Why Most Of The eCommerce Sites Suck - Home Business

eCommerce always sounds a bit of a made up word that people will use when they either don?t understand what is going on online or when someone wants to generalise activity online. You either understand it or you don?t. What we might not comprehend, even if we have a base understanding of what eCommerce actually is, is why most of the sites suck. Managers fall into the trap of thinking their product will sell itself, sound logical? Unfortunately, it isn?t that black and white; the eCommerce platform is very important.

So why do they suck?

This is down to one of the following:

1. Your product is great, your site is awful: Doesn?t matter how great your product is, if your site is dire no-one is going to buy from you
2. Your product is awful, your site is great: It won?t matter that your site is amazing if you have all the goods returned to you due to poor design or poor turnout
3. Your product is awful, your site is awful: It?s a no brainer ? You will not generate any success from not developing your product AND your site

What if you?re one of the lucky ones? Your product is great, but you?re just looking for eCommerce solutions for your business. Well consumers in the wake of the Internet expect high end websites and if they don?t measure up; they don?t buy. It?s as simple as that. They want a site that is as easy to use as Amazon or Apple etc, so you need to make sure you deliver a good webstore.

You have two choices when it comes to picking a direction for your site: Open Source or Dedicated, but you need to make a decision on what is best for you.

Open Source: An open source platform has a low installation cost but can be expensive to run. They have limited functions and hard to customise. To get the customisation you require will be costly in both time and money.

Some of the best open source platforms are free to download and integrate into your site, but it is hard work finding the right one and even harder still to customize it to work with your requirements.

Top 3 choices

1. Magento ?Just looking at Magento?s client base tells you everything you need to know ? Samsung, The North Face and Stussy to name just a few. It?s the worlds fastest growing eCommerce platform. BUT you have to pay for their Enterprise edition, so again; watch the budgets on this one. Currently used by 30,000 merchants
2. osCommerce ? Completely free under the GNU General Public License and will probably serve most of your needs. It?s easy to set up and run and extremely popular. But here?s the downside; because of the popularity it is extremely hard to make your site look different from the other thousands of people using it. If you want to stand out, and they do offer that sort of thing, expect to pay for it. With 5,800 add ons you?ll be spoilt for choice and wrack up quite a bill. Currently used by 228,700 online stores
3. OpenCart ? A scalable option and looks pretty good. The world is your oyster; You can create unlimited categories and products. Accept a lot of different currencies and use 20 different payment and 8 different shipping methods. It?s not as popular as the other two in the top 3 so it comes with very limited support, but it?s a lot better looking than osCommerce and will help your prominence in Google

Dedicated: Whilst this is expensive to develop, everything is tailored to your needs. Metrics and databases are built to your preference and once the initial outlay has been settled, they are relatively cheaper to run

What do your customers want to see?

• Customers want to use straight forward eCommerce systems. What you click is what you get.
• A high level of security ? No one wants to be concerned their details are going to be fraudulently taken
• Intelligent scripts and algorithms ? Remembering the user preferences and delivery locations save your customers time. A happy customer will return another day

The level of complex work that needs to be put into a dedicated system makes it obvious to me why people decide to use professional eCommerce designers. The money is worth the spending if you reap in great sales and great reviews. Personalized web fronts and not subscribing to an over-used platform sets you apart from the drudgery.

Don?t let your web store suck; the best gift wrapping service you can offer is how you package up and sell your products. Put a bow on top and sell your shiny wares to the online consumer.

This is a post by Andras Deak, a part-time guest-blogger and a full-time communication and user experience consultant. He works for Code23, a UK based innovative eCommerce solutions company building the best online stores out there.

Source: http://www.workathometruth.com/why-most-of-the-ecommerce-sites-suck/

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