Over the years business owners have worked with several platforms like Magento, Shopify and Big Commerce. In these years, one would realize that these platforms are not a perfect fit for every business. There are several benefits of picking the right eCommerce service provider such as better efficiency, better shopper engagement, and higher conversions.
The process of migrating from one platform to another is quite difficult. Apart from that, it is also a bit expensive and messy too. One wrong choice will make your business suffer altogether. Before making a decision, you must do proper research thoroughly.
Here, we bring you some points that you must consider before choosing the right platform for your business.
Point To Consider Before Picking the Right Platform
Know Your Business Needs
Generally, the platform sales people will always tell you that their product is perfect for your business. There are chances they might send you a mail that will highlight all the features and statistics about their product.
Most of the time the platform companies are always focused on providing you with solutions. But the issue is that they offer these solutions without actually knowing your problem or concern. There are times when several solutions are not even related to your problem.
If you get in touch with a good representative, he or she will always first start with knowing your business needs. Only after this, they will be able to suggest a particular platform to you. Before picking the right platform for yourself, you must check out features and ask the provider if they’ll set up to manage it. Besides this, are they having any resources to maintain and scale it?
Only when you get answers to these questions, make your decision.
Resources Needed
Always ensure to have onsite and offsite resources that you might need today and also in the coming future. So is there a need for any third-party development firm? Well, it depends. No matter if you work with internal and external developer teams, there will be success and failures in both of them.
Make sure you know the resources that would be needed for a potential platform, recognizing the needs will likely change once you make your website live.
Scalable enough or not?
Is it possible that a platform will be supportive of an ever-growing business? Talking about BigCommerce, this particular platform is quite minimal. It’s an open-API structure that synced with many third-party apps, facilitating easy optimization and enhancement. But, there are times, when just within a year, you happen to receive customer feedback for conversion improvements, which we implemented via BigCommerce’s app store.
Talking about other scalability factors, it is all about the impact on your operations. There could be a situation where you might be generating 1,000 orders in a week. But have you given a thought to the other 5,000? The support system that you’ve picked will be supportive of your volume?
Make sure, the servers will be able to handle the traffic .A platform that comes with “99.99%+ uptime” always sounds attractive only till you reach the 0.01% when your site goes down.
Decide Your Budget
This might be the last thing on your list, but you must know that deciding or knowing your budget is the most important thing ever. You should know about the amount you’re gonna spend on the platform. Some businesses can pay for Shopify but hardly have any money for SAP or Magento development.
All the stakeholders need to give their consent to a specific budget. You must start with a small product and only then scale it after saving your hard-earned money. It might work when you’re working with BigCommerce. You must always pay for things that are needed rather than just spending on miscellaneous stuff.
Conclusion
If you’re thinking there is any platform that fits all, sorry to burst your bubble because there is no one like it. You will have to understand your eCommerce business needs and then pick one platform for it. Every company has thought of different priorities regarding its eCommerce. It could be anything like dropshipping capabilities, real-time inventory management or payment options.
The only best eCommerce platform for your business is the one that meets all your needs. Always ensure to invest your time in evaluating your options. You should never be afraid of taking free trials in order to test out each platform’s unique features and advantages.
We hope this blog will help you understand the things that you should know before choosing an eCommerce platform. If you have any queries regarding this blog, please share them in the Comments section.
