eCommerce Software

eCommerce Software Buying Guide

E-commerce has been exponentially growing over the years and it has shown no signs of stopping. Over time, we can expect brick and mortar retail stores to experience a major downturn as e-commerce continues to eat up market share. If you are looking to start an online store, now would be the perfect time.

Unless you have come up with an innovative, revolutionary method of purchasing online, your best bet would be to use an eCommerce software. There are dozens on the market and this guide will help you decide which features you need to look for in order to maximize the outcome of the final store you sell to your customers.

Mobile Support

This is on top of the list because this is perhaps the most important of them all. The reason E-commerce is exponentially growing is because purchasing online has become easier than ever before thanks to tablets and mobiles that accommodate a lot of screen real estate. The December shopping season proved this point as consumers purchased more via their mobile devices rather than their desktop or laptop computers. Any good ecommerce software would take this into consideration.

A good webshop software would incorporate responsive design into their themes and offer admin features across all platforms. To make things even easier, some shopping cart software has dedicated mobile apps to manage your store better on the go.

Security

Security is essential when running an online store. Hundreds or even thousands of transactions will be taking place via your store so you need to ensure you are on top in terms of security where hacking and credit card theft is rife. PCI complaint online shopping cart software is not uncommon and all major providers offer this option. You will also find that a good shopping cart software offers at least 128-bit SSL encryption with some services going the extra mile by offering 256-bit encryption. Don’t skimp on security, make sure you get the best.

Bandwidth and Storage

There are different ways eCommerce software structures their plans. Some of the most generous companies offer unlimited bandwidth and storage which would be ideal. However, if there is another service more suited to what you are looking for in terms of features, but has bandwidth and disk storage limitations, you shouldn’t shy away from it, specifically if you are not going to be having a ton of visitors and content on your website.

The best option would be to assess how much disk space you will need and how much traffic you will be expecting for your foreseeable future and choose a plan accordingly.

Design & Templates

There is no doubt that your website design is important, especially in the current design-centric phase of the internet. Most eCommerce software provides several stock theme options to work with. You have a few options here; in most cases the stock themes provided may not be adequate for you. One option is to amend the HTML and CSS, which virtually all shopping cart services give you the option to do. If you don’t have the technical know how you can hire someone to do these modifications for you. The most expensive option would be to hire the shopping cart services’ in-house designers to custom build a theme for you which can be very expensive. If branding is a big part of your marketing campaign, it may be worthwhile, but we would advise allowing a bit of cash-flow and profitability before spending thousands of dollars on a custom theme design.

Marketing Tools

Most eCommerce software solutions provide at least a few features to boost your marketing efforts. This can be by way of on-site optimizations or tools to garner more sales. When it comes to improving your overall exposure, some eCommerce software solutions provide SEO benefits by adhering to SEO guidelines within the software for better search engine rankings. Another way of improving overall marketing efforts is by integrating with third party services such as Facebook and Twitter and providing automatic submission of your store or products to online directories.

Another aspect in terms of features would be promotional tools to entice sales. This includes providing coupon codes, having “deal of the day” offers, waiving off shipping charges for larger purchases and upselling tools during checkout.

UI User Friendliness

If you are new to this space, user-friendliness can be of utmost importance. Most eCommerce software is bundled with an array of features. In most cases, you will use only a percentage of available options and the rest would just be noise to you. A confusing layout and poorly worded features can leave you quite clueless and confused.

This would go hand in hand with support and customer service. If a service is confusing, with adequate documentation, you could perhaps understand the interface after a while. If user-friendliness is important to you, it would be advisable to sign up for the free trial that most of the services provide to get a feel of how well you can figure out how to run the software.

Payment Processing & Integration Options

You can expect at least some level of compatibility with most online shopping cart services. If you are based in North America, you won’t have much trouble finding an adequate payment processing service but if you are overseas, you may find yourself limited to certain eCommerce software because you may have a very specific requirement of payment processing. Most services have merchant services where the eCommerce software company resells a merchant service. This can sometimes be quite pricey so it can be useful to dabble in the feed and associated costs to find out which one is most cost-effective and of course dependable.

Reports & Analytics

No matter what you are looking to accomplish with your store, reports are important. They say that it’s all about the numbers, and for the most part, it’s true. Reports can sometimes expose gaping holes such as an increased cart abandonment rate when you change certain elements on your check out page or it can help you gain insight on useful data over time such as which months of the year, your sales plummet or thrive. Make sure you get enough reporting data with the shopping cart software you choose.