It’s always good to have some extra bucks in our pocket. With the online boom, most people started to search for opportunities that help generate passive income. The search for a channel that has the potential to raise the bar, a platform that incumbents the vitality to accommodate radical changes in the digital spectrum and scale along to meet the future requirements. As demand creates opportunity, the need lead to the innovation of a new solution “eCommerce platforms”. A customizable and user-friendly platform that offers an entrepreneur the opportunity to custom create an online store. A viable solution that could reflect his entrepreneurial vigor.
Now there are a plethora of online eCommerce builders out there fighting for the same market. Designing and redesigning their solution to encapsulate multiple features and variants, trying to distinguish their product and services, making customer centric decisions to offer unparalleled customer convenience. With this high competition, most people will be traumatized to consider one platform over the other. Keeping this in mind, in this article we will discuss few platforms and the few basic features that are necessary to consider when you select an online eCommerce provider.
A simple web design to conquer your online prospects
Importance of UX, UI, Responsiveness in web designing
A good design is an exemplary strategy to invigorates curiosity among users, enticing them to explore and perceive the benefits to its core, forcing a lead to convert from the tag of a prospect to that of a customer. Nobody is interested to engage on a layout that seems outdated, or difficult to fathom. An eCommerce website should be designed to deliver the best possible user experience, regardless of who the end user is. People do remember a good service or a compelling experience. Providing a rich end to end user experience will solve a handful of issues an eCommerce store tend to face nowadays.
Graphical user interfaces, the first version of UI designed to make navigation on computerized peripherals simpler and efficient. Deducing the complexity in hopping from one stage to another. UI (User Interface) refers to all features that help a person to interact with a device or an information system (eg: navigation buttons, drop down list, buttons, breadcrumbs, etc). An appealing (textual content/ graphic balanced), user-friendly, purposeful and task oriented web page, to beguile a user to make a purchase, leave an impression, log a couple of targeted clicks and so on.
In the modern context, a website has evolved from a broadcast platform into an engagement platform denoted by human computer interaction (HCI). User experience should be positioned in a service level where the end user should feel connected and derive high quality when communicating with the website. A good UX will manifest reliability and ensure trust among users. UX design should create a familiarization, and a personal touch with the site relevancy. User experience should be designed in a way that every step should be one step closer to the puzzle he is trying to solve, in simpler words every step should add value to the user.
Compact and portable multi screens have fueled the digital transition, adding a plethora of touch points for people to interact with business. It offered accessibility to data on a large scale, the Millennials expect to have constant interaction with the online world, where they could reflect their choices and influences other people’s purchase decisions. In the US alone 75% of the populous make use of devices with varying screen size to interact with the digital world. The statistics itself highlights the importance of a responsive web design in providing high customer experience across electronic platforms. Yes, we are talking to that of an omnichannel experience.
E-commerce Platform for Small Business Websites
WordPress
WordPress is an open source Content Management System that powers almost 28% of websites on the internet. WordPress powered WooCommerce (creative product of Automatic) is the most customizable, build to integrate plugin that gives full control/ ownership to the store builder. WooCommerce provides both free and premium add ons for creating a brilliant online store. It is one of the most preferred plugins for eCommerce websites, it allows store owners to seamlessly sell products and services. The platform provides multiple themes that are robust, responsive and easy to operate.
Shopify
Shopify is one the supreme and widely accepted eCommerce service provider. Over years, Shopify has positioned their solution as one of the best/ reliable platforms in the world. The online store builder follows a hosted service/ SaaS model, that allows a digital entrepreneur to manage the store to its fullest with a recurring payment they opt. Shopify can be referred to a one shop pit stop when comes to building an E-comm store. The global eCommerce service provider has enabled over 5 lakh online stores on their platform, with an active user base of 1 million. The main reason why you should consider building an eCommerce store on Shopify is that Shopify’s business model includes high emphatic consideration to their customers (a dedicated support team to guide and help create a brilliant online store), an uncompromising security algorithm to protect your valuable data, etc.
Joomla
Joomla is a powerful and award winning CMS, developed by The Joomla Project Team. Joomla provides a wide range of reliable services when comes to creating a website. Joomla is created on an MVC (Model View Controller) structure, software design pattern used to organize codes in a way that data presentation and business logic are separate. The main reason why you should consider using Joomla is that the platform gives high importance the data security and provides an option to create stores in multi-language (creative idea for a digital entrepreneur to capture the attention of local markets).
Parting Notes:
Strategies and tools are less effective if an entrepreneur is not driven by the same dedication, the devotion to that of a mother trying to protect her child from vicious demons. Treat your eCommerce store as a business, adhere to a customer centric approach, business model should be driven based on value addition.
Evey platforms come with their own unique features and opportunities, selecting the right one and creating a spiffy online shop that provides uncompromised services for a niche market will thrive way beyond any external limitations.
About The Author:
Nishant is a digital marketer from shopnix.in – an online e-commerce website builder. He takes pride when people acknowledge his work and finds that his work is adding value to people. Nishant thrives on staying updated on topics related to the digital realm and technologies that are revolutionizing the world. Inbound marketing is one of Nishant’s forte.