Category: ECommerce Development

What Is the Best Website Building Platform for Small Business?

Posted on by mkoftielieva

The biggest challenge in choosing the best website building platform for small business today is that there are just too many of them. No doubt, when you visit the websites of different builders, you’ll see claims that they are the best and an impressive list of features used to prove it. Indeed, the truth of the matter is that many of these platforms are excellent. So, a business owner who is not an experienced tech professional working with websites might get confused fast.

Today, we’d like to bring some clarity to this issue. Devtorium has built dozens of websites for various industries, ranging from travel to eCommerce to derivatives trading. This experience gives our developers a perspective that enables them to help every client choose a website building platform best suited to their unique needs.

Below is a list compiled by our web development experts who share their top 5 website builders. These platforms are flexible and affordable, which makes them a great fit for small businesses.

Best website building platform for small business: WordPress, WIX, Shopify, Bubble, Webflow.

Best Website Building Platform for Small Business: Top 5

WordPress (+ WooCommerce)

WordPress is the number one website-building platform today. Over 43% of all websites on the internet run on WP. Despite the complex customization system, WordPress is the most flexible website builder you can find. If you wish to be in charge of the site and want to add unique functionalities and features, this is the choice for you. In fact, the Devtorium website is built on WordPress, so you can see exactly what our developers can do with this platform.

Moreover, small businesses specializing in online sales can easily create a WordPress store using a specialized plugin, WooCommerce. It’s one of the best eCommerce platforms today, and it allows you to run a store easily.

WordPress benefits:

  • WP is a powerful content management system (CMS) that is free to use. You must pay only for a hosting company and domain names.
  • WordPress is an open-source platform. Therefore, you can create a site with unique functionalities even with a small budget.
  • This platform has a vast library of add-ons and plugins (over 60,000). Having unlimited access to various extensions (free and premium) makes this builder the most flexible for adding features and designs.
  • There are thousands of themes and templates (free and premium). Therefore, you can create a beautiful site even without hiring a UI/UX designer.

AI capabilities:

WordPress offers multiple AI plugins that can diversify and boost website performance. They can perform various functions, including content creation, virtual assistance, security, and more.

Bubble

Bubble is our favorite no-code platform. Users created 2.3M+ apps on it, and the platform raised $10.3 billion in funding. Bubble has a robust and, most importantly, scalable infrastructure. Therefore, it’s perfect for entrepreneurs building MVPs and also serves as a great website building platform for small business.

Bubble benefits:

  • Bubble.io is one of the most scalable no-code platforms. It’s easy to update and maintain your Bubble website. 
  • The drag-and-drop design saves you time and money. You can design custom web apps from scratch without the limitations of preset templates. 
  • The platform handles hosting, so there are no hard limits on the number of users or data storage.
  • Bubble web development is compatible with all browsers and operating systems.

AI capabilities:

You can integrate AI in Bubble.io and optimize the website how way you want. It’s compatible with top trending technologies, including OpenAI and ChatGPT.

Webflow

Webflow is a no-code development platform that’s already used by 200,000+ organizations and businesses. Moreover, Webflow highly customizable. This website building platform for small business is a good option for design-oriented customers who wish to style the site precisely the way they want.

Webflow benefits:

  • Due to advanced design features, you can create complex rich animations, parallax scrolling, and a variety of micro-interactions. 
  • Webflow comes with a built-in Content Management System (CMS). Therefore, you can effectively manage and modify all your content with this tool.
  • The platform offers an extensive list of SEO tools and optimization options.
  • Webflow has a huge library of integrations, including app integration and automation, content marketing solutions, analytics, and targeting tools.

AI capability:

Webflow was planning to develop an integrated AI feature that would assist platform users. However, as of now, they only allow for the integration of third-party AI tools. You can learn more about Webflow’s plans for AI development from their blog.

Tips for choosing the best website building platform.

Shopify

Shopify is a website building platform for small business that specializes in online sales. As eCommerce goes, it’s hard to find a more comprehensive solution. Devtorium developers worked with Shopify extensively and they are very happy with the platform’s functionality, stability, and security. This all-in-one platform powers 10% of total US eCommerce sites. As Shopify offers unlimited storage and no product limit, you can scale from small to big online stores. This website builder works best for businesses that want to launch an online store really fast.

Shopify benefits:

  • The platform’s advanced functionality enables you to manage your online store easily. Shopify offers everything from marketing and payment tools to secure transactions and shipping options support.
  • You can use Shopify to sell online or in-person. The platform supports multiple outlets, including web, mobile, social media, online marketplaces, pop-ups, in-person events, retail locations, and brick-and-mortar stores.
  • Shopify is completely cloud-based and hosted. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about issues like web hosting, security, caching, etc.
  • Shopify has a 24/7 support team. It’s one of the few eCommerce platforms offering 24-hour customer service via email, live chat, and phone.

AI capabilities:

Shopify recently introduced a new AI tool called Shopify Magic. This proprietary solution helps users generate product descriptions for their shops. However, bear in mind that Shopify Magic’s suggestions may not be 100% on target. It’s a common weakness of all AI content generators.

Wix

Wix is a website building platform powering over 10.8 million sites. It has quite a few limitations in site management and design. However, this platform is well-suited for small businesses, consultants, bloggers, and entrepreneurs.

Wix benefits:

  • Wix provides access to its own web hosting and domain names (free and paid).
  • There is a built-in SEO tool. Therefore, you can improve the site’s ranking effectively.
  • Wix considers website safety and security. For example, all their websites have an SSL certificate and are automatically backed up.
  • Wix offers 24/7 customer support services for all paid plans.

AI capabilities:

Wix has artificial design intelligence (Wix ADI) that can assist you in designing a beautiful website. However, this feature is only available for some types of projects (portfolios, yoga sites, etc.). If your project fits the AI’s requirements, it will create images and content. In addition, it will connect your social media, create a contact form, or pick a suitable design for your audience.

Bottom Line: How to Pick the Best Website Building Platform?

The process of choosing the best platform and building a website using it can be rather straightforward and easy. As a business owner, you just need to take the following steps:

  1. Make a list of the things you want your website to have and do. It will be easier if you do some extra research. For example, you can look at what your competitors’ sites are like. Also, you can add some ideas of the things you enjoyed on various pages while browsing the Internet.
  2. Contact the Devtorium team and arrange a free consultation at a time convenient for you.
  3. Share your list of requirements with us. Devtorium developers, analysts, and designers will quickly come up with suggestions and estimates. Next, we’ll provide an offer with different options that will highlight different perks of specific platforms that you can benefit from while staying within budget.
  4. Pick the offer that you like most, and our dev team will do the rest. You’ll have your website up and running in no time!

17 Best eCommerce Platforms for End-to-End eCommerce Solution Development

Posted on by oleshchenko

$5.4 trillion by 2026, that’s what the size of the eCommerce market will reach, according to predictions from Morgan Stanley. That number proves that you are clearly missing out if you aren’t looking for an end-to-end eCommerce solution development already. In fact, experts from the World Economic Forum state that the COVID-19 pandemic sped up the global switch to eCommerce by five years. So, if you want to have a whisper of a chance in sales, you must launch an online store of some kind today.

The good news is that eCommerce platforms are also evolving fast to meet the growing demand. But because of this, there are so many of them that it’s hard to choose which is best.

Fear not, as we are here to help you with a detailed guide listing the pros and cons of every top platform in the industry.

Top 17 Platforms for End-to-End eCommerce Solution Development

What is the best platform for end-to-end eCommerce solution development?

Adobe Commerce (used to be Magento)

If you are looking to create an end-to-end eCommerce solution for a large enterprise, there is no better option than Adobe Commerce. Most people will know it better by its previous name, Magento Commerce. The main benefit of this platform is that it offers you complete control of your website. It means that your eCommerce web application development company has total freedom to create a 100% unique product. You’ll get to distinguish your web presence but keep full server autonomy.

However, it’s worth noting that after becoming Adobe, the platform has changed its direction to focus on business customers. You’ll need to contact the platform to get a quote, and some reviews state it’s prohibitively expensive. However, no one can deny its robust sales, customer service, and analytics features.

Pros:

  • Suited for high-volume eCommerce businesses
  • Intuitive design
  • Doesn’t require a developer for updates
  • Free open-source software
  • Huge SEO capabilities
  • Highest level of customization available today
  • 1,000+ extensions and themes

Cons:

  • Expensive for fully-hosted websites ($1,500+)
  • Open-source software doesn’t have support

Open-source Adobe software is free, but Adobe Commerce Pro packages are not. The cost of this service package will vary depending on the Annual Gross Merchandise value. Visit the Adobe Commerce Pricing page for more information.

Shopify

Shopify is a highly flexible platform that can be integrated with Oberlo. Therefore, if you want to create an end-to-end eCommerce solution for dropshipping, this would be the best option. Shopify is easy to use, especially for adding items to your shop quickly. In addition, the platform has some outstanding features, such as social media sync and Live Chat.

Shopify offers flexible payment plans for businesses of different sizes.

Pros:

  • Easy to use drag-and-drop interface
  • 3,200+ apps for customizing your shop
  • 100+ payment gateways support
  • Dropshipping tools integration
  • High-speed website loading

Cons:

  • Foreign currencies are only accepted through third-party apps
  • Non-Shopify payments are subject to additional fees
  • The selection of free themes and extensions is limited

Shopify offers three monthly subscription plans that cost $24, $69, or $299. You can save up to 25% with annual plans. Check out the Shopify website for more details.

BigCommerce

The main advantage of the BigCommerce platform is that it can fit both small and big businesses. In fact, this platform is an excellent choice for scalability. Your eCommerce end-to-end solution development team will appreciate this choice for its flexibility. Moreover, they will be able to make your store both functional and beautiful. Also, the pricing model is flexible and affordable overall.

Pros:

  • All plans offer unlimited bandwidth, storage, and product listings
  • Allows you to add a blog
  • 65+ payment gateways
  • Accepts international payments
  • Multi-channel sales support
  • Bulk uploads of products
  • Support of multiple languages
  • Many valuable features (reviews, shipping times, etc.)

Cons:

  • Takes a while to master by non-developers
  • High-volume sales can be expensive
  • A limited number of free themes

BigCommerce allows you a free trial and a flexible pricing model. You’ll need to reach out to BigCommerce for details.

Top end-to-end eCommerce solution development platforms.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the best platforms for your end-to-end eCommerce solution development due to its flexibility. It’s effortless to use and customize for your needs. WooCommerce is based on WordPress and would be the best choice for those used to working with this platform. Also, it has excellent SEO capabilities.

WooCommerce is free. So it’s perfect for small businesses that are just starting their eCommerce journey.

Pros:

  • Free platform
  • Allows high level of customization
  • Open-source software
  • Easy integration with multiple solutions

Cons:

  • Not all updates synch well with WordPress
  • A challenging platform for those who don’t know WordPress
  • The platform is free but hosting, development and maintenance costs add up

WooCommerce is free. But you can get extensions that offer proper functionality in bundles or separately. See the best offers on the WooCommerce website.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a super-scalable platform. It’s one of the best choices for a startup’s end-to-end eCommerce solution because of its capacity for customization and growth. It also offers a wide range of promotional tools to make money quickly. The website design functionality is straightforward to use, and the designs are beautiful. In addition, Squarespace provides extra SEO guidance to every customer.

Pros:

  • A drag-and-drop website builder that’s easy to use
  • Great selection of designs 
  • Email marketing features
  • Impressive website analytics functionality (conversion and sales tracking)

Cons:

  • Not many integrations are available now
  • Extra fees for payment processing
  • No phone support available

With Squarespace, you get a free trial. Then, you can choose from four plans that cost $16, $23, $27, and $49 a month. You can cut the cost by buying an annual plan. See more at Squarespace.com.

How to choose the best end-to-end eCommerce solution development platform?

Wix

Wix is the best eCommerce platform for those who need to start selling as soon as possible. It’s very easy to use and lets you get an online shop up and running within minutes. You don’t even need to hire an end-to-end eCommerce solution developer to get started. The drag-and-drop website builder is intuitive and enables you to create some beautiful designs. Also, despite its simplicity, the Wix platform has multi-channel sales capabilities.

Pros:

  • Excellent choice for small businesses that need a shop fast
  • Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) tool for creating beautiful website designs
  • Multi-channel sales support
  • Integration with all major payment providers

Cons:

  • Small storage for the Basic plan
  • Plans above Basic aren’t cheap
  • Limited add-ons and scalability

Wix is an affordable platform with many plans, starting at $4.5 a month. Business and eCommerce plans cost $17, $25, or $35 a month. You can learn more at the Wix website.

Shift4Shop (3dcart)

Shift4Shop is an end-to-end eCommerce solution formerly known as 3dcart. It’s a good option for those interested in a fast setup and mobile-first design. The platform also has robust SEO features, making marketing your shop easier. In addition, Shift4Shop has a straightforward interface. Therefore, it can be a good option as a small business end-to-end eCommerce solution. Also, the platform is intuitive and offers multiple features that can customize and optimize your store fast.

Pros:

  • Provides real-time shipping data
  • Supports 200+ payment methods
  • Offers various SEO tools
  • Multiple reporting options are available

Cons:

  • Few free themes
  • Limited customization features (compared to other top platforms)
  • No customer support by phone for some plans

Shift4Shop has a very peculiar payment model. At the moment, US customers can enjoy the platform’s services and set up a store for free as long as they use the Shift4Shop payment processing service. However, customers from other countries can sign up for plans that cost $29, $79, and $299 per month. See more details at Shift4Shop.

End-to-end eCommerce solution for small business.

Weebly

If your retail business’s primary focus is your brick-and-mortar store, Weebly is your platform. The end-to-end eCommerce solution development team you hire will be able to create a fantastic website using it. But, most importantly, you can use it to add the ‘buy online’ functionality to your brick-and-mortar business fast and without spending too much money. The platform’s drag-and-drop builder is easy to use and leaves much room for creativity. Moreover, there’s a free Weebly plan for small businesses that want to get results from online sales immediately.

Pros:

  • Simple and intuitive user interface
  • A free plan is available
  • Extra-fast and easy store setup
  • Can be integrated with 300+ eCommerce apps

Cons:

  • Cannot be integrated with Amazon
  • Supports only a few payment systems
  • Phone support isn’t available for some plans

Weebly has a rather nice but limited free plan. If you are looking for more storage, bandwidth, and functionality, you’ll have to pay for one of the paid plans ($5, $126, or $25 a month). You can save up by buying an annual plan. See Weebly to learn more.

Smoolis

Smoolis isn’t a specialized end-to-end eCommerce solution but a website builder. However, it’s rather versatile and easy to use. Also, it allows you to set up a multilingual website easily. Therefore, small businesses that want to start selling internationally can benefit from choosing this solution., Meanwhile, even though it’s not a dedicated eCommerce platform, Smoolis enables you to accept international payments.

Pros:

  • Built-in currency converter
  • Can accept international payments directly
  • Supports 58 languages
  • Easy  multilingual website setup

Cons:

  • A limited number of products for upload
  • A limited number of available web pages
  • Few integrations and add-ons compared to other platforms

Smoolis offers a free trial as a chance to create a free landing page. Then, you can upgrade it by paying for an eCommerce plan (6CHF per month). Note that this plan only offers 50 products, and you’ll need to pay an extra 2CHF for every other 50 products you want to add. Check out the Smoolis website to learn more.

Which end-to-end eCommerce solution development platform is best for enterprises?

Square Online

Square Online is a great platform choice for your end-to-end eCommerce solution if your budget is tight. It’s a platform that allows you to use up to 500MB of storage for free and has no limit on sales. Beyond that, you’ll have to use paid plans. But they are affordable as well. Also, the platform is intuitive and can have you launch a shop within a day. However, note that only more expensive plans support some payment methods, like PayPal.

Pros:

  • A Free plan is available for budget-sensitive small businesses
  • No limit on products or monthly sales
  • Built-in multichannel selling capabilities

Cons:

  • The free plan only offers limited storage
  • No international selling capabilities
  • The platform is not a good fit for scalability

Square online has a highly flexible pricing structure. So you can get a package that costs a few dollars a month or a comprehensive solution worth $60 and more. Take a look at a more detailed cost breakdown on the Square website and contact the company for a custom-tailored offer.

Ecwid

Ecwid is a great platform to use if you want to launch a small online shop right now. It’s a very easy-to-manage end-to-end eCommerce solution. Most importantly, you can launch a free store very fast. The Free account is with you for life. Ecwid can integrate with Amazon, social media, and websites. So you can sync your store across all platforms to grow your business in the best way. You can also use it for in-person live shops. The Free account functionality is minimal, but you can buy Venture, Business, or Unlimited packages for $14.08/29.08/82.50 a month, respectively.

Pros:

  • Add a store to your website in moments
  • Easy to sync with popular online marketplaces and social networks
  • Instant shop set up is free
  • Lifetime use of the Free plan
  • Very easy to use and manage
  • Supports integration of 75+ payment gateways

Cons:

  • Cheaper plans are limited
  • Limited support for Free and Venture plans (no phone)
  • Not too many integrations in the Ecwid app store

Ecwid is an eCommerce platform that makes launching a store very easy. However, if you want to set up a big professional business, you’ll need to invest in more expensive plans. In addition, if you already have a business and want to use Exwid to expand online, ensure that it supports all product integrations you need.

Top end-to-end eCommerce solution for big businesses.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Comprehensive service is the name of the game when it comes to Salesforce Commerce Cloud. There are separate platforms for B2B and B2C businesses. This is a proper end-to-end eCommerce solution that allows you to integrate all your sales channels into the cloud. Moreover, this includes your brick-and-mortar shops as well. The pricing ranges from $25 to over $1000 a month. Additionally, there are multiple subscriptions and service packages. Therefore, you should study the offer to pick what you truly need.

Pros:

  • Comprehensive all-in-one support for running the shop daily
  • Flexible for businesses of different sizes
  • Can include a comprehensive customer service solution
  • Includes a wide range of tools and integrations for building a well-rounded eCommerce business

Cons:

  • Not cheap, especially for larger service packages
  • Peed and quality of support leave a lot to be desired

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is definitely a business-grade adaptable solution that can help you build an excellent eCommerce shop. This is the platform you should use to enhance an existing business or to launch a big store with a suitable budget. In addition, the platform supports Stripe and popular digital wallet payments.

Oracle CX Commerce

Oracle Cloud is another comprehensive cloud-based end-to-end eCommerce solution for B2B and B2C businesses. It’s integrated with a CRM, and businesses can connect it to their financial and other operational software. The result is the creation of personalized shopping experiences and effective store management. You’ll need to get a quote and use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to build a shop on this platform.

Pros:

  • Comprehensive services and integrations
  • Allows to unify all admin tools in one interface for easy management
  • Highly customizable to meet unique business needs
  • Multiple add-ons and integrations available

Cons:

  • You must use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
  • Pricing based on individual quotes

Oracle CX Commerce integrates with PayPal Express Checkout, Chase Paymentech, and CyberSource. It also features a generic payment webhook that you can use for integrating other payment cards and gift cards.

What is the best eCommerce platform?

Volusion

Volusion has been around since 1999, which makes it one of the oldest eCommerce platforms. However, it’s much smaller than other ‘aged’ giants, like Shopify and BigCommerce. Its functionality is good but not as extensive. Nonetheless, it’s an all-in-one eCommerce platform development solution that can be a good choice for smaller businesses. The pricing ranges from $35 to $299 a month.

Pros:

  • Good choice as an all-in-one platform for a big and mid-sized store
  • Offers many integrations and Zapier integration to extend the list

Cons:

  • Much harder to use than the majority of modern eCommerce platforms
  • Not mobile-first (but has responsive templates)

Volusion is an end-to-end eCommerce solution that has been around for a while, which proves its value in itself. It may not be the biggest or easy-to-master platform. However, it offers all the features and integrations an online shop needs, including multiple payment gateway integrations.

Vendasta

Vendasta goes far beyond an end-to-end eCommerce solution. It’s a platform that allows you to sell, market, bill, and even fulfill orders. It’s a fantastic choice if you want to start selling digital solutions from scratch. The platform has all the products you might need, and it’s highly customizable. However, that kind of comprehensive service comes with a hefty price tag. Vendasta subscription costs $199/579/1159 a month.

Pros:

  • Highly customizable for businesses of any sizes
  • All-in-one platform
  • Can improve workflow fluidity and productivity
  • Features an AI-driven marketing automation tool

Cons:

  • Limited integrations
  • Designed for selling digital products

Vendasta is a platform for digital product sellers to build a successful business and grow it at a scale. It features all the necessary tools to manage the business and its growth fully. In addition, it supports multiple payment methods.

Best end-to-end eCommerce solution development platform for lifestyle and fashion brands.

Centra

Centra is an eCommerce platform created for fashion and lifestyle brands specifically. It offers no open pricing, so you’ll need to contact the platform directly to learn the costs and get a demo. The commerce platform uses a headless model, which should make it easy to manage for globally distributed businesses.

Pros:

  • Has multiple features that specifically target lifestyle and fashion businesses
  • Offers scalability to such businesses

Cons:

  • Limited to a specific industry
  • Has a limited number of third-party integrations

If you are running a lifestyle or fashion brand and want to use an end-to-end eCommerce solution that will meet your unique needs, Centra is for you. Otherwise, there are many other more universal and flexible platforms out there.

CommentSold

CommentSold is another highly specific but valuable platform for its niche. This solution is made specifically for selling through social media comments. Don’t mix that up with ‘selling comments’, which is a very bad and punishable black-hat practice! This platform allows you to sell through comments on Facebook and Instagram quickly, set up your shop fast, and even automate answering and invoicing. In essence, it’s a one-stop tool that can help automate your hustle. However, it’s not cheap. Moreover, you’ll pay a monthly subscription fee and a percentage of your sales. There are three pricing plans, $49 and 5% and $149 and 3% monthly. Contact the team for pricing on the enterprise-level plan.

Pros:

  • Automates selling through social media comments
  • Features automated answers
  • Offers invoicing integration

Cons:

  • Expensive
  • Highly specific, for one niche use only
  • Requires paying a percentage of your sales

There is no doubt that CommentSold is extremely useful for people who want to minimize the actual labor cost of selling through social media. But you need to be prepared to pay the price for it. This might not be a sustainable platform for very small businesses and private entrepreneurs.

What to consider when choosing an eCommerce platform?

Bottom Line: What’s the Best Platform for Your End-to-End eCommerce Solution Development?

As you can see, each of the top eCommerce platforms can be a good choice, depending on your business needs. That’s why you need to consider the following things when making your decision:

  • Budget.
    Decide if you can afford to hire a developer team or if you need to start with a limited free platform. You can expand as your business grows.
  • Scalability.
    Remember that while moving a store to a different platform is possible, it can also be complicated and stressful. Therefore, it will be best to choose a scalable platform from the start.
  • Features.
    Think about your business plans and make a list of features that are most important for your store. Then, look for a platform that offers them at a reasonable cost.
  • Marketing.
    If you are launching your first online store, it’s imperative to market it actively and even aggressively. So, it will be better to choose a platform that has robust SEO and other marketing features.

Did this help to relieve some of your confusion over the matter of which eCommerce platform is the best for your business? If you have any questions or need expert help making the decision, don’t hesitate to contact our experienced team of end-to-end eCommerce solution developers. We’ll gladly assist you in designing a store that’s guaranteed to succeed.

Ecommerce Website Development Tips: How to Make Your Shop Attractive

Posted on by mkoftielieva

There are millions of online stores today, which is why eCommerce website development is so hard. Now anyone can make a store using simple and even free platforms. However, attracting buyers to such a run-of-the-mill shop is nearly impossible. The buyers of today are looking for cool designs, fantastic user experience, and features that take online shopping to the next level.

To have a store like that, you’ll need to not only invest in end-to-end eCommerce solution development. You must also understand what makes online shops attractive and use these tools when designing your own.

Choose the Best Ecommerce Website Development Platform 

Unless you are developing an end-to-end eCommerce solution from scratch, you will need to choose an existing platform. The right choice of an eCommerce platform is key to building an attractive store that will bring you money.

In large part, the platform will define store design and overall usability. It will also affect SEO and other types of optimizations you need to attract traffic. In addition, remember that some platforms might have limited opportunities for integrating third-party solutions. Therefore, you must research available plugins and extensions when comparing different options.

First, you should define what you want your eCommerce website to be. Then, find a platform that can realize your designs. Moreover, consider scalability and flexibility. Will you be able to change and grow your store in response to the increasing demand?

Remember that having the website crash during a surge in traffic, for example, due to holiday sales, might ruin your entire business.

Invest in Top-Notch Security

Nothing is as vital as customer security for online businesses. Therefore, you must hire an eCommerce website development company with cybersecurity expertise. The attractiveness of your store will grow if you can prove to consumers that their data and money are 100% safe.

To do this, you need an end-to-end eCommerce solution audited and tested by experts. They will identify all potential weaknesses, so you can cover them and make your business an online fortress.

Moreover, a part of eCommerce platform development should include planning for maintenance and updates. Keeping your store updated on every level will help protect it from rapidly evolving cyber threats.

Have your website protected by specialized software and certified experts. These certificates on your homepage will make people trust your brand. The eCommerce industry is already losing over $20 billion due to fraud. Investing in top-notch security is investing in your future.

Integrate AI in Your ECommerce Website Development

Today, if you choose AI-driven software development, you will undoubtedly get a huge advantage in your niche. Developers can use AI technology to streamline their workflows and increase the quality of some services. For example, QA testing benefits greatly from implementing AI-powered solutions.

Regarding eCommerce website development, artificial intelligence can be used both to speed up the process and enhance user experience. The easiest way to implement AI in an eCommerce business is to add a chatbot to your website. You can use it to improve customer service and reduce the costs of outsourcing a call center.

However, today’s eCommerce platform development allows incorporating multiple chatbots with different functions. For example, you can create an assistant that offers buyers style suggestions. Another idea is to make a helper for choosing sizes. This way, you will enhance the user experience and reduce costs associated with order returns.

Ecommerce website development tips: the importance of UI/UX design.

Focus on Attractive Responsive UI/UX Design

ECommerce website development should always prioritize UI/UX design. The site is your only medium of interaction with consumers. Therefore, your goal must be to make it beautiful and comfortable to use, so people enjoy spending time there. The ease of use and intuitiveness affect sales directly. However, they are also the factors that your eCommerce platform development capabilities can limit.

Therefore, hiring a development company with a team of talented and experienced designers is imperative. These professionals should be able to advise how to provide your customers with a high level of user experience.

In addition, be sure to explore multiple online shops yourself. Note that you should look beyond your competitors. Browse different eCommerce websites and take notes of the features and designs you like most. Then, discuss them with your team to see whether you can implement these ideas for your store. 

It should be an ongoing process when working on an end-to-end eCommerce solution. This way, you’ll be able to update the store regularly to keep up with the UI/UX design trends.

Write Really Good Product Descriptions

Indeed, people don’t spend much time reading on the Internet these days. However, nothing can diminish the value of a good product description. This small piece of content is a tool that can help you motivate visitors to actually make a purchase.

Most importantly, the description gives you room to make your store stand out. You might have a dozen competitors that sell the same or similar products. However, by creating captivating descriptions, you can make people choose your store above others.

But bear in mind that product descriptions need to be not only fun and engaging. Also, they must be highly informative and offer all essential details about your product. Additional interesting facts and tips on how to use the product are also welcome.

In addition, product descriptions are your SEO tool. They must contain relevant keywords to help your Google ranking and attract organic traffic.

As you can see, product descriptions are precious indeed. That’s why you should have them written by a professional. However, even small businesses that can’t afford a full-time content writer have a solution today. You can use an AI content generation platform to help you write exciting texts about your products.

In Conclusion: The Key to Outstanding ECommerce Website Development

ECommerce website development can be challenging because competition in this industry is insane. So creating a store that will provide a great user experience and stand out among competitors is difficult. But it’s not impossible.

All you need is an experienced and creative development team. Of course, the people you hire must be top-grade professionals. But also, they need to be able to understand your vision and offer their own original ideas on how to make your shop outshine everyone else’s.

Looking for a team like that? Contact us and schedule a meeting.

See what we can offer with your own eyes!

Ultimate ECommerce Website Development Guide

Posted on by mkoftielieva

The world of online shopping is insanely competitive now. So, eCommerce website development has become true art. You need to hire outstanding experts in multiple areas to create a site that will stand out and give your business a chance at success.

Bear in mind that creating an excellent eCommerce site is complicated, despite 500-word step-by-step guides that tell you otherwise. An online store that can attract people and nurture customer loyalty is a complex machine produced and maintained by highly-skilled professionals. This guide explains how to build one for a business with any budget.

How to Choose an ECommerce Website Development Company

Decide whether you need an end-to-end eCommerce solution

First of all, you need to decide whether you need an end-to-end eCommerce solution development or if you are going to build a website based on an open-source eCommerce platform. Of course, the main deciding factor here is the scale of the project you plan. If you want to launch a versatile marketplace for multiple businesses, you should look into eCommerce platform development from the start.

However, launching on an existing platform like Shopify or Magento can be the best choice for the majority of businesses. Even if you plan to offer thousands of products from the get-go, these platforms can support it.

Basically, it would be best to discuss your business plan with expert developers. Then, they can advise which is the better route for eCommerce website development based on your business plan.

There are three most common ways to go about creating an eCommerce website:

  • Build an eCommerce solution from scratch or using open-source software.
  • Customize a SaaS eCommerce platform to suit your needs.
  • MACH architecture.
    MACH stands for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless. This architecture is the best option for businesses planning to scale and grow fast. Compared to monolithic solutions, they are much more flexible. Moreover, this type of eCommerce business will be able to add and remove various features as needed without bringing down the whole system.

Understand and compare eCommerce developers’ strengths

Every developer, no matter how great their skill, has a specialization. The same goes for a custom software development company. It means that when choosing a development team, you need to do a lot of research. Take a look at the developers’ case studies and make your own assessment. Study customer reviews if they are available. Also, take a look at the company’s ranking on websites like Clutch.

However, you should also remember that many software development projects are under NDAs. Therefore, the developers might not be able to show off their complete portfolio. That’s why you should also arrange an interview to make your assessment.

When doing your research, make a list of every developer’s strengths. Then, think about what you want from your website and see whether they can deliver the results you want.

Must-have features for eCommerce website development

Must-Have Features for an End-to-End ECommerce Solution

When planning the eCommerce website development process, you need to outline your customer lifecycle in detail. Use the data to determine what features your online store should have. Consider the following guidelines to make these decisions:

  • Make a generalized list of eCommerce store features. Doing some competitor research will be a great help here.
  • Make a list of your personal must-have features for the store. For example, this can be business-specific features like tax or international shipping rates calculators.
  • Prioritize every feature in those lists from 1 to 5.
  • Discuss the costs of adding each feature with your eCommerce application development company.
  • Make your final decision and build plans for upgrades and expansion.

Bear in mind that some features might heavily affect eCommerce website development costs. Therefore, your budget will be a deciding factor in your plans. However, some features are absolute must-haves for any modern eCommerce business.

Responsive web design

In 2022 if you aren’t doing it mobile-first, you are doing it wrong. The number of people who prefer mobile shopping is growing exponentially every year. In addition, today, you can’t really have a high Google ranking if your website isn’t mobile-friendly.

Therefore, the responsive design must be the basis of any eCommerce website development in 2022 and beyond. But you also need to understand that nowadays you have many options to be mobile-friendly.

The good news is that all leading eCommerce platforms offer responsive design capabilities. Therefore, your developer shouldn’t have any issues optimizing your shop for multiple devices if you are using them. 

However, your approach can be different if you plan to launch an enterprise-level business and want to do your eCommerce platform development from scratch. In this case, you should talk with your development team about making a mobile eCommerce app. It can be a more cost-efficient idea in the long run.

SEO capabilities (+CMS)

Any eCommerce business must attract organic traffic in droves. Therefore, you need to consider SEO at the early stages of eCommerce website development. Your site must be designed for the highest level of optimization. Moreover, it must have specialized SEO capabilities that will allow you to improve the site with time.

For example, you need to think about how you will add content to the website. Better SEO requires renewing product pages and adding new pages, like blog articles or informative pages about the business. In addition, these new pages must have optimized templates to make it easier for you to boost the website fast.

Speaking of content, an eCommerce website should have a CMS (content management system) to make working with it more manageable. It allows you to handle and store all dynamic content with ease. Most importantly, a CMS allows you to make quick changes that will be immediately and automatically implemented across the website.

Loading speed

The bounce rate grows with every extra second your website takes to load. So nearly 100% of people who come to your website will leave it if it takes as little as six seconds to load. That’s how much speed matters.

Since online shops must offer rich visual content to increase conversion, clever eCommerce website development is essential. The team working on your site must have the experience and skills to optimize it to the max. This kind of optimization might require quite a bit of back-end work. So, make sure that the developers have expertise in this area.

Moreover, website loading speed is a Google ranking factor. Therefore, it is a part of the website SEO that must be integrated at the level of design.

Product management system

What can be worse than placing an order for an item you want, marked ‘in stock’, and then getting an email that the product isn’t really in stock? Everyone has undoubtedly experienced this kind of frustration. Did you return to that store after such an experience?

In the age of extreme competition that we live in, such mistakes are deadly for an eCommerce business. Therefore, it’s imperative to build an effective product management system while developing your store. It must make it easy for you to:

  • Add new products
  • Automatically update and manage the inventory
  • Edit product pages
  • Realize promotions and discount codes

Payments and checkout

It’s essential for eCommerce website development to integrate multiple payment gateways from the start. Nowadays, diversity is critical for global businesses. Every buyer seeks convenience. If you aren’t offering all the popular payment types in your region, you’ll lose clients.

ECommerce website development for businesses that target multiple countries will be more complex. It’s because the payment gateways must support multiple currencies and have a converter feature.

Moreover, the entire checkout process must be streamlined to the max. It’s essential because a quick and efficient payment process often motivates people to buy more. Therefore, you must make your payment and checkout as short as possible so people can complete a purchase in a few clicks.

Meanwhile, your eCommerce application development company must ensure the security remains top-notch. It means facilitating the checkout process must not affect the security measures of the payment processing provider. Trusted providers would have a set of requirements for integrating them into an eCommerce shop. Your developers will have to study them carefully to ensure full compliance.

Integrations

Even if you are doing an eCommerce platform development from scratch, it will require some integrations with third-party software. Therefore, your website must have capabilities for integrating solutions and plugins you might require. Bear in mind that you need to think ahead when planning this. Your need for integrations might increase as your business grows.

When using an existing eCommerce platform, your developers must ensure that integrations with various solutions are possible. Unfortunately, not all platforms are equal in this, so you have to pick the one that will work with every solution you want to use.

Moreover, maintaining the cohesiveness of all integrations is an essential task for the developers who will manage your website. Remember that every plugin update risks adding vulnerabilities or even crashing the entire system.

Security

PCI compliance, as well as top-notch cybersecurity, are essential requirements during eCommerce website development. These sites handle a lot of sensitive information, including credit card details. Therefore, they have to be above reproach. Moreover, meeting various specialized compliance criteria is a must to be allowed to process payments.

Your development team must understand that and know how to make your store safe. Breaking any of these requirements might result in not only in loss of trust from your customers, but also in hefty penalties. You might even lose the right to accept payments.

Moreover, you need to understand that threats evolve rapidly in the digital space. Therefore, your development team must be able to provide you with a dynamic information security system that will help keep up the safety of your business.

eCommerce website development process step-by-step

ECommerce Website Development Step by Step

Define your product offering range

The first thing to do when planning an online store is to decide what you will sell. How you make this decision is up to you. It can be a passion-driven choice, or you can study the market to find the most promising niches. However, you must outline at least the initial product offering range.

Once you do this, you will be able to decide on product categories and make a draft of your future website map. It will also be helpful to study your prospective competitors’ sites and find issues they have. Your own website must fill in those holes, thus offering customers a better shopping experience.

Set business goals

Your eCommerce website development should be preceded by creating a clear business plan. It means that you must start by setting exact goals and metrics for your business.

First of all, outline the goals:

  • Is your primary goal to build a direct-to-consumer online-only business?
  • Do you want to expand your B2C business with B2B capabilities, or vice versa, using eCommerce?
  • Do you need to grow your existing brick-and-mortar business by bringing it online?

The metrics you should consider during eCommerce website development include

  • Business growth.
    Decide how exactly you will measure it, for example, through weekly/monthly/quarterly sales and revenues, ROI, etc.
  • Local and international sales.
    Decide from the start whether you plan on selling globally, as this will affect the features your eCommerce website must have.
  • Customer Lifetime Value.
    Decide how you will measure and plan to grow CLV at the business planning stage.
  • Sales.
    Think about how many products you need to sell to turn in a profit and how you expect these sales to grow over time.

Define your target audience for eCommerce website development

Whether your business plan is B2B or B2C will help define the website structure and design. However, you also need to research your target audience in-depth. You need to know what these people like and dislike in everyday lives, not only concerning your specific niche. This way, you’ll be able to provide them with a better shopping experience.

Never forget that you can find inspiration in the most unlikely of places. Also, if you target a specific generation, like Gen-Z, you need to understand their preferences in tech. This will help you decide on website functionality and various features that must be included at launch.

Outline the desired shopping experience

You need to plan the exact shopping experience step by step. First, take note of every action your customers will take to make a purchase. Then, think about how to make the process as smooth as possible.

Remember that every extra action reduces the chance of a conversion. Therefore, you must aim to make the user experience straightforward and smooth.

Some ideas to consider:

  • What filters do you need to include in the website search?
  • Can you provide a one-page checkout?
  • Do you need to integrate a product comparison feature?
  • How will you realize the function of discounts, coupons,  and promo codes?

Consider eCommerce platform development options

If you plan to build an end-to-end eCommerce solution, you must make a considerable investment. However, today you don’t have to do this from the start. There are dozens of eCommerce platforms that allow you to set up any kind of shop. This will reduce the workload on developers. Therefore, you will be able to use your budget more efficiently.

Many of the top-grade platforms allow for scalability. So, you will be able to scale up your shop with ease. Meanwhile, as your business progresses to the next level, you can start the development of an end-to-end eCommerce solution.

Many of the top platforms have multiple plugins that make it easy to add any features you need. However, not all these platforms are the same. Therefore, you should research their capabilities carefully. Talk to your developers, as they should be able to offer advice on which platform is best suited to your business goals. Today’s most popular options are Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. Each of them has some important pros and cons. Therefore, you should choose what meets your specific needs best.

Define the procedure to add new products

The process of adding and editing products must be supremely easy for you. Therefore, discuss this with developers in detail and make sure you resolve any issues regarding:

  • Syncing the inventory across all sales channels you have.
  • Adding high-res product images and videos without bringing down the website loading speed.
  • Ease of adding and editing structured product descriptions with SEO elements.

Most importantly, the process has to be set up in such a way that you can add products without involving developers. It means that not only does the process need to be simple. It’s also crucial to set it up so that it won’t bring down the website if you make a simple mistake.

Integrate payment and shipping

It’s a vitally important step in eCommerce website development. Even if you are using an eCommerce platform to build your shop, using the services of an experienced developer is a must. The expert will be able to set up the payment gateways and checkout, so everything runs smoothly.

You will need to offer multiple payment options. So, the developer will have to ensure that they are secure and reliable. The task will be more complicated for businesses that target an international audience. In this case, you will need more diverse payment gateways. Also, consider integrating a specialized bookkeeping solution to help you keep track of your finances and generate reports.

When dealing with international payments, you also need to research the regions carefully. Despite what some providers claim, some e-wallets and digital payment services are banned in specific regions. So, you need to make sure that the payment gateways you choose are actually supported by the areas where your audience resides. Moreover, make sure that the transaction fees they offer are reasonable.

Develop and implement a content strategy

You must have a content strategy ready before getting to actual eCommerce website development. It’s because the site will be much better when it’s built with actual content instead of fillers.

Note that the content strategy is vital for eCommerce. It’s because the content is a parge part of SEO. In turn, SEO is key to attracting organic traffic, which is the primary source of income for online stores.

Your content strategy must cover the following:

  • Establishing a consistent brand voice
  • Creating a structure for informative, captivating, and search engine optimized product descriptions
  • Creating additional information pages about your brand’s history, products, materials, mission, vision, etc.
  • Adding a blog for continuous SEO improvements
  • Integrating social media into the website

Remember that content is not only text. All the images, videos, GIFs, and graphics on the site also count as content. Therefore, you need to keep all of them in the same style and quality.

Moreover, all content must be fresh and relevant. So, you must make sure that there is a way for you to update and add new pages easily. Whether you are building an end-to-end eCommerce solution or a small website, you must make it so that content can be updated without involving a developer.

Final stage of eCommerce website development

Test and launch the website

Finally, you are ready to take the most important final steps with all that done. First, your eCommerce website must undergo thorough QA testing. There are different types of quality assurance testing that will be used. Your developers should be able to perform it or advise how to best go about it.

You can use this simple checklist for testing your website personally:

  • Check all CTAs and other buttons
  • Check all the forms
  • Test the checkout process in every possible way
  • Double-check every payment processing option you offer
  • Go over product categories and descriptions to make sure everything is in its proper place
  • Check every image and video to ensure their quality matches
  • Check every link
  • Go over the inventory to make sure everything is right
  • Test the coupons/promo codes feature
  • Test the shipping settings

When every test is complete, and you are sure that the website runs smoothly, you can launch!

But remember that you’ll need to do quite a bit of marketing pre-launch to make sure that people come to the Big Day. In fact, you should start marketing your business and building your brand while your eCommerce website is still in development.

Bottom Line: The Long Road to ECommerce Website Development

Creating an eCommerce website that is sure to rock is a task that takes a special kind of skill. It also requires a team that’s expert not only in development but also in business analysis, project management, cybersecurity, and marketing.

When you have all these experts working together, your online shop is guaranteed to be successful. Contact us if you want to see how it works!

How an End-to-End ECommerce Solution Can Boost Your Business

Posted on by mkoftielieva

Custom end-to-end eCommerce solution development has never been so important. It’s because the COVID-19 pandemic has boosted this business to unprecedented heights. Already online sales jumped to $26.7 trillion. And they keep growing.

It’s simple, if you want to sell anything in this day and age, you must sell it online. And it means that you must have the best possible platform for it. So, developing the best end-to-end eCommerce solution is a necessity for business survival.

How an End-to-End ECommerce Solution Can Solve Top Online Sales Business Challenges

It’s inarguable that the pandemic helped eCommerce businesses in a big way. However, another side of that coin is that it prompted almost everyone to start selling online. The result is that the competition level has increased. Therefore, you must work much harder to attract and retain customers.

All things considered, the focus of your eCommerce platform development must be to provide the best possible user experience. To make people choose you over the competitors, you have got to give them a store they will love. That’s why you need custom end-to-end eCommerce solution development services. A product tailored to you will effectively tackle the majority of modern online stores’ challenges.

  • Effective communication system.
    A custom solution can help you manage messaging with the customers to ensure you provide top-quality service. Communication is critical, and you need to remember that it’s used not only to reply to customers. You also require this tool to distribute messages regarding discounts, sales, and special offers. The solution should personalize these messages to an extent as this will increase customer engagement.
  • Engaging design.
    You can design an end-to-end eCommerce solution to not only be attractive but also increase conversions. Experienced UI/UX designers are able to use a variety of techniques to attract the visitors’ attention to specific areas. They can also use some tricks that help keep people interacting with the site. It’s all a matter of finding a great UI/UX design team.
  • Optimization for all devices.
    Today it’s not only about Google’s mobile-first requirements for website SEO. Any eCommerce platform development must be optimized for any device from the start. If you aren’t flexible, you will alienate a large portion of any target audience.

Benefits of developing a custom end-to-end eCommerce solution.

Benefits of Custom ECommerce Platform Development

We’ve already talked about the benefits of custom software development for small business. However, it needs to be noted that eCommerce businesses can receive additional boons from custom-tailored software. Leading among them are:

  • Order fulfillment & tracking integration.
    Many forget that eCommerce solutions must not only be easy for the buyer to use when making an order. ECommerce platform development must also make sure that the entire order tracking process is straightforward. On the shop’s part, it means that you’ll have an effective automated way to track stock and order management. This platform needs to be integrated with a third-party warehouse management system or designed to have this functionality from the start. The beauty of a custom end-to-end eCommerce solution is that you can make it ideally suited to your business model. But better yet, it can be adjusted and scaled up as your shop (and warehouse) grows.
  • Expense tracking.
    There are many expenses in the eCommerce business beyond purchasing stock and packaging supplies. An excellent end-to-end eCommerce solution can track those as well. Therefore, it can be an invaluable help in monitoring all your monetary transactions and automating bookkeeping. The data collected by the solution will not only go to your regular reports. You can use it to optimize your business processes and cut costs.
  • Reduction of human errors.
    Mistakes happen, and humans are prone to making them. Even the best of us can be stressed, distracted, or miss things for other reasons. However, payment for any error can turn huge for an eCommerce business. ECommerce platform development can allow you to automate many essential processes. Therefore, it will minimize the risk of errors and subsequent losses. Also, using an automated platform will make it a lot easier to manage your business.

What Features Does Your Unique End-to-End ECommerce Solution Need?

Small businesses have their limitations both in budget and technology they can use. Therefore, efficient custom eCommerce platform development becomes even more important. It allows you to get the maximum value from your solution. Furthermore, the most efficient set of tools will help your business grow, thus expanding your limits.

So, the trick is to make the best possible platform for eCommerce needs. Of course, every company will have some unique customization requirements. However, there are some general functionality tips that you should take into consideration:

  • Strategic navigation.
    A good end-to-end eCommerce solution must be developed in a way that makes it very easy to navigate. Your buyers, and all other users, must be able to find everything they need without exerting any effort.
  • Reviews/testimonials functionality.
    User-generated content is extremely valuable for increasing conversions and customer loyalty. Moreover, it is also a factor that affects your Google ranking. Therefore, an eCommerce store must give people a way to share their opinions about the quality of products and services.
  • Fresh content.
    During the stage of eCommerce platform development, you must make sure that it will be easy for you to manage and add new content. It’s crucial to keep eCommerce content up to date and refresh it constantly. Therefore, you’ll save a lot of money if you don’t need to hire a developer to do it every time.
  • Fast and responsive platform.
    It’s vitally important for your eCommerce platform to be fast as even a second’s wait will lose you customers.
  • Easy search.
    Most importantly, make a robust Search feature for your website to ease navigating the stock.

With the guidance of an experienced eCommerce development company, you can succeed every step of the way. You should start with choosing the best eCommerce platform to base your store on.

In Conclusion: Investing in Your Future with ECommerce Platform Development

The cost of custom solution development for eCommerce is a worthy investment considering how many business advantages it can bring. Therefore, no eCommerce business should miss this opportunity. The solution development process can be customized to meet your unique business needs and budget.

Contact us for more information and an analysis of the growth opportunities you have. Become the leading seller in your niche!

We are a team of 200+ qualified software engineers, business analysts, data scientists, project managers, and UI/UX designers. All our professionals hold specialized certifications in their niches and have expertise in complex projects for a variety of industries.

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