The Benefits of a Flexible eCommerce Platform
Many people are now making their way to various business ventures, influencing the growth of the digital market for online shopping. The pandemic has also been one factor in online shopping, with more consumers purchasing goods online since it started. This phenomenon has made it possible for electronic commerce (eCommerce) to rise.
In 2022, global retail eCommerce sales were projected to surpass 5.7 trillion USD. This figure is also seen to grow more in the coming years. As more entrepreneurs go digital for their enterprises, your venture should do the same to keep up with the current marketing landscape.
Making your business accessible for online shopping requires an eCommerce platform. More importantly, this platform should be flexible to benefit you and your customers. If you don’t have one yet, read on to learn what a flexible eCommerce platform is, its benefits, and how to create one.
What is a flexible eCommerce platform?
eCommerce is how people buy and sell products and services using the Internet. Anyone with smartphones, computers, tablets, or other Internet-connected gadgets can do this. In eCommerce, almost everything, such as retail goods (books, clothes, merchandise), can be purchased because it operates on market segments like business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C).
eCommerce can be highly competitive. For this reason, flexibility is necessary to accommodate customers smoothly. This is how flexible eCommerce plays a significant role in your digital business venture.
Flexible eCommerce aims to reach your customers wherever they are since most own smartphones they can bring anywhere. If they think of buying something, they will likely use their smartphones to connect to the Internet and research the goods they want. With a flexible eCommerce platform, these customers can see your business and purchase from there.
A flexible eCommerce platform is a website where you market your products electronically. Here, buyers can conveniently transact, from adding to their carts to payment, anytime and anywhere. When they purchase something, they can also track the shipping status of their items on your site.
Your business should have a flexible eCommerce platform because of its consumer-focused marketing approach. This approach is essential to a smooth user experience for customer satisfaction and loyalty. At the same time, it can be cost-efficient, maximizing the sales profit for better business expenditures.
Steps in Creating a Flexible eCommerce Platform
Setting up a flexible eCommerce platform doesn’t happen in one snap. Establishing one is an intricate process that requires ample time to ensure high-quality serviceability. To help you out, here are the steps to successfully create a flexible eCommerce platform for your business.
Step 1: Pick a content management system (CMS)
A content management system (CMS) is an electronic system that helps you create, manage, and modify website content without requiring technical coding experience. Simply said, it is a system that allows you to build a website for any purpose, including eCommerce. Some of the CMS you can choose are WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Square Online, and Wix.
- WordPress – The most common CMS with many customizable features
- Shopify – CMS ideal for dropshipping businesses
- Squarespace – CMS for beginners who want to build professional profiles quickly
- Square Online – CMS for retailers that market their products in-person or digitally
- Wix – Easy-to-use website builder that is highly customizable
Step 2: Create an account on the chosen CMS or get web hosting
Most CMS options allow you to create an account to build a website. For WordPress, you should get a web hosting plan. Web hosting can provide a free domain name, SSL certificate, and one-click WordPress installation to prevent manual domain connection and hosting.
Step 3: Select an eCommerce site template and establish a theme
CMS platforms offer premade templates and themes you can use for your eCommerce platform. Although they have many selections, you should finalize your business’ themes firsthand to reduce the time of template search. It lets you quickly find the best template matching your desired eCommerce platform theme.
There are free templates, and there are also paid ones. Paid or premium templates usually lessen the customizing time you will spend on building your eCommerce site.
Step 4: Customize the site
After choosing a template theme, it’s time to build the site elements, such as headers, footers, navigation, and web pages. While premium templates can lessen the customization time, it’s still essential for you to build them according to what’s desired.
Step 5: Create product listings and catalogs
Upon finishing the customization, create the product listings and catalogs. These are the navigational sections for your products or services. Make sure to organize them so buyers can easily see and browse them.
Step 6: Set up the payment inventory
Naturally, your eCommerce platform needs a payment inventory. This inventory is where buyers pay for the products they order. In setting this up, you should include shipping details, payment navigation, and a sales tax calculator for pricing transparency.
Step 7: Test and launch the eCommerce site
After everything:
- Run the site for testing.
- See if every link works, and test if you can smoothly browse the products, add them to your cart, and pay.
- Check if all the web pages are loading, and ensure that your site is mobile-friendly and works on different browser types.
- Upon checking every site element’s workability, launch it and kickstart your eCommerce venture.
Why a Flexible eCommerce Platform is Vital for Your Business Growth
Changing your CMS or eCommerce platform when it malfunctions can be daunting, so a flexible eCommerce site is crucial. Aside from a consumer-based marketing approach and cost efficiency, here are the other vital benefits of a flexible eCommerce platform for your business growth:
Customizability
A flexible eCommerce platform is highly customizable to allow you to shape your site based on business venture niche and customer needs. It means you can upgrade and change elements to improve user experience and customer acquisition. This aspect also ensures that your site is continuously improved to cater to the rapid-changing digital marketing. Hence, leading to more conversions.
Opting for inflexible platforms can compromise your eCommerce venture because they limit your creativity and site improvement.
Scalability
Flexible eCommerce platforms are built to be scalable for business growth. When your products become popular, your site can experience high traffic spikes from many visitors, resulting in website crashing, errors, bad gateways, or slow loading. If these happen, you could risk losing the interest of your potential customers.
Scalability involves systems enabling your website to handle high traffic to prevent compromising performance and serviceability. It also allows you to upgrade your site elements without changing the CMS. Generally, flexible eCommerce platforms help you maintain your site’s functionality for optimal customer service.
Systems integration
As a business owner, you don’t only have the eCommerce platform to sell your products and services. You also use other mediums like social media and email to promote and provide information about your venture to reach more customers. For this reason, eCommerce platforms have systems integration to maximize your digital marketing and customer relationships.
Systems integration refers to your platform’s connection with other business systems to prevent repeating manual tasks. These systems include email marketing services, customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP).
Web hosting options
Web hosting is critical to your eCommerce site’s performance and usability. A sound web hosting system ensures your site’s availability and page speed. Here, you can choose to have web hosting plans or a self-hosted solution for your eCommerce venture.
Hosted platforms manage your eCommerce site’s maintenance and hosting aspects. They include everything, especially cloud-computing systems involving IT infrastructure, servers, and website security. Meanwhile, self-hosted ones can allow more flexibility since you set up your own hosting system. If you want to change something in the hosting environment, you may be free to do so.
Business model support
Flexible eCommerce platforms can support any business model. It means they have excellent backend functionalities enabling every user to access everything on your site and help them manage their transactions.
Boost Your Sales With a Flexible eCommerce Platform
A flexible eCommerce platform for your venture can provide substantial sales and revenue to grow your enterprise. As it allows for more business support, you can also get freedom and control in management to maximize your digital marketing. However, it still needs to be managed strategically since online algorithms and technical structures can be tricky because of the rapid-changing digital landscape.
