The 5 Most Important Questions to Ask When Choosing an E-Commerce Platform
For your E-Commerce store to become wildly successful, you’ll need a strong platform. The platform is the backbone of your store. If your platform lacks certain features and is not as powerful as it needs to be, your store will always underperform. Your store needs to be flexible and functional enough to meet the demands of your E-Commerce industry.
As you may know, there are a great number of options to choose from with E-Commerce platforms. There are numerous style variations, backend functionalities, and security particularities which can complicate your choice. When there’s so much to choose from, it can be difficult to see and understand things clearly.
This post will outline the most important things you need to consider when opening your online store. The truth is that you do not need every feature and function under the sun. But there are certain elements which must be addressed.
Do you have a developer?
This is the first question that needs to be answered because it will influence your subsequent decisions. Your developer should know how to install a platform and customize it your liking. If you don’t have a developer, you will need to choose a platform that has either good support or a very helpful community. If you are not tech-savvy, you will eventually run into technical issues, so you shouldn’t choose a platform that’s difficult to use and maneuver.
If you do have a developer, you may want to make changes your store’s code. An open source platform like WooCommerce, for example, makes it pretty easy to do that.
How do you want the store to look?
The design of your store is absolutely crucial for striking a strong first impression to your site visitors. Many E-Commerce platforms give you the option to modify the look and feel of your store with different themes and templates. If you have a developer, you can customize your theme to meet your exact vision.
With your design, you need to consider if the platform makes it easy to change or modify the look. Changing a theme or modifying it shouldn’t be a crippling headache. A great platform will make it easy to find a look and adjust it to meet your specifications.
How strong is the platform’s security?
Hackers are rampantly thieving credit card details from online retailers. To prevent your store from being a victim of these attacks, you need to get acquainted with SSL certificates and PCI compliance. SSL (which stands for Secure Sockets Layer) is a system of authentication with verifies the identity of a business and encrypts sensitive data during a transaction. PCI Standards are a set of rules which must be met if you are to sell goods online. If you are not PCI compliant, not only are you leaving your business legally vulnerable in the event of a security breach you are also putting your customers at an extreme risk.
The platform that you choose may offer an SSL certificate. If not, you’ll have to buy one. A web store can never be too secure. There are holes opening up daily, and you need an E-Commerce platform that can withstand the various hacking attempts and security breaches. Your platform should offer additional security options or extensions.
Is the platform SEO friendly?
Your SEO site structure needs to be easy to implement. The ability to implement thorough on-site SEO is an important factor. Certain platforms make it difficult to modify the content and structure of your webpages, while others make it extremely easy. A WordPress platform, for example, will usually make it easy to customize your on-site SEO structure and add content like blog posts, which are known to boost SEO.
Does the platform offer additional options?
As of right now, you may be a small operation. You may not need sophisticated pricing and bundling features, and you may not need dozens of security extensions right now, but one day you may just need it. You need a store that will allow you to easily expand if the time ever comes. You do not want to be pigeonholed by a weak platform. A platform that has a wide library of plugins or extensions can be extremely useful in the future.
Answering these five questions will help to determine which platform you should select for your E-Commerce store. Take these considerations seriously, review your options, compare features and make the best choice for your store.
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