5 Most Frequently Asked Enterprise eCommerce Technology Questions Answered.

What is Enterprise eCommerce??Enterprise E-commerce?is a multimillion-dollar industry that is highly popular in the business world today. It is a form of eCommerce that involves the sales and purchases of goods between large organizations. In contrast to small transactions between individuals in retail or consumer-based commerce, these transactions bring in millions or even billions in revenue. As such many businesses and entrepreneurs are entering or competing for a piece of this lucrative pie.

If you are looking to enter this industry, these may be some of the key questions you may have:

Q1. What are the base requirements for doing Enterprise eCommerce?

The Enterprise eCommerce industry requires players to have very large-scale operations and a strong global brand presence, alongside the key technological element — a well-refined enterprise eCommerce platform that will fully support enterprise eCommerce operations.

Q2. What is an Enterprise eCommerce Platform?

An?Enterprise eCommerce Platform , or Enterprise eCommerce System, is a software that is capable of handling the large-scale online and offline trading and commerce activities that businesses in the enterprise eCommerce industry have to do. A well-known example would be Shopify Plus.

Q3. What are the features that an Enterprise eCommerce Platform requires?

There are some essential features that good enterprise eCommerce platforms should have.

1. Good flexibility and scalability for changes in business growth

2. Omnichannel content delivery for a cohesive experience online and offline.

3. User-friendly and intuitive user interface and checkout process.

4. Easy and efficient management of long product catalogs and product pages

5. Support for Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) essential, with support for other types included as necessary.

6. Singular platform that is able to manage multiple sites, store locations, and currencies.

7. Seamless integration with other enterprise system modules such as sales, inventory, employee relations, marketing, accounting, etc.

8. High Security and Reliability

9. The enterprise eCommerce platform is customizable to the business requirements

In addition to these,?AI integration?for product recommendations and customer queries is a new and upcoming feature to consider including in your?enterprise eCommerce platform?so as to maintain a competitive edge. Keep in mind that no enterprise eCommerce platform will tick all the boxes from the get-go, what is important is whether it can be customized to fit your key needs.

Q4. What are the Advantages of having an Enterprise eCommerce Platform?

Having an enterprise eCommerce platform boasts multiple advantages. Here are the most important ones:

1. Better Engagement and Streamlined Customer Experience

As opposed to not having an enterprise eCommerce solution or having a basic eCommerce platform, enterprise eCommerce platforms provide easier search and filtering functions, and better user interfaces. The customer experience is also streamlined and faster. This ensures better customer engagement and an increase in the engagement of trading partners.

2. Higher Conversion Rates

Beyond just visiting your eCommerce website what is key is to convert your visitors into customers or trading partners. To do this the statistics of the website, the design, the speed, ease-of-use, shopping cart, and checkout process are all important. The advanced designs of enterprise eCommerce platforms can improve the conversion rate extensively.

3. Increased Efficiency

As all the key modules necessary for enterprise eCommerce solutions will be connected in one place, it will improve the working efficiency of employees and the business as a whole. Management is also able to oversee the operations with an eagle’s eye view more easily.

4. Easy Analytics and Reporting

Enterprise eCommerce search solutions differ in that they provide intelligent analytics that allows higher management to observe trends and patterns from data mined from the search queries on the platform. They can point out the new bestsellers and opportunities for catalog optimization, hence the business to drive better PPC campaigns and offsite SEO. These data along with sales, revenue, and other data can be converted into condensed reports that enhance managerial decision-making.

5. Room for Growth and Development

As enterprise eCommerce is done on such a large scale there are often major changes that occur where parts of the business may grow or shrink. As such normal eCommerce platforms are not able to handle the changes swiftly. Enterprise eCommerce platforms have the scalability and flexibility to handle such growth and development.

6. Multichannel Sales Avenues

With enterprise eCommerce solutions, businesses are able to do sales in-store, through mobile apps, and online through browser-based websites. Such multichannel sales methods will maximize the potential of the business and allow better customer satisfaction.

7. Prevent Downtime

Through enterprise eCommerce platforms organizations are able to provide their services 24x7 even when they are off for the day. This not only enables local customers to make purchases from the comfort of their homes after work but also allows international customers from different time zones to do business with the organization.

Q5. What are the Types of Enterprise eCommerce Platforms?

The types of?Enterprise eCommerce Platforms?can be categorized according to differences in hosting, frontend features, and backend features. It is important to understand the basics of these.

Hosting: Your enterprise eCommerce platform needs a space to live in. This space is defined by the server space it uses on the web. Hosting is the method by which you would secure that server space, which is similar to securing a house to live in. There are different ways of hosting, same as you would have different ways to get a house such as purchasing it or renting it.

Front End Features: The front end of your enterprise eCommerce platform is the portion that customers see and interact with. This includes the design, the navigation bar, product pages, the shopping cart, search bars, etc. The front end forms your digital storefront.

Back End Functionality: These are the performance features and technology related to the server side of your platform. This is the end that your developers would handle and machines would interact with — for the most part unseen by human eyes. The backend functionalities are what enhance the efficiency of your enterprise eCommerce platform’s interaction with the server. It conveys the commands of your employees to the platform and creates better user experiences.

Accordingly, the types of Enterprise eCommerce Platforms are:

· Onsite Enterprise Solution

This is when an organization chooses to host the website’s server in a data center on its organizational premises. This will require a lot of resources, in the form of physical space, a large IT Team, and a huge funding requirement considering the maintenance costs can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars according to US rates. This is considered a legacy method that is not used anymore as many people work remotely.

Advantages: The main advantages of this type of platform, also called a self-hosted solution or an on-premise solution, are that it allows higher security, full control over its source code, and greater performance for the platform.

Disadvantages: Despite a few advantages, self-hosting offers multiple disadvantages, not least of which is the extremely high resource needs caused by the infrastructure changes needed every 3–5 years, high numbers of experienced web server administrators with high salaries, additional hardware needed for backup, and licensing fees for the?enterprise eCommerce software solution, server software and more. Performance optimization is limited as it may only apply across your server and not across the rest of your content delivery network. Security while being an advantage as it is within your premises, can also be a disadvantage due to the human factors involved. The?Onsite Enterprise Solution?also cannot be scaled up without using extensive additions to the hardware making it very unwieldy.

· Cloud-based eCommerce Solution

This type of enterprise eCommerce solution is identified by the method in which the data is saved in the cloud server instead of at a physical data center that your team manages. While “cloud” or “cloud computing” can have many meanings, here the cloud describes infrastructure as a service (IaaS) — that is to use a cloud computing infrastructure provider for the Cloud server

Advantages: Cloud-based architecture is less expensive when it comes to infrastructure with no need to buy or rent physical servers. Easy to scale and modify, with more standardized security such as in Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. As only the server infrastructure is obtained on the cloud, you will still have full control over its configuration and the enterprise eCommerce system’s source code.

Disadvantages: Employee payments will still be high as this solution will still require server administrators and other IT experts. Also, even though the server license fee will probably be handled as part of your payment to the provider, the software license will not. In addition, hosting a web platform in the cloud can be an expensive affair which may still cost you over a hundred thousand dollars for a medium-sized eCommerce platform based on US pay rates.

Alternative

You can also host your cloud-based platform with a hosting service provider. This would reduce the cost of having a server administrator and other IT experts. In addition, as the cloud server is shared by many people who also lease out the space from the hosting service, you will only need to pay a very low fraction in terms of costs. However, security and control will also be significantly lower.

· SaaS Enterprise eCommerce Solution

SaaS, or Software-as-a-Service, solutions are a way to simplify the whole aspect of an eCommerce platform. The SaaS solution provider will handle everything from server space, server administration, software design and management, and more. The business only needs to go to the SaaS website and select the hosting options and eCommerce platform design they want from a user-friendly product page, add everything to the shopping cart, and pay for it. Later there will be monthly installments or subscription fees for the management of the platform.

Advantages: Easy, nontechnical, and less costly in the short run.

Disadvantages: No control over the code and back end, security is dependent on the SaaS solution provider, can be fairly costly in the long run, and there may be hidden costs.

· Open-Source Enterprise eCommerce Solution

An Open-Source Solution is a base source code that is free, or at very little cost, and open for everyone to download, use and edit. However, this also means that this source code will be very common and will need a lot of work to make it your own and customized to your specific requirements. However, it is a preferred method among top businesses to use open-source platforms such as Magento Commerce, now known as Adobe Commerce, to create high-end enterprise eCommerce platforms with unique specifications that stand out of the crowd.

Advantages:

Full and absolute control over your eCommerce platform, source code, and back end. Can have better security as you will oversee its creation from scratch.

Disadvantages: Highly technical and requires IT experts to create the full platform. Can be costly in terms of third-party apps, add-ons, extensions, licensing, design, maintenance, etc.

However, by hiring dedicated developers from offshore outsourcing companies such as?Era Biz ?you can reduce the costs of design and maintenance while obtaining their assistance to find the most cost-effective way to build the best solution for you.

· Headless Enterprise eCommerce Solution

The?Headless eCommerce Solution?is similar to a combination of a?SaaS eCommerce solution?with an?Open-Source eCommerce solution. Here the backend and frontend are decoupled or separated such that they can be developed separately. The solution provider will then have a standardized backend (or body) while the front end (the head) design and user interface can be fully customized according to business requirements. As the platform is offered headless, this offers better flexibility as the organization can create the head that they need. Here the platform may be developed, hosted, and handed over to the client with full ownership and white labeling, or the service provider may hold ownership of the platform and offer a subscription at a monthly cost.

Advantages: Higher flexibility and some customization. Able to obtain software quickly and, as predeveloped for the most part, at a lower cost. Able to scale to some extent and make changes to the front end with no effect on the back end.

Disadvantages: Scalability is limited unless the service provider or development company has already planned for scalability and has made appropriate concessions in the back end. Performance has its core in the backend and bad development may affect performance.

However, if partnering with a?good software development company , headless enterprise eCommerce platforms are a very cost-effective and viable solution for any large-scale business.

· Composable eCommerce Platform

A?composable eCommerce?platform is made up of many separate modules that can be fit together like building blocks. The service provider will offer you a list of predeveloped modular building blocks which you can pick and choose from to customize and create your website. This method is tried and tested to be quite fast and agile, with the modules being known as?Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs). This type of platform is an evolution from the?Headless eCommerce Platform?that only allows the head part to be flexible. PBCs can include both front and back-end modules such as the storefront, cart, payments, catalog, checkout, etc. This way businesses are able to focus on their core strengths and goals instead of the technology needed to do it.?Era Biz? offers this opportunity for its businesses as part of its?IT project outsourcing solution ?for the enterprise eCommerce industry.

Contact Era Biz Solutions ?to learn more about the Enterprise eCommerce Solutions that we offer.