How to choose the best eCommerce platform for your online selling startup

An online selling startup is like baking a cake! While the flour, sugar and other ingredients form the batter of your business model, the cake tin is your hosting eCommerce platform. You can only pour as much batter as your cake tin can accommodate. At the same time, it influences how your cake will look, even before someone can taste it.?

Similarly, an online seller must mold their business model to align with the features of the eCommerce host. Additionally, the design, security, and UX of your host will determine how your business is perceived by the consumers, much before making a purchase. Hence, it is pivotal for an online seller to carefully select an eCommerce platform that suits their business. This article intends to help new entrepreneurs choose the right platform for their online selling business.?

Pre-emptive of looking for an eCommerce platform:?

1. Cost and Affordability: Every eCommerce host has its unique subscription cost. It includes the costs for design, maintenance, upgrades, etc. Hence, before jumping to the prospects, a seller should know their budget and how much they can allot for the monthly/annual subscription.?
2. Research: When the future of your business is at stake, it rarely helps to fall for the hype. To select a suitable host, it is essential to do a thorough research on the various eCommerce marketplaces. Take note whether the features of the particular hosts aligns with your product category and industry, is relevant and reliable, and has scope of growth. It is necessary to understand what you are signing up for.?
3. Work Ethic: The software of the host should be easy to use and align with a company’s work ethic. It pays off to have a hosting platform that streamlines all the processes and does not create issues on the technical end.?

Choosing the right platform for your online selling startup:

1. Design and UI:

Some eCommerce platforms provide a wide variety of aesthetic design templates. This is a helpful feature for startups as hiring a design professional is quite expensive. With the use of these templates, one can illustrate your brand’s essence in a nutshell and grab the attention of the visitors. In addition to the aesthetic appeal, a friendly user interface will make it easy to navigate through your online store. If the UI is able to retain the visitor’s attention for over 20 seconds on the website, it makes way for potential customers.??

2. Overall User Experience:

Despite an aesthetic home page, if the website lags frequently, redirects to the wrong page and has an outdated code, it will immediately lose the customer’s trust. A smooth buying experience reassures customers that they are at the right place. Hence, look for a host that provides a good user experience.?

It should allow you to add a descriptive product catalogue with images from multiple angles, mobile adaptability, speed, secure payment checkout, and other important features essential for the customer experience. Remember, the product categories, filters, and wishlists are the core functions of any online store. Hence, these functions should be absolutely seamless.?

3. SEO and Marketing:

It is necessary for your business to be discovered on the internet in the first place. Hence, organic SEO and integrated marketing cannot be overlooked. Look for eCommerce platforms that help your business with a unique domain name, Google sitemap and meta-data, so that it ranks higher up in the search results. It is beneficial to look for a multi-channel marketplace extension.

4. Hosting and Security:

It is important to look for a platform that is fast and lag-free with frequent backups for the website in the case of technical hiccups. Technical glitches, especially during the transaction process can lead to customer frustration and mistrust. The hosting platform should be secure and updated, with a solid tech support team at assistance.?

5. Analytics and Customer Reviews:

It is not an exaggeration to say that analytics are the driving force of the internet. Without keeping a track of how the visitors are responding to the online store, it becomes very difficult to make improvements. In the absence of this feature, the eCommerce space will be a slow and tedious process with poor conversion rates. While analytics are indirect feedback for the online store, customer reviews are direct feedback. They not only help customers, but also the sellers to increase the authenticity of the platform.?

6. Shipments:

Order management and shipment is one of the biggest challenges of an online selling business. To ensure a seamless order fulfilment, it is beneficial to look for eCommerce platforms that allow alternative shipment methods with varying costs and speed of delivery. To provide the promised delivery, it is always beneficial to partner with a reliable 3PL company. AAJ enterprises is a responsive, competent and cost-efficient logistics company that caters to the needs of beginner as well as advanced players in eCommerce.