a lot of money then you can definitely try Prestashop as your eCommerce CMS platform because it is free of cost. You can access all the features without even spending a penny. It has a wide variety of 300+ features, an inbuilt store, and features like SEO, checkouts, and delivery as well. It is a very good budget-friendly option.
7. osCommerce
If you want something reliable and without any risks of any kind of cyber breach in your data then you can definitely choose osCommerce. They have a wide variety of 7000 plus add ons. It highly customizable and will give your store a great opportunity to add a long list of features to enhance the user experience. It is also very easy to use. Even if you are a beginner, you will not face any issue.
Conclusion
These days it is very important for a business to have and maintain an online presence, and with digitization, it became really important to have a website or an app for your business. This will help you to expand your business globally as well as locally. If you have a good eCommerce website then you can maintain all your physical stores from one place. Hence, if you are looking to expand and are planning to earn maximum ROI, investing in getting a customized eCommerce CMS platform is a great choice.
