FAQ (Frequently Asked Question)
Author: Pacific post date: 17.09.2015 time: 17:56:24
Buying Considerations for E-Commerce Platforms
- Budget and Size of Company
- Some e-commerce platforms offer you different pricing options, others don't. Most platforms with options tend to have three different choices; a basic, a middle-priced, and an unlimited option, with features and bandwidth varying accordingly. Because of this, you should know the scope of your project before choosing a provider.
Of course, every company would love to have the unlimited features, but many smaller companies cannot afford them. For companies that are starting off small with intentions to grow, choosing a platform with different price options would likely be best. However, for larger companies that already offer a vast array of products, having an option for basic or intermediate features may not be necessary.
Companies should also keep an eye out for additional recurring costs for maintenance or support and budget appropriately.
- Integrations and Add-ons
- An e-commerce platform needs to integrate with a variety of other systems that a company has in place. From a current payment gateway to inventory management systems, how easily these systems integrate with the platform will affect implementation time.
Furthermore, each e-commerce platform comes with its own set of plug-ins such as Google Analytics, email marketing tools, social media, etc. It is important to know not only which of these add-ons are best for your business and which platforms offer them, but also how each platform integrates them into the e-commerce site.
- Design and Time
- The design and format flexibility for an e-commerce site will vary between softwares. Knowing the man-hour investment available for building a site is key to knowing which platform offers you the best formatting and design options. Companies that don't have much time to allocate towards this should choose a platform with simple templates. On the other hand, for companies that have the time and resources to invest in designing and formatting their e-commerce site, choosing a more complex option allows for more unique options in the design.
- Hosted vs. On-premise
- Is the e-commerce site going to be hosted by the company, or will the company require the platform to host the site for them? Many smaller companies don't have the resources to host it on their own. However, larger companies often have much more server space to support their own e-commerce site and thus want an on-premise solution.
- Reporting and Analytics
- Knowing what is working and what is not is critical in growing a business. As such, choosing an e-commerce platform that offers clear and comprehensive reports and analytics is crucial when measuring business goals and objects.
- Mobile
- With mobile shopping continuing to skyrocket in popularity, many customers interact with ecommerce websites on devices such as smartphones and tablets on an everyday basis. As such, companies want to make sure their ecommerce platform offers mobile-optimized features so customers can visit online shops anytime, anywhere.
- Security
- One of the most important considerations when making ecommerce decisions is making sure the platform is secure. With customers inputting credit card and other valuable information, it is crucial to assure that the platform meets security standards. While most legitimate platforms implement these by default, it is smart to ask about the average threat response time as delayed responses lead to risk and liability.
- Industry
- Depending on a company's industry, the type and amount of products it sells will factor into choosing an e-commerce platform. Selling digital products such as eBooks is different than selling clothing that needs to be shipped. Furthermore, offering 1,000 products is much different than offering 30,000. Knowing this information is beneficial when reviewing potential e-commerce platforms and which platforms support which products better.
- Scaling
- Every e-commerce company intends to grow. Assuring that an e-commerce platform has the ability to scale with the company will be essential during the selection process.
Common Features
These are the common features of E-Commerce Platform
Merchandising/Marketing
- Promotions and Discounts
- Contains features that allow administrators to set up promotions on site, provide time based discounts, and enter coupon codes.
- Recommendations/Personalization
- Personalize the buyers experience by displaying the most relevant products to the consumer and increase conversions using past buyer behavior and merchant-driven rules. Tools may include such as cross-sell/up sell, promotions, recommendations, guided selling, etc
- Product Visualization
- Ability to display and manage photos, 3D views, videos etc for each product
- Store Front Design Tools
- Provides standard templates with an easy to use tool set to customize the templates to showcase the stores brand and optimize the users experience
- SEO
- Provides tools to drive traffic to pages via organic search
- Product Reviews
- Ability to display reviews and enable users to write reviews for each product. Integrations to review syndication software to include most recent reviews for products
- Abandoned Cart Tools
- Provide tools to help convert abandoned carts into sales. Saves items in shopping cart if a users does not complete the purchase. Allows users to continue order process in a future session. Emails users to remind them they have items in their cart.
Product Catalog
- Intangible Products
- Provides functionality specific to selling intangible products such as: Subscriptions, Trials, Perpetual Licencing, Downloads, Free Trials, etc.
- Product Search and Filtering
- Provides rich user experience to find products on site through site wide search, faceted navigation, product filtering and sorting
- Configured Products
- Ability to all users select options to configure the product or select product options. For example, color, size, etc.
- Content Management
- Ability to add/update products, product pricing, product information and other content included on eCommerce site.
Order Process
- Cross Channel Fulfillment
- Contains distributed order management functionality so that an order can be fulfilled from a warehouse, a store, a vendor drop ship or an in store pick up.
- Inventory Management
- Displays inventory levels of products in real time. Displays inventory by location if required.
- Returns/Refunds
- Functionality to allow users to process returns/refunds either via self service or contacting customer service.
- Order Management
- Contains tools that enable administrators to manage placed orders to ensure all customer orders are processed correctly and on time.
- Payment Processing
- Supports required payment methods including credit card processing, purchase orders, paypal, etc. Contains appropriate fraud management functionality.
- Tax Display and Processing
- Displays appropriate tax to user based on local laws. Contains functionality to process tax in back end systems. May integrate to 3rd Party tax solutions.
- Shipping Options
- Functionality that allows users to select shipping options based on price and delivery time. May integrate to 3rd Party shipping/fulfillment companies.
- Check Out Process
- Includes features that optimize user check out experience such as Shopping carts and Single Click Checkout, order summaries, receipts.
Multi-Channel Support
- B2B Features
- Includes features that that are valuable to B2B transactions. For example partner management, contract pricing, invoicing, product entitlement, contract management etc.
- Integration with 3rd Party Stores
- Integrates/Syncs your product catalog to major on line retailers such as Amazon, Ebay, etc. to make it easy to administer selling products via 3rd party channels
- Store Locator
- Enable customers to locate and navigate to physical locations by zip code, city or GPS
- Customer Service
- Provides features that enable customer services teams to interact with customers. Features may include chat and and phone support.
- Mobile
- Features that enable customers to easily to shop for products using a mobile device.
- Unified Customer experience
- Provides seamless approach to the consumer experience through all available shopping channels (Mobile, Social, Web, Point of Sale, catalog). Some times referred to Omni-Channel.
- Social Commerce
- Features that enable customers to easily shop for products on popular social platforms. May provide standard integrations or tools that build the social store on the platform.
Platform
- Test to Product Migration
- Functionality that enables administrators to test changes to products, store design, work flows etc in a test environment and schedule the changes to be migrated to the production version of the site
- Admin Access Rights
- Provides ability to control editing rights by product category, geography etc.
- Multi Site Management
- Features that enable creation and maintenance of micro sites, sub-sites using the same instance of the software.
- Security
- Software provides appropriate tools and certifications to protect against fraud and malicious attacks
- Reporting/Analytics
- Provides standard and ad-hoc reporting ability to meet business requirements
- User management
- Enables customers to update their own user information, settings and preferences.
- Integrations to add on tools
- Is easy to integrate to or has pre-packaged integrations to a wide variety of leading add on tools/software.
- Customization
- Product provides tools to customize web store front, business process, etc. to meet unique business needs.
- API's
- System provides well documented API's that can be used to integrate to any 3rd Party or internal system.
- Performance and Reliability
- Software performs well and runs with minimal unscheduled downtime
- Cross Browser Support
- Enables store or site to provide the same user experience in all browsers and browser versions.
- Internationalization
- Provides features that enable business transactions throughout the world. Typical features are multi-language, multi-currency and taxation
Key Benefits of E-Commerce Platforms
With e-commerce platforms, you can:
- Grow customers and business reach by leveraging the convenience and ease of access of the Internet.
- Increase sales by making products available around the clock to a wider group of customers.
- Make management and inventory processes easier and more efficient through integration with an e-commerce platform.
- Receive better data on who your customers are, their likes and dislikes, and what strategies are working and which are not.
- Scale more easily as your customer base grows.
- Allow for instant processing of transactions.
Glossary
The Glossary help you to understand what meaning each properties of shopping software that is used to comparison and decision-making which ecommerce platform is suited to your business. It explains following shopping cart features:
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License
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Hosting
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SEO and Design Features
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Promotion and Marketing Features
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Customer Management Features
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Inventory Management Features
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Shipping Features
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Payment & Pricing Features
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Hosting and Security Features
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Reporting and Analysis
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Database
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Price
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Hosting Specifications
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3rd Party Integrations
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Programming Language
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Source Code Availability
License
Whether the product is available for free with access to the source code (Open Source / Free) or for sale (Proprietary)
- Open Source
- Open-source software is computer software with its source code made available and licensed with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.
- Proprietary
- Proprietary software is licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder with the intent that the licensee use the software only under certain conditions, and restricted from other uses, such as modification, sharing, studying, redistribution, or reverse engineering.
Hosting
Describes whether the e-commerce shopping cart software is downloaded and hosted on the web server through a license, or whether it is hosted by the service provider for a monthly fee. There are advantages and disadvantages to both deployment methods, so it ultimately comes down to personal preference.
Features
Online shopping cart features allude to what is included in the software. Essentially, the features of a software package allow you to customize the look and feel of your online store. Good shopping cart software will allow you to monitor the activity in your e-store by showing you sales, search, and inventory reports, among other things. Many shopping carts will also have more advanced features, allowing you to create affiliate programs, customer registration, and other features to help your store grow. In the end, you should decide which features are needed for your own particular website. Some merchants may just need software with basic features, but others may require many additional features for a flourishing online website. Just make sure not to waste your money on functionality you don't need.
SEO and Design Features
SEO and design functionality helps enhance the aesthetics of e-commerce websites and improve page ranking on search engines. Arguably the best marketing tool in your arsenal, SEO is key if you want to rank at the top of the search engines. By utilizing certain features like custom SEO tags, optimized URLs, and automated sitemaps, you can improve your page ranking more easily. Various design features are also essential for creating and enhancing your website. Designing your store is the first and perhaps the most crucial step towards online success. Look for programs with site templates, drag-and-drop design, breadcrumb navigation functionality, and bulk image upload. See what other features you desire in a shopping cart software solution:
- Auto-Generated Sitemaps
- The software automatically manages your sitemap as more webpages and products are added. A sitemap enables search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to find your site content more quickly and easily.
- Breadcrumb Navigation
- Construct the page hierarchy so search engines can identify the depth of your website. A "breadcrumb" will appear at the top of all category and product pages so customers can easily navigate to each one of the parent pages.
- Bulk Image Upload
- Upload multiple images at the same time.
- Bulk Product Import/Export
- Directly import product data from a spreadsheet file or export your data into CSV, XML, or Binary.
- Custom SEO Tags
- Create your own anchor text, title tags, meta tags, and other directive SEO tags.
- Dedicated IP Address
- The software vendor will provide your website with a dedicated IP address.
- Drag and Drop Design
- Easily change page layouts by dragging and dropping your website panels around.
- Duplicate Content Checker
- The software can check your website for duplicate content.
- Existing Site Migration
- Migrate your existing shopping cart website to a better and more dynamic platform.
- Modifiable HTML/CSS
- Modify the HTML and CSS code to enhance page layout and style.
- No Graphic Design Necessary
- he software vendor does not provide any graphic design services.
- No Programming Necessary
- The software does not require any programming.
- Optimized URLs
- Modify your URLs to improve page ranking.
- Site Templates
- The software provides standard and customizable templates that you can use to create webpages quickly and easily.
- Store/Product Subcategories
- Create subcategories of your stores and products.
- Unlimited Store/Product Categories
- Create an unlimited number of store and product categories on your website.
- WYSIWYG Editor
- Supports regular text and HTML.
Promotion and Marketing Features
Robust promotion and marketing tools help generate more traffic to e-commerce websites and can thus increase sales. These features can enable you to automate abandoned cart emails, offer daily deals, and implement a loyalty program for your shoppers. The software may also allow you to run detailed sales reports so that you can easily identify your best--and worst--selling products. Other options may include the ability to set-up an affiliate program for your site and to send promotional or follow-up emails to customers. The more marketing tools and features the shopping cart software provides, the better. Decide which ones you need for your store:
- Affiliate Program Support
- Track your affiliates and their commission.
- Coupons
- Create and accept discount codes and coupons.
- Customizable Email Templates
- Build and customize your own email templates.
- Email Auto Response
- Compose pre-written emails to get information to your customers. For instance, you can create an auto response for customers who left items in their shopping cart or those who just left a product review.
- Email List Management
- Build, manage, and maintain a list of your customers. Add or remove email addresses, make changes, and pull reports based your customer list to send targeted, segmented email campaigns.
- Gift Cards
- Offer and accept gift cards or gift certificates.
- Newsletters
- Send newsletters to customers so they stay informed about sales, promotions, and new items. Customers can subscribe and unsubscribe at any time.
- Popup Management
- Manage popup advertising across your website.
- Product Reviews
- Allow customers to rate and review products you sell. You can choose to show reviews automatically or to edit them before they are displayed on the website.
- RSS Content Reader
- Look for new content on the site or set-up a server-side script to parse the feed and display the content of the RSS on another website.
- Sitewide Specials
- Offer storewide discounts and coupons.
Customer Management Features
Customer management functionality builds customer loyalty by helping to provide an exceptional online shopping experience. Customers may be able to create personal user accounts, track their orders, and see their order history directly from your online store. In addition to improving the overall user experience for your customers, these features can enable you to better understand your customers and ultimately improve your service. You may have the ability to view customer order history and trends, create coupons for specific customers, and provide customer support directly from your online store. See what other customer management features you want in a shopping cart:
- Abandonment Tracking
- Track each abandoned order so you can identify trends. You can also send those customers who did not complete their purchase an email with a link to their "not completed" order page.
- Call Logs
- Record phone logs when customers call and take notes on what you spoke to them about.
- Customer Account Creation
- Allow customers to make user accounts so they can track their orders directly from your website and complete the checkout process more quickly.
- Customer Contact List
- Manage your customers' emails, phone numbers, addresses, etc.
- Customer Order History
- Search, view, print, and manage customer order history.
- Customer Profiles
- Create profiles of your customers to learn more about their spending habits. You can also view their contact information and order history at a glance.
- Customer Specific Offers
- Create and apply custom coupons, discount codes, and shipping options based on a specific customer group.
- Support Desk
- Provide customer support directly from your website.
Inventory Management Features
Inventory management functionality provides the real-time information needed to track the quantity, location, status, and history of every inventory item within a your store. These features will give you the robust functionality you need to control your inventory accurately and efficiently, which in turn allows you to provide superior customer service. Specifically, inventory management features may allow you to assign different workflows to different warehouses, see inventory status in real time, and forecast future sales so you have sufficient supplies to meet the demand. Proper inventory control is critical to a business' success, so identify the features that will help you optimize the flow of inventory into and out of your store.
- Barcode Support
- Print barcodes directly from the software and scan them to track the progress of each step of the workflow.
- Demand Forecasting
- Predict future sales and adjust your inventory accordingly.
- Multiple Warehouse Support
- Support multiple warehouses in one system so you can have different workflows for different warehouses.
- Real Time Inventory Status
- The software will update your inventory in real-time as you receive and sell products.
- Reorder Alerts
- Based on sales trends, you can receive alerts when items need to be restocked.
- Return/Exchange Management
- Process returns and exchanges for customers in an orderly fashion.
- Shipment Tracking
- Allow customers to track their packages. Once you have shipped an order, the software will automatically send the customer an email with a direct link to the order tracking page.
- Supplier Management
- Effectively manage the entire order processing side of your business. You may be able to create multiple warehouses per supplier, assign workflow to a certain supplier, define the box sizes that a supplier should use for certain items, and much more.
Shipping Features
Shipping functionality will allow for increased pricing flexibility and customization. These sophisticated features can help you dynamically calculate shipping rates for products coming from multiple warehouse locations. They also enable you to create extremely flexible shipping-rate rules, combining geographical location, weight, size, quantity, and much more. This is particularly useful for non-standard items, such as sculptures or certain food items. Certain shipping features may also allow you to provide real-time shipping rates to your customers during the checkout process, as well as order tracking information, which increases efficiency and improves customer experience. See what other features you desire:
- Custom Shipping Rules
- Specify which item can use which shipping service and shipping type.
- Drop Shipping
- Calculate shipping rates for products from multiple warehouses.
- Fedex Price Lookup
- Provide customers with an instant Fedex shipping quote when they enter their zip code.
- Flat Rate Shipping
- Use a flat fee to calculate shipping costs.
- Heavy Freight Shipping
- Use heavy-freight shipping fees to calculate shipping costs.
- International Postage Fee Lookup
- Allow customers to look up the postage fee for shipping items internationally.
- Item Box Placement
- Specify which items go into which box during shipping. You can overwrite any suggestions.
- Label Printing
- Print shipping labels directly from the software.
- Live Rate Shipping
- Provide customers with an instant shipping quote when they enter their zip code.
- Product Specific Tax Rules
- Apply different tax rates and rules to certain products.
- Real Time Package Tracking
- Allow customers to track their packages in real time. Once you have shipped an order, the software will automatically send the customer an email with a direct link to the order tracking page.
- Shipping Automation
- The software has fully automated drop-shipping functionality. When a new order is made, you will automatically receive a purchase order. Once you ship the order, the customer will automatically receive a shipping notice.
- Shipping by Location
- Calculate shipping costs based on where the order is being shipped.
- Shipping Consolidation
- Consolidate multiple boxes into one shipment.
- Shipping Insurance
- Offer customers shipping insurance based on a flat fee or a percentage of the total cost. You can also require shipping insurance on orders that meet or exceed a pre-defined amount.
- Shipping Price Calculator
- The software automatically calculates the shipping costs for users based on the total order amount.
- Shipping Weight Calculator
- The software automatically calculates the shipping costs for users based on the combined weight of the products purchased.
- Tax by Country
- Allow customers to look up the sales tax for a certain country.
- Tax by State
- Allow customers to look up the sales tax for a specific state.
- UPS Price Lookup
- Provide customers with an instant UPS shipping quote when they enter their zip code.
- USPS Price Lookup
- Provide customers with an instant USPS shipping quote when they enter their zip code.
- Weight Based Shipping
- Calculate shipping costs based on the combined weight of the products purchased.
Payment & Pricing Features
Payment and pricing functionality allows for enhanced flexibility and security. Actually paying for a purchase online is the last hurdle a shopper must traverse before completing an order, so expediting the payment process can help increase customer satisfaction and boost sales.
- Cash On Demand Payment
- Allow customers to pay for an order at the time of the actual delivery.
- Competitor Price Analysis
- Analyze traffic to competitors' e-commerce stores and monitor their sales prices.
- Data Vault
- A vault encrypts and password-protects your data and customer information.
- Discount Management
- Create and edit sales, discount codes, and coupons.
- Electronic Signature Support
- Generate electronic signatures for customers and map them to their accounts to authorize payment.
- Live Shipping Quotes
- Enable customers to receive automatic shipping rates from major shipping carriers like Fedex, UPS, and USPS.
- Money Orders
- Accept money orders as payment.
- Multi-Currency
- Display multiple currencies and allow customers to switch from one currency to another.
- Pricing Per Customer Groups
- Make multiple customer groups and assign different price levels. Use these groups to provide exclusive pricing for specific customers, such as wholesale buyers.
- Product Bundling
- Create product bundles that contain more than one item.
Hosting and Security Features
Hosting and security functionality helps to ensure your data and customer information stay secure. Hosting is the backbone of all e-commerce activities, so it is imperative to choose a shopping cart software solution that boasts the best and most secure service with multiple data centers and points of access. Security is another necessity it is a chief concern for online shoppers, so it's crucial to make sure that the shopping cart you use offers standard security features. These should include suspicious activity tracking, SSL secure checkouts that encrypt customers' payment information, as well as data backup and restoration to protect your business records.
- Antivirus
- Your website will be scanned daily for thousands of hacker vulnerabilities.
- Daily Backup
- The software automatically backups your data every day, just in case you delete or overwrite any file you may need to restore.
- Data Encryption
- All the data on your website will be encrypted. Encryption is the process of scrambling a message to ensure data secrecy and security. The message is encoded using an electronic key, which makes it unintelligible to anyone except to the holders of the other half of the key.
- Data Indexing
- The software indexes all dynamic data on your website.
- Database Caching
- The software caches a certain percentage of your website database to improve performance.
- Dedicated SSL
- Add a dedicated secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate to your website. It offers privacy, authentication, and security. A dedicated SSL certificate will allow you and your customers to conduct Internet transactions referencing a secure URL at your own domain name. More
- Firewall Protection
- A firewall will be installed to protect all access points.
- FTP Access
- Easily upload and manage your files using FTP.
- Injection Monitoring
- The software prevents SQL injections from happening on the servers.
- IP Blocking
- Block a specific Internet Protocol (IP) address that a customer used when placing an order. This will be useful when you suspect fraudulent activity and want to block the source of potentially fraudulent orders.
- IPV6 Support
- The software can support the latest revision of the Internet Protocol (IP).
- PCI Compliance
- The software vendor is certified and compliant with the strict security standards outlined by the Payment Card Industry (PCI). These standards have been endorsed by every major credit card company and adopted as the standard security method when handling credit cards over the Internet. More
- Performance Benchmarking
- The software consistently performs benchmarks on your database and website to improve performance.
- Redundant DNS
- Create multiple domain names. If your main site goes down, this helps to ensure that customers will still be able to find and use your website.
- Search Caching
- The software caches all search results every 24 hours to improve performance.
- Shared SSL
- Add a shared SSL certificate to your website. A secure socket layer (SSL) will provide privacy, authentication, and security. With a shared SSL certificate, someone else usually has the certificate and will agree to add you to the certificate or to let you use it for a small fee.
- Suspicious Activity Tracking
- The software will alert you of any suspicious activity on your website.
Reporting and Analysis
Reporting and analysis functionality provides better insight to customer activity and behavior. These features can help you track specific site statistics such as individual visits and referrals. You can even add conversion tracking with Google Analytics to determine your store's marketing and ROI statistics. Certain reporting features also allow you to review individual product performance such as top selling items, monthly and daily product activity, and gift-certificate sales. Additionally, you can generate reports on inventory results to keep your store well stocked with your top-selling items.
- Balance Sheets
- View the complete balance sheet with charts for year-round performance.
- Behavior Analytics
- Track incoming traffic and mouse movements to gather certain information about customer activity and behavior, such as the duration and destination of a particular visit.
- Hosting Usage Reports
- View your hosting account's bandwidth usage.
- Inventory Reports
- Track prices, profitability, and transactions affecting the value of products in inventory. You can also see the current status and count of items in inventory.
- Keyword Rank Tracking
- Track your rank in search engine results for certain keywords and phrases over time.
- Product Performance Reports
- Better understand how products are selling in different categories. You can see the sales by product for a specific date, including total units sold and value of the items sold.
- Profit/Loss Reports
- Track, monitor, and visualize your profits and losses over a certain period of time.
- Sales Summary Reports
- See a summary of all orders within a specified time period. The report will usually include total net and gross sales, number of orders placed, average orders per day, and average amount per order. It also typically highlights the best-selling and worst-selling products.
- Storage Usage Reports
- View your hosting account's disk space usage.
- Traffic Analytics
- Track site statistics such as individual visits and referrals, page views, bounce rate, and much more.
- Traffic ROI Tracking
- Analyze incoming traffic and conversion levels, and keep track of several campaigns simultaneously. You will be able to measure visitor engagement on your website more effectively and better understand the conversion trends.
Database
The database software that the shopping cart uses.
- MySQL
- SQL Server
- Microsoft Access
- PostgreSQL
- Oracle
- FileMaker
- Sybase
- FoxPro
- Other
Price
Cost of project
Hosting Specifications
The amount of storage space offered by the hosting provider. If you need a robust shopping cart that can support a lot of customers and traffic, then ensure the host provides sufficient bandwidth, disk storage, and RAM for your needs.
3rd Party Integrations
Products that are integrated with each other can typically share data and/or functionality between their platforms.
2CHECKOUT, AlertPay, Authorize.Net, BluePay.com, First Data Merchant Solutions, Klarna, LiqPay, PayPal, PayPoint, Paymate, Realex Payments, Secure Trading, and Perpetual Payments
Programming Language
The language in which the shopping cart software is written. The programming language is a significant factor to take into consideration if you are a developer or if the one you are working with is planning to modify the code. When making changes, it is critical to understand the programming language.
- PHP
- ASP
- ASP.NET
- JSP
- Cold Fusion
- Other
Source Code Availability
Indicates whether the source code is included as part of the license or whether it needs to be purchased separately. The source code allows you to make tweaks and add features fairly easily.
E-commerce platforms for your online store
With the global ecommerce market growing at a rapid pace, the number of ecommerce platforms and content management systems available has grown as well. In such a scenario, figuring out which platform to use when you're looking to build your online store can be a fairly confusing task especially if you aren't from a technical/ecommerce background.
This post intends to make your research work easier by helping you choose the platform best suited for your needs.
Managed e-commerce platforms vs. Content Management Systems (CMS)
There are two options available for building an ecommerce website one can either use managed (hosted) ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce or open-source Content Management Systems (CMS) like Magento.
As the name indicates, a hosted ecommerce platform is hosted on a server that you will not have access to, while CMS-based websites are self-hostedĀ on server space you will have to purchase. Which option to choose will depend a lot on your specific needs as well as your level of technical involvement. Below is a list of benefits of both which could help you make a choice between the two based on your business' current requirements:
Benefits of using Hosted ecommerce platforms
- Lower development and maintenance There is no coding expertise required, thereby eliminating the need for a development team. Also, the hostingĀ is shared, which lowers the server costs.
- Better technical support Most online store creators have a strong tech-support team to assist users with any issues that may arise.
- Less complex to work with The back-end for most of these platforms is user-friendly and is built for ease of use keeping in mind users with limited technical knowledge.
Benefits of using a CMS
- Better functionality Multitude of plugins, add-ons and themes available for content management systems allow the addition of advanced functionalities that would not be possible in the case of self-hosted platforms.
- Better customizability Content management systems allow the freedom of adding/modifying features as well as building a customized design unique to one's brand. They also allow for constant improvements and enhancements to the user experience on the site, which plays a major role in today's highly competitive ecommerce space.
- Can support large stores and sophisticated websites Content Management Systems, being self-hosted do not have a limit to the number of products or categories allowed, so they can handle much larger stores as well as sophisticated websites.
CMS
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Style
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
Subtitle
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.