Choosing an eCommerce Platform
An eCommerce platform should meet the expectations of your customers, encourage them to buy your products, and come back to your site again and again.
Tags: Starting Out, eCommerce Platforms
This article aims to help you determine what you need from an eCommerce platform, and select a suitable package, web host, and payment provider.
What is an eCommerce Platform?
An eCommerce platform forms the backbone of your online store. The core function is a browsable and searchable product catalogue, and a method of choosing products to purchase. A "shopping cart" is the same as an eCommerce platfom, but is now a dated term as most modern platforms go well beyond the simple catalogue-and-basket of the early shopping carts. Typical extra features include discount codes, reviews, zoomable images, wish lists, order management and much more.
Platforms consists of two main parts: storefront - the public area that visitors can browse around; and administration - the private area that the retailer uses to manage and configure the store.
eCommerce platforms are sold as licensed software - which is downloaded and installed on compatible web server; or as a hosted service - which is never downloaded but hosted on the supplier's own servers and accessed via the web. Licensed software is often sold for a one-time fee, or can even be free, while hosted services are normally paid for on a monthly, annual, or percentage-of-sales basis. Hosted services are also known as Software as a Service (SaaS) or Application Service Provider (ASP) software models. SaaS usually means that customers share a common (but private) application, while in ASP applications are completely segregated for each customer.
Off The Peg or Made to Measure?
There are two ways to get an online store up and running: the first is to have a developer build you a bespoke website costing anything from £5,000 to, well, the sky's the limit. This is an expensive option but will ensure that all your needs are met. It's worth noting that very few developers will genuinely create your store from scratch - most will take an off-the-shelf or open source (free) package and modify it - perhaps extensively - to meet your needs.
The second is to use one of the many commercial eCommerce software packages that are available. These can cost from as little as £75 one-off or £20 per month, to tens of thousands of pounds, depending on functionality and support levels.
It is extremely important to have a clear idea of what you want from your website. It's advisable to draw up a detailed list of your requirements. Here here are some features that are important for most retailers:
- Easy for customers: Not all your customers will be experienced web users so don't put them off buying by having an over-complicated site.
- Easy to administer: Get a trial or demo of the administration area before committing yourself - this is the area you will use constantly so it should be fast and intuitive.
- Use your own domain name: When customers come to your site they should see a domain name in the address bar that clearly identifies your business. That may seem obvious but it is not an option with some of the cheaper solutions. How does that look to potential customers?
- Logical in its structure: Good design helps you close the sale, making it easy for the customer to buy at any point.
- Flexible: If using an eCommerce package, will your site look like every other site that uses the same software?
- Works with your payment provider: Check that you can easily integrate your shopping cart with your payment provider's software.
- Reliable: Make sure that your shop is not going to fall apart and that it can handle the amount of traffic you expect your site to generate. Ask to see successful shops that use the system, and if they are not a competitor of yours call them for their opinion of the software.
- No splash page: Ask yourself why you would want fancy graphics or a spinning logo before visitors can enter your shop. Some web designers like to create these pages because they show off their creative skills, and boost their client's ego. Do they benefit your customers? When you go into a high street shop do they ask you to wait at the door because they are not quite ready for you and then welcome you into the shop with a fanfare and flags?
That's not an exhaustive list by any means, but hopefully some food for thought and a starting point for your own list.
Hosting Your eCommerce Website
If you buy licensed software you will need to arrange suitable hosting. This is the provision of server space - and computing power - to make your web pages available on the Internet. Assuming that you do not own your own web server, there are many web hosting companies that provide the equipment and other technical resources you need without the stress of having to do it yourself.
Your web designer or eCommerce software provider will have the best understanding of the features you need from a web hosting package - talk to them, or consult their requirements page, before looking for a hosting company. They may recommend a particular host, or even provide hosting themselves, which may prove to be the most convenient option. Check your host's Service Level Agreement (SLA) before signing up. This sets out the speed and availability they will aim to provide, and the process if those targets are not met. Remember you are hosting a shop, so performance and response time are of the utmost importance.
Digital Certificates
You have probably seen the small padlock that appears at the bottom left (or right) hand corner of the browser to indicate that you are in a secure area of a web site. This tells the user that any details they enter are encrypted, which makes it practically impossible for a hacker to intercept and decode their information while it is in transmission to you, the retailer.
TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the industry standard for creating an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. The former industry standard was SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), which is still in use and the term SSL is often used to refer to secure web communications generally, even if they are actually TLS. In order to use either kind of encryption, a web server requires a digital certificate.
If you are using a hosted service or a web designer, your supplier will normally install the certificate for you, so will probably be able to purchase a certificate on your behalf. With licensed software you will need to buy and install a certificate yourself. Sometimes web hosts offer shared certificates, which means that the shop's domain name changes when a visitors enter's the secure area. Shared certificates may add a maintenance overhead to the shop, and the change of URL could confuse your visitors.
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About the Author
Dpivision.com Ltd is a Newcastle-based software development and web design studio. They specialise in web design, software development, and eCommerce solutions - and have developed the award-winning TradingEye ShopBuilder entry-level web store solution.
