Entering the digital world and start your e-commerce is nothing easy, to be honest. Unless your company equips a well-supported team of IT technicians or digital marketing experts, it will be hard for you to create and operate a well-established e-commerce site.
There are many e-commerce platforms in the world and you could probably name a few, such as Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, WooCommerce and BigCommerce. These e-commerce platforms provide the expertise for you to start and grow your own e-business. However, each platform has its own specialities and characteristics that satisfy the needs of different scales of businesses in the world, it might be hard for you to decide on which platform to use and therefore, we will share three points that could help to make up your mind on choosing the most suitable platform.
1. Design Flexibility
The first step in making your e-commerce website is to design the overall outlook of your main page and subpages according to the theme or nature of your business. Some people would get excited about this part because they can "show off" their creative side and play around with special designs on their website. Yet, don't get your hopes too high because some of the e-commerce platforms have minimal flexibility and would only allow you to choose from a few preset templates.
2. Price
"There is no such thing as free lunch" also applies here when choosing an e-commerce platform. Of course, there are free versions or free trials you can choose as you explore the settings of your designated e-commerce platform, but it is most likely that any usable functions will be limited. A free version of any platform would not be sufficient to kick off your business due to different limitations in terms of the functions or supports. Depending on your scale of business and the functions that you would practically use, you can choose from a variety of paid versions of the platform that provides full access to all functions, designs and other more technical support you would require in your daily operation.
3. Ease of Use
You need to choose a platform that you can actually manage and apply changes when needed. If you fail to handle your e-commerce site due to any kinds of errors you don't understand, it would seriously threaten your business performance and your customers as well. Different platforms have their own preface and some would require coding or relevant technical knowledge to operate, while some are more simple and they would be more suitable for beginners or tech newbies.
Want to learn more about e-commerce? check out our other articles and if you need help for your e-commerce site, find us at info@4hk.com.hk and we can help!