Best eCommerce Software and Platform Solutions in 2017

What is eCommerce Platform?

Ecommerce is a booming industry at the moment. The rapidly increasing internet population is creating a huge demand for online shopping channels. As a result, more and more numbers of online shopping sites are debuting everyday. Ecommerce software system helps merchants to setup online business in easy steps using eCommerce solutions. These are special types of eCommerce Sofware Application designed to build, deploy and manage an online shopping website where merchandise that can displayed, sold and bought. The Indian market too is warming up to the idea of online business and both retail and online stores are projecting their products and goods to the rapidly expanding internet population of the country.

As we may expect the robust trend to continue it is high time to migrate your business to the internet platform. There are many free open source ecommerce solutions that help you built a fully–integrated online shopping cart software without investing large fortune into it. Often these applications come with inbuilt modules and widgets to get embedded to your existing interface to create an integrated platform. Both on-premise and hosted solutions are available to meet the varied requirements of customers using different eCommerce website solutions. While on-premise applications will give you more control and flexibility over content, hosted e-Commerce software will lower installation and management expenses.

We help you find the right online web store software that would suit your requirement. As the demand for integrated eCommerce Software Solution has risen, many vendors are offering easy customizable eCommerce applications to meet the varied and intrinsic requirements of a business. However, it isn’t easy to find the right kind of software fitting to your business needs, especially, while all vendors are claiming to be unique. Here we present you honest reviews and details of best eCommerce solutions by listing them for your benefit.

We help you find applications for various requirements. It works as a two-way e commerce platform that allows vendors to list their software applications and customers to find the right product fitting & to build online web store to their requirements. It targets the SMEs and offers them a platform for showcasing their innovations. 

How eCommerce software can help your business:

Launching your business online can help you gain instant visibility with a deluge of prospective customers. One of the many advantages that online businesses offer is that, it allows you to acquire larger customer base without increasing establishment costs. It is relatively easier and cheaper to build online web store and to promote it to a wider customer base. As a result, both large brands and small businesses are indulging in ecommerce or to the idea of promoting their products and goods through internet.

If you too are considering migrating your existing business to online eCommerce solutions here is a list of advantages that embracing ecommerce would offer you.

1. Ecommerce, especially for  small and medium size businesses offer a level playing platform with top, established brands. It allows small artisans and entrepreneurs to showcase their produces to larger customer base and gain instant visibility across the online platform.
2. It is easier to promote your business online. It helps your ecommerce business gain visibility across e Commerce platforms and reach out to more customers. You can instantly create buzz on big day sales, discounts and events.
3. Your customer can reach to you directly. Moreover, you can keep your shop open 24x7. Through online transactions, deals are closed instantly. So, no worries regarding receivables. You can also offer comfortable payment options to your customers which will make them more interested in buying products from your website.

If you have an in-house IT team you can build online store platform from scratch, or else, there are now plenty of ready-to-use, off-the-shelf applications available which can be customized according to your ecommerce business requirements. Zepo, Shopify, BuildaBazar are few such ecommerce solutions that allow you to build personal online stores in easy steps. However, before you select a platform,it is important to check if it satisfies your requirements. We are a listing service that allows vendors to list their products where customers can check, compare and eventually select the best solution for themselves. 

Features of eCommerce Software:

The growing industry of ecommerce solutions has quite transformed the traditional brick and mortar kind of business. Today most brands and shops have launched their online shops to entice more number of customers by offering them convenience of shopping from the comfort of their homes; at any time of the day. Introduction of ecommerce solutions have positive impact on world economy and in all probability the trend will continue in the future.

Ecommerce offers a few advantages over the traditional form of business, those are:

1. Lower entry level cost
2. Easy penetration to the market
3. A level playing field alongside the large and established brands
4. An educated and aware customer base
5. Easy accessibility over the internet and scope of direct communication with customers
6. Marketing through Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO), Social Media Campaign, Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns etc.
7. No or lower establishment cost
8. Wide availability of professional resources in designing, developing, hosting and maintaining websites or ecommerce portals

The number of ecommerce portals has grown significantly in the past years. According to a report published on ecommerce trends, over 40% of internet users have purchased goods and merchandized online. But even with all these facts it isn’t easy to start off with ecommerce. First off, it would need proper selection of the best shopping cart software to be used that will be supportive to the business. Here are a few features to consider while choosing the best multi channel ecommerce platforms.

1. The online store builder must eliminate issues of maintaining multiple databases by integrating all to a centralized platform.
2. Hassle free integration to the existing set-up is crucial for the health of your business. It must unite all aspects of your business by allowing seamless integration with both internal and external platforms, such as – third-party secured payment gateway software.
3. Some online web store software have features like periodic mailing, shopping suggestions through intelligent analytics and customer browsing history analysis, and such, to help you engage more customers in less time.
4. The eCommerce software solutions must also be SEO friendly so that your site ranks easily on search engine pages.
5. Another important aspect is reporting and analysis module as these would help you measure business performance and also suggest you scopes of improvement.

We help business owners make an informed choice while selecting eCommerce applications for their business. We work as a listing website where software vendors showcase their products and services. You can compare and get reviews to select the best IT solution available to you.

Be wise while going Online

Prevention is always better than cure! There needs to be a basic outlined homework done by any business that wants to go online. If you want your products to be merchandised on eCommerce platform, then you need to be hands on with some internal as well as external fallacies that you might come across and which you would have to sustain. Hence you need to be smart from the stat to avoid having one:

1. Less reliance on third party service providers: If you choose to opt for a SAAS, you need to be well aware about the controls that your business would have. You cannot just pass on all the responsibilities and controls to the SAAS based eCommerce platform because that would lead to lessen the interest in your own business heading to reduction in the growth of your business.
2. Do not burn a hole in your pocket: Having own a business, one would certainly think about profit maximization rather than incurring heavy costs at the very initial phase. Hence one needs to be witty and wise to choose alternatives whether they want to invest such a high amount into their business. One might go for cheaper available solution softwares that might not incur high maintenance and installation charge o the business.    
3. ISP level hosting for better encryption: Immaculate security is what any customer would expect from any eCommerce platform. While doing business with you, any customer would be very serious about the breach of their data. The top eCommerce platforms must be able to provide you with immense security and control so that the business as well as end users are equally safe.
4. Ready updates and live chat availability for immediate bugs: Trouble may arise at time, but you must be prepared enough. For this you must have facilities available on such as live chat software where in you can contact them at any moment of time for instant help. Updation done in your business must also be instant so that there is no misinterpretation of information about your product.
5. It must have an MVC approach: The solution that you go for must have a sorted MVC approach that is it must present to you the model of what it does; the basic functionalities availed in the dashboard, it must be able to give you the view of how it will look like and how it will be presented, third and last is, it must provide you to govern your business at your own without restricting you from any kind of updation.
6. Easy SEO integration: Any Ecommerce software is valued by its presence on SEO. The software that you chose from must be trusted and be able to provide you the presence on multiple search engines that too with easy search.

Conclusion:

Building an ecommerce website is now easier as one can go with (a) open source ecommerce software (b) custom ecommerce website development (c) hosted ecommerce platform (d) advanced ecommerce software based on your business goals, budget, and technical knowledge.