Top Five Key Features of eCommerce Platforms

What to look for when you choose an eCommerce platform and how to know it’s time to change the one you started with.

Be ready

E-Commerce as a channel represent 25% of the entire retail marketplace. It’s more important than ever for your small business to be engaged in online ecommerce sales to remain competitive. Here’s the top takeaways from the industry leaders at Adobe Commerce – Magento:

#1 Is it Cloud-based and Hosted?

Whether you are just starting out or already have an eCommerce presence, choose an online solution that runs in the cloud to reduce hardware costs and improve data security.
Benefits – Cloud costs less – Scales up easily – Managed IT – Hosted Websites

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#2 Flexible Designs and Order Flow

Don’t get locked into pre-built or canned templates. Customization can be costly or not available at all on some plug-and-play platforms. As your business grows, those canned WYSIWYG solutions will get you left behind. Most won’t let you modify the code. Even hiring local developers to do it for you won’t be an option. Look for flexibility and full scope of features.
Benefits – Save on Do-Over costs – Plan for growth – Be ready for change.

#3 Omni Channel and Hybrid

A good ecommerce solution should support multiple channels. Most Brick-and-Mortar stores have gone digital during the pandemic. And many online brands are teaming up with in person retail. More than 80% of smartphone users check their phones before they buy in store. Omni channel and hybrid solutions give your customers a common experience. Other overlooked channels are orders and payments over the phone, deposits, pre-authorizations, payment plans and e-invoicing.
Benefits – Sync inventory levels – Accept payments anywhere – Customer centric

#4 Integration and inter-operability

The best platform should play nicely with others. Look for integration with solutions you are already using: CMS, CRM, ERP, bookkeeping & accounting, invoicing, merchant payments, loyalty and gift programs. Look for the capability of adding plug-ins, extensions or open access to API’s.
Benefits – Reduce the time spent syncing business systems – make reconciliation a breeze.

#5 How many developers support the ecommerce platform?

Bigger is not always better. Many ecommerce platform providers, quite frankly, only want to profit from a high 2.9% flat rate processing fee. When you make more money, they take a bigger cut. They spend more money on their own social media marketing than product development. The more important question to ask is how open is your platform development? As your business evolves can you transition from do-it-yourself to hiring local expert developers who come highly recommended? Shy away from platforms that lock you into their all-in-one solution.
Benefits – Lower support costs – Local business expert support – Longer product lifecycle.

This blog post was adapted from the Adobe-Magento Commerce article “Six Must-Haves for a Fast, Flexible eCommerce Platform”. You can request a copy of the full article PDF below. About Adobe – Magento Commerce, part of Adobe Experience Cloud, is a leading provider of cloud commerce innovation to merchants and brands across B2C and B2B industries. Magento Commerce is the #1 provider to the internet retailer Top 1000. Visit Adobe Canada.

Contact us today. Smarter Payments can help you with selecting a popular ecommerce platform like Adobe Commerce – Magento. Out of the box, it supports our most widely deployed online payment gateway: Authorize.net (a Visa Company). This gives you access to the lowest possible interchange cost plus processing fees – a huge savings over all-in-ones like Shopify, Stripe or Square.

And here’s to a successful re- opening!

~ Andy - SmarterPayments.ca