Eenie-meenie-minie-mo isn’t going to cut it when it comes to selecting an ecommerce platform for your business. Life and business are about balancing trade-offs—the same is true for choosing your ecommerce platform. Every platform has pros and cons, and typically many of each, making the decision that much more difficult and time consuming.
Lucky for you, we’ve been around the block a few times when it comes to selecting a platform and we’ve put together a few of the most important things to consider.
- Make sure it can grow with you.
Scalability is very important. No one can predict the future, but you still know that change happens and you need to plan for it. It is likely that as your business grows so will your ecommerce needs—handling more traffic, conducting more transactions, and adding more products are something every company wants to do. Save money now by implementing a platform that has the capability to expand with you, rather than being forced to start over from scratch. - Make sure it’s user friendly (or that you can manipulate the design to make it user friendly).
Usability is the key to success on any website, and there’s no exception here. We all hate that feeling of being lost or like we just can’t find the page we’re looking for on a website. In technical terms it’s called self-efficacy. As humans, we tend to blame ourselves for not being savvy enough to find the info we’re looking for, but in reality it’s not our problem, it’s a design problem.
You’ll kill two birds with one stone if you ensure that it’s user friendly for you, too! Is it easy to update and change content, photos, etc? No one has time to struggle with a complex system to correct a typo or to call tech support and sit on hold all day. Select a platform that will allow you to change content as frequently as you want to. - Make sure it supports active merchandising campaigns.
Customers are more savvy than ever. If you expect to sell to them, you’ll need to be able to figure out who they are, how they buy, and present products they are likely to buy and in the way they want to see them. Make sure your ecommerce platform is sophisticated enough to allow you to merchandise.
- Make sure you can track your progress.
If you just built an expensive (but worth the money!) ecommerce site and put it out into the world, you’ll clearly want to keep track of how effective it is. Choose a platform that can help you monitor the metrics that matter most to you, giving you strong feedback on how users are using your site and what you should think about improving.
Like I said, though, there are many things to consider and it’s ultimately up to you to decide which things you’re will to trade-off for. Your best bet is to get some assistance from an expert. Comment on this post or give us a call if you need help getting started.
A few other posts to read on selecting a platform: Spark Plugging and Digital Web Magazine.