Category: eCommerce

Planning to own and manage an online ecommerce store? It’s a future ready decision and you need ecommerce development services for this. But, you need to choose which platform you need to work with. Will it be Shopify or Woocommerce? No offense, both are great! But, depending on your product line, type of customer base, location-based business, etc, you will have to make certain choices. So, let’s head over to understand two of the most popular and most commonly used platforms.

Shopify vs WooCommerce: Which to Choose in E-commerce Development?

To start with, if you are not very comfortable with technology, software, tools, and technologies, then you can go for Shopify. However, if you can understand technology or have an e-commerce expert to help you out, then it is always great to work with WordPress. Both are suitable for ecommerce, but over the years Woo Commerce has gained more popularity. It claims to have an upper edge over Shopify when it comes to Ecommerce.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce has been especially known to be a WordPress product. It is a comprehensive Open Source plugin used for ecommerce platforms. The beauty is that the owner can experience one of the dynamic content management systems and cater to their online buyers seamlessly. It is known to have a high level of customization, thereby enabling more interesting store design based extensions, content features, etc.

What is Shopify?

This is one of the easiest use ecommerce solutions that we IT market offers today. It is an all in one platform, where one can manage the inventory, orders, and customers, and also view and edit data with no fuss at all. Plus, the platform also manages other areas like web hosting, caching data, and security and provides quality graphics.

Comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce

Cost:

Shopify is like a starter pack offer where owners who are new to the fields and on a budget can work well with this. They have prepped up the ecommerce development with a wonderful CMS, SSL, hosting, unlimited file storage, and 2 user accounts. So, one can set it up in minutes and start selling. However, the basic site is cost effective but limited to the customization factor.

WooCommerce will have a lot of customization features and the long term online store will function better. Since it is backed by WordPress, ecommerce development companies can add various kinds of payment plugins and other graphics, videos, and product list presentations with ease. It will be a bit more costly than Shopify and will have a bit more work (due to the scope of customization). You will have to add in an SSL certificate, domain, hosting, etc on your own.

Ease of Use

Shopify is a completely hosted platform meant for new online store owners to try their skills at online selling, So, it is easy to use, secure, and uncomplicated. In Shopify, compatibility, data backup, and buyer performance are all taken care of.

WooCommerce is not a hosted platform which means that you have to manually add set up the plugins, security, hosting, manage data updates, and also the CMS. You have the freedom to choose both free and paid plugins, which can be automated after installation. Once you get tuned to the working, there is no platform as flexible and result-oriented as WooCommerce.

Payment Options

Shopify has secure payment modes like its own payment choice Shopify Payments which is Stripe powered. In the starter plan, you can even place third-party payment gateways, but Shopify would charge a 2% fee for every transaction. However, if you opt for the Advanced Shopify plan, you can avail a reduction in fees.

WooCommerce by default, allows buyers to pay via Stripe and Paypal. Or else, you can add Alipay, Amazon Pay, a better support system to add Apple Pay and more. Since this is self-hosted, buyers will have to incur only bank transaction fees and WooCommerce does not any fees for credit card payments. This is a huge highlight for those who love to shop online regularly.

On an End Note

If you have noticed both Shopify and WooCommerce are wonderfully powerful ecommerce platforms. As an online seller, you can choose the one depending that suits you better. We can help you choose the one that fits your style of work. Both can help you sell, scale, and work online, However, if you need better control over your operations, then WooCommerce can back you up. Shopify is hassle-free and helps you focus on business while the backend operations will be handled by Shopify, So, hope we added light to your thoughts.

In order to pick the right ecommerce solution for your business, you will need both IT expertise and business acumen. Of course, you would be having business acumen, but using the help of ecommerce development experts is always best. The team would help you choose the value added features for your website, mobile app, and any tools and marketing techniques you would need.

But, before you collaborate with one, there are a few factors or considerations that you need to check before associating with them. Good ecommerce development companies will explain certain that every platform would need.

Responsive online platform

If you have a look at the top ecommerce development platforms, they use highly responsive platforms. This means the same website can be seen and used on the PC and mobile alike. For instance, you can log into the Amazon website and shop or even hop into the Amazon shopping app and do the same. Good ecommerce platforms are responsive and the entire accessibility experience will change as per the device used.

Secure

It goes without saying that every ecommerce platform should be secure. Your buyers trust this interface and should feel safe, and happy while shopping at your platform. So, make sure that passwords are protected, the payment gateways are securely encrypted. It should have other features like PCI compliance, proper backup packages, SSL certification, and a number of security centric protocols. You will need the support of an expert e-commerce consultant company to help you in this process.

SEO optimized

Talking SEO, it does not come in a flash and this has to be executed by ecommerce development companies through a couple of strategies. Each of the searches should be SEO optimized and ranked on Google. This way, your ecommerce platform has a better chance to have a bigger customer base.

Unique shopping experience

Now shopping experiences are very important and they should form a very crucial part of ecommerce development. Right from entering the mobile app or website, the buyer journey should be seamless and transparent. This experience should make the buyer feel at home and not confused or unsure about their decisions. Make each category clear, add coupons, and let the shopping be user friendly.

Scope for Omnichannel Marketing

Now, for those who are doing business, you may have heard this term. Omni channel marketing is the most happening thing for every online and offline store. You need to consult with reliable ecommerce development companies to transform a single channel business into multiple channels. Then control and monitor them under one platform. That helps to transform your ecommerce business into an omnichannel business. For this use omni channel marketing formats in your ecommerce platform and leverage the business.

Scope for Scalability

It goes without saying that you need to scale the business after a specific time period. For this, ecommerce platforms are the best option. A good platform can be operated with ease and confidence from anywhere and anytime. Organize the technological backup so that it helps to build a strong and sustained ecommerce platform.

On a Final Note

Having read all the factors, now you can use the expertise of ecommerce development companies to build the best ecommerce platform for your ecommerce store at large. Make sure to have the latest technologies and tools that match International standards. For more custom made ecommerce platforms, it is always best to get in touch with industry experts who have worked on specialized projects like yours in the past. In conclusion, we have worked on tailor made ecommerce platforms that help business owners take their offline stores to the next level and we can do the same for you.

E-commerce is one of the most profitable businesses of the digital age we currently live in. Leveraging the internet and understanding people’s mindsets, e-commerce grew out of thin air and eventually into an economy of its own.

And it’s not just one company earning the most out of e-commerce platform; multiple vendors are warring to sell a product to millions of customers. No wonder it is one of the most profitable businesses.

But not all the e-commerce applications succeed, so we have put together the fundamentals every Ecommerce application should have to perform better in the industry.

• Speed of the E-commerce Application

  We are in 2020 and yet, even some of the leading e-commerce applications lag in responsiveness. While you can argue that it also depends on internet connectivity, it shouldn’t stop you from making your app extremely light-weight and supportable in all the devices.

  One more advantage of having an application of considerable speed is that when people have to wait to view a product, they simply move to another product, if not exit from the application. App speed empowers e-commerce with quick conversions and thus increases sales and revenue.

• Simple E-commerce App Layout

  E-commerce applications’ layout can differ according to the products listed to be sold. An e-commerce company that specifically sells garments has a different layout and features compared to a general-category application where everything is sold.

  E-commerce application that only targets sports equipment and children’s products must have different layouts. Although it is the adults who use the application, crafting it uniquely to address the audience improves the business.

• Intuitive Navigation

  The users who opened your e-commerce application are not going to buy the first product that pops up unless the product is exactly what they were looking for.Typically, your customers scroll through the endless ocean of products, compare the reviews, check out the images, and visualize themselves using the product before adding it to the cart.

  And it is navigation that allows them to go through the process, except maybe without the visualizing part. Without the right interactive tools, the process gets interrupted in the middle and that’s how you lose a potential sale.

• A Formidable Payment Gateway

  A secured payment gateway for e-commerce applications is the crux of the business model. One of the hazardous events that can happen to e-commerce business is when a hacker exploits the vulnerability of the payment gateway.

  This is much more than a privacy breach or stolen-data; this is robbery, and as the ruler of your business empire, you are responsible for protecting your customers.

• Active Customer Support

  Customer Support is crucial, especially for e-commerce businesses. Although you have explained the how-to-dos, people will have doubts which can only be cleared through customer support. Sometimes, your users are aware of the procedures, but still want to confirm it with customer care.

  But above all, customer support assures your customers that if something goes wrong, they can rely on customer support to solve the problem.

Business is projected towards success only when its fundamentals are sound and rock solid. Times can get tough, but the foundation with which the business is built on will provide unwavering support for the business to thrive. It also doesn’t mean that the business should remain unaltered. After all, people are constantly in need of something new.What we have discussed in the blog are essentials to build successful e-commerce businesses, but it requires the most prudent decisions to dominate the industry.

he always-trending shopping is now highly concentrated on online markets than it is on the traditional brick-and-mortar counterparts. It is no wonder e-commerce business is booming beyond stellar ratings.

Although e-commerce giants strengthening their roots all over the world, there is still humongous room for improvement which startups and enterprises can capitalize on. If there is a good time to start an e-commerce business, it is now.

Here is how you should start building an e-commerce application.

Steps to Build an Ecommerce Application

• Step 1: Market Analysis

  Market analysis is crucial for an e-commerce application to succeed and remain successful in the long run.Identify to whom you are going to sell. This should give you insights into what your potential customers use and want as a necessity so that you can build an application that promotes your products.

  Even if you don’t limit yourself to one category of products, understanding your customers — likes, dislikes, behaviour, and pattern — will assist you in building an e-commerce application that is relatable to your audience.

• Step 2: Competitor Analysis

  Make a list of all the competitors who are competing in your target location. Identify what everyone is selling, how much they are selling, who they are selling to, what is their business model, how they are promoting their business, and why people are preferring a specific company, among other aspects.

  Instead of trying to copy an Ecommerce company business model, making use of your analysis results will get you the track of what you should do and how you should it.

• Step 3: Platform and Technology

  The next step is to identify what platform you are launching your business in. Web, Android, and iOS are the most preferred platforms as they are the ones majorly used. If your audience uses one platform predominantly, you can also decide to target the platform or go for hybrid e-commerce app development.

  The difference between native and hybrid is that native apps can be highly customized and have unique features, while the hybrid is ideal for a simple application. You should also research the compatible combination of CMS, database, front-end, and back-end frameworks to build your e-commerce apps.

• Step 4: List of Features

  Now that you know everything you need to build an e-commerce application, it is time to work your brain to the core. List all the features you want to see in your applications.

  While you may have to choose almost all of the features your competitors are providing, you can customize them or add new features to win over the customers.There are also specific target-audience and domain-related features you can add to provide a better service.

• Step 5: Designing and Development

  Contemplate on a unique design for your e-commerce app, for uniqueness always has a special place in people’s minds. It also has to be simple for people to understand and interact, and it shouldn’t take a toll on the performance.

  Make sure every feature is built meticulously to function effectively and in unison with other features. And see to the testing iterations to make your application bug-free.

If you are done with the last step (fifth step), you have one more thing to do. It is, in fact, what makes your business and application a ground-breaking success: Marketing.Although you have a killer e-commerce application, it is no good if you don’t reach out to your audience and tell them what you have in your application.We are an e-commerce app development company with a sound portfolio of successful applications. You can also get in touch with our consultation wing to clarify your queries and have a clear path towards the launch of your application.

E-commerce applications are easily one of the go-to solutions when people want to buy something. After all, it allows everyone to see the products, compare the prices, and order the product to have them delivered at the door all from the comfort of the home.

Although e-commerce had existed since the time of inception of the internet, it didn’t take off until the late 1990s. And now, the business has grown past cosmic levels that everyone in the world has used it at some point.

E-commerce applications, for the uniqueness of the business, should have a few features to succeed in the industry, and here they are.

Must-have features of Ecommerce applications

• Product Recommendations

  E-commerce applications leave behind a lot of data about the customers and what they are searching for to buy. This information, although it appears useless, has the potential the transform the business, greatly increasing the product sales.

  While you can use the information about what people are searching for to recommend products individually, it has much more to offer. With the help of data analytics, you can identify which group of population — identified by age, region, etc. — is searching for and ordering a specific product.

  This information can be used to refine the accuracy of recommendations and increase revenue. Data analytics further paves the way to attain more complex yet precise information to explore lucrative possibilities.

• Add to Cart

  Suppose, your customers want to buy multiple products belonging to various categories. Would you recommend that they buy every product individually?

  If ‘maybe’ is your answer, then what if they had more than 100 products to buy? Would you still answer with a ‘maybe’?

  Obviously not.

  Add to the cart feature allows your customers to select and store all the products they want to buy in one place — cart — and buy them together paying the total sum.

• Wish List

  Wish List is a feature that allows people to search for products when they are free and add the items to a list. This comes in handy when your customers want to save something to buy at a later time, especially when they don’t have time to spend hours on comparisons.

  Assuming that products can go out of stock, Wish-List helps people to easily navigate to their preferred item and check if it’s back on stock, instead of searching for it again in the pool.

• Multiple Payment Options

  When you have only one payment option in your e-commerce application, you are actually pushing people to migrate from their preferred payment option to your choice of payment.

  While this looks harmless, the reason a lot of people are using e-commerce is that they don’t have the time and patience to shop juggling between the stores. So instead of moving to your payment option (which is time consuming), there is all the possibility for them to move to a different e-commerce service provider.

  Not to mention, your payment gateway might fault and not generate a one-time password, or worse, not accept customers’ money. So multiple payment options are the ideal choice.

• Customer Reviews

  Customer review helps fellow customers to identify the right and reliable product. It is also a way to punish vendors with bad service so that they either understand what’s wrong with them or go out of business.

  Apart from acting as the medium for customers to understand the product, Customer Reviews can also help vendors to understand the customers’ expectations.

There are more features that can help both business and customers in innumerable ways, but the five features mention are a must for every Ecommerce application to succeed early on. And if you want to build an e-commerce Application to venture into the business, we are one of the best e-commerce app development companies. We also provide consultation services to assist businesses with the right course of action.