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eCommerce Websites – Types and Importance in Business Growth

Posted on by Pratik

In the last two decades, consumers have drastically changed the way they shop. And businesses have a lot to catch in order to keep themselves stand out from the competition. One of the biggest trends going on in the market is online shopping. Thus, the online business industry has expanded vigorously and still continues to grow.

In 2022, the eCommerce retail revenue is projected to increase to approx. 5.4 trillion USDs. Talking about the present time, according to Statista, today, retail eCommerce sales accounts for approximately $3.53 trillion, and we continue to expand this reach, witnessing this fast business growth.

To succeed in the industry, merely having a basic eCommerce website is not enough. You should have a website that best reflects what you serve. In order to develop an online store that offers the best results, make sure your website is compatible with mobile phones, optimized for search engines, and responsive in order to offer the best user experience to your customers. You can hire a responsive website design company to develop a business website that converts.

Companies should ensure that their online presence is engaging and efficient by developing well-structured websites that bring more conversions to your site. Read on to know what exactly is eCommerce, what the types of eCommerce websites are, and the importance of eCommerce in business growth.

What is eCommerce?

eCommerce is a vast field, and in the digital era, the term eCommerce can mean differently in different industries. So, what actually is eCommerce? The term eCommerce means any business happening online, be it buying and selling products and services or transaction of money and data to complete the business. eCommerce websites are the best source to buy and sell products on the online medium.

There are various types of eCommerce websites, depending on the niche of your business. Choosing the right type can help you achieve success and earn a good profit online. Before discussing the various kinds of eCommerce websites, let’s have a look at a brief history of eCommerce.

eCommerce History – Development, Evolution, and Beginning of Mobile eCommerce

Michael Aldrich, an inventor, and entrepreneur, introduced online shopping in 1979. This is widely known as the foundation of today’s eCommerce industry. In the years after 1979, many significant events occurred in the electronic commerce industry. The following heading covers some of the most critical events in the history of the eCommerce industry.

– The Very First eCommerce Purchase

The first legal online transaction was made on August 11, 1994. A man, on this day, sold a CD to his friend via a retail platform known as NetMarket.

– Online Marketplaces Development

Amazon – One of the biggest eCommerce platforms was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 as an online bookstore. Later, it was further expanded to offer CDs and other media products. In the following year, AuctionWeb – an auction platform, was launched by Pierre Omidyar. This was a platform where collectors could bid on and sell various goods. And you know what, later AuctionWeb was renamed eBay, a well-known platform these days.

– Evolution of Online Payments

Before the introduction of digital wallets like Paytm and gPay, online payments were limited to credit cards. However, with the foundation of the PCI (Payment Card Industry) Security Standards Council in 2004, digital wallets came into action, and that too with more security.

– Start of Mobile eCommerce

The invention of modern smartphones bombed the fame of mobile eCommerce. This began with the first iPhone in the year 2007. Nevertheless, mobile devices account for more than one-third of all eCommerce transactions these days.

This was the brief history of eCommerce. Now, let’s dive deeper to discuss various types of eCommerce websites.

What are the Types of eCommerce Websites?

1. B2C – Business to Consumer

The most significant business model in both physical and online stores is B2C eCommerce. As its name suggests, the B2C type eCommerce model is the transaction between a business and an individual consumer. For instance, if you buy a smartphone from a retail shop, you are indulging in the B2C business model.

2. B2B – Business to Business

B2B is yet another business model that involves two participants – businesses. In this type of business model, a company sends its goods and services to the other company. B2B sales are especially focused on raw materials and products that are repacked after being sold.

3. C2B – Consumers to Business

C2B eCommerce works precisely opposite to the traditional eCommerce business model. In this, individual consumers sell their products or services to various related businesses. In other words, consumers contribute their products and services to the businesses, collaborate on related projects, and finally assist businesses in leveraging profit.

4. C2C – Consumer to Consumer

One of the oldest forms of eCommerce businesses. In this type of business, consumers sell their products to the consumers. This means the deal of products and services between the consumers. eBay and Amazon are the two best examples of online marketplaces where consumers can buy as well as sell their products.

5. B2A – Business to Administration

The business between the online stores and the government agencies is referred to as B2A eCommerce. Buying and selling of social security, legal documents, and other such products are usually done in this type of eCommerce model.

6. A2B – Administration to Business

This eCommerce business comes into action when some government agencies provide goods and services to several businesses. E-learning, government procurement, and data centers are some of the examples of A2B business models.

We included all these eCommerce business models just to give you an overview of eCommerce classifications. However, the models like A2B and B2A are only included in the broader sense of eCommerce. So when we talk about eCommerce, we generally mean B2B and B2C eCommerce websites.

Let’s now proceed to the next section of this eCommerce blog, i.e., the importance of eCommerce in Business growth.

Importance of eCommerce in the Growth of your Business

Listed below are some of the reasons to prove the importance of eCommerce websites for your Business Growth.

1. 24*7 Online Presence

One of the most significant advantages of having an eCommerce website is that customers can buy your products anytime and anywhere. Every physical business has some working hours, but customers can access your website even during non-working hours when you have an online business. This adds as a key advantage of moving your business to the digital era. In addition, the website is always in service mode, ensuring that the customers are always served at the comfort of their place.

2. Professional Web Design

There is no reason for the website visitors to stay on your website unless they find something attractive on it. Audiences can get bored very quickly and look for something that catches their interest whenever they visit any website. Hence, it is essential for businesses to build their website impeccably and uniquely so that the customers get to see something attractive and feature-rich when they visit your website. Therefore, professional web design will encourage visitors to buy from your website.

3. Revenue

Unlimited revenue can be generated through your website if it reaches the correct target audience. The only thing you need to do is optimize your website so that people can find you when they are looking for the service you offer. Apart from this, you can also give some of your website space to the digital ads. This is just another way you can generate high revenue.

Let’s say you have an eCommerce website selling mobile phones and laptops; you can give some of your digital space to the relevant display ads to be shown on your website.

4. Sales

The use of your website increases exceedingly with an eCommerce website as we said that your website could be accessed from any corner of the world at any time. Hence, websites break the regional barriers and significantly increase the sales of your business. If you have a website, no matter where your physical store is located, you can sell your products to various people located in any corner of the world.

5. Cost-Effective

If you have a physical store, it will anyhow cost you more than an online store. A physical store will cost you renting or buying a property where you can locate your store. Besides that furniture, electricity bill, interior, employees, and a lot more expenses that you cannot ignore. Contradictory, creating a website is very cost-effective.

With content management systems like WordPress, Shopify, Wix, you can easily create a website with minimal help. Even if you plan to develop a complex eCommerce website with hundreds or thousands of web pages, you will need help from experts. However, the cost will anyways be minimal as compared to setting up a physical store.

6. Visibility

A physical store will always be visible to the audiences local to that area. However, an online store will be visible to a broader range of audiences at a very minimal cost. When it comes to an online store, the visibility of your business has no geographical boundaries.

7. Growth Opportunity

A company website can act as a portfolio that represents the business well. This can act as a growth opportunity as the website can act as a reference for potential investors. This can help you make your visitors acquainted with your services and future plans, thereby providing you with an excellent opportunity to grow your business.

8. Establish Credibility and Build Trust

Earlier, the customers expected businesses to have the contact information on their brochures. Likewise, these days people hope the firms have a solid online presence. This is crucial and the very first step to building trust. Furthermore, if the website is well-structured and easy to navigate, customers are likely more inclined to trust your business and make a purchase or avail of your services.

Website is an essential tool to boost traffic and build trust and credibility in your customers. Local SEO services can further improve this to attract the local demographics if you are new in the industry.

9. Information Exchange

Nowadays, we all expect every brand to have an online presence where we can access information about their business. We do, right? One of the most captivating advantages of a website is that it makes it easy for a customer to access any information about your business. Basically, a website is nothing but a source for your customers to communicate with your brands to gain information or resources.

10. 24*7 Customer Support

Providing customer support in a physical store is a tough job. However, if you own an online store, it is relatively easy for you to provide customer support at any time, and that too without hiring any personnel. This is how the importance of owning a website becomes clear in terms of customer support. Customer, You can provide customer support in various ways, some of which are:

– Chatbots: Chatbots can 24*7 do a job of answering customer queries through templated answers. Chatbots can help users with various other information like signing in/up procedures, information about any of your products or services, and many more.

– FAQs: Customers often use website FAQs. All the common queries are answered on the website’s FAQs section, where the users can access the information when and where required.

How eCommerce Websites have become a Game Changer for Businesses

Summing Up, for entrepreneurs looking to start an online business eCommerce website is the best way you can achieve your goals. Likely to be less risky and with fewer resources, your website can be up running and make a significant amount of sales in minimal time and budget. Still, managing an online business requires proper planning, strategy, and resources.

Selling online is undoubtedly the future of businesses. However, that doesn’t mean that brick-and-mortar stores will disappear from the market. Therefore, there is increased competition in the market. If you need help developing an out-of-the-box, enticing responsive website for your business, WeDoWebApps LLC is just a step away. Contact the best Responsive website design Company, USA, and share your requirements.

Shopify, Magento, or WooCommerce – Choose the Right Platform

Posted on by Tarun

With digitalization, eCommerce website development seems to be the right choice if you are looking for long-term growth in your business. The idea of moving to the digital world sounds cool, but there is much more to it. Whether it is about products or services, startup or enterprise, an online store is something that pushes your business beyond boundaries.

Setting up an online website with the best digital experiences is on the bucket list of every small to the enterprise-level business owner. However, making the right choice to set up an online store is the most crucial decision a business owner should take. Choosing an inappropriate website design platform may be an obstacle to your business growth.

Choosing the right eCommerce platforms is crucial as It involves various factors like website loading time, features list, type of platform, plugins, and tools. There are different eCommerce platforms in the market, but among them, there are the top 3 competitors – Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce. Therefore, you need to know which eCommerce best suits your business needs.

Before diving into the eCommerce platforms, let’s talk about what eCommerce is, its characteristics, and why businesses need an eCommerce website. So Here we go.

What is an eCommerce Website?

An eCommerce or electronic commerce website allows you to buy or sell your products or services on the web. In other words, eCommerce websites are the online portals that facilitate you to buy or sell your offerings over the internet.

What are the Characteristics of an eCommerce Web Store?

Since there are many websites present on the World Wide Web these days, customers are loaded with the options for online shopping. So, to attract customers to your online store, you need to provide an excellent user experience to convince your customers to buy from you. In addition, you need to build trust in them that your products are worth buying.

Therefore, here we are with specific characteristics of an eCommerce store, including those which will make your website look appealing.

1. Simplicity

The main focus of a website should be on the products rather than on extravagant design. An excessive website design for no legitimate reason can only do harm but no good to your business. It will distract the customers from the products on your site. Simplicity in design helps in enhancing the user experience. Therefore, designing a website that is simple and easy to use makes more sales.

2. Branding

Most online shoppers prefer to buy products from the top brands in the market. Therefore, it is essential to establish a brand name not only in the online market but also in the offline market. In case you sell both online and offline, a website is just one part of the overall branding.

It should operate well with other branding efforts in order to make your customers feel that the website is safe. If you are a startup, branding must be a long-term goal as you don’t have the advantage of trusted customers.

3. High-Quality Photos and Images

Selling online is way more different than selling offline. The customer cannot physically touch the product. It is a big thing to buy a product without touching it; therefore, you need to build trust for quality.

Providing quality images and videos that exactly mirror the product can help overcome this challenge and help the visitors make their decision easily. The product photo is important as the customer will judge your product and your company just by seeing the product image.

4. Easy Navigation

The very first requirement of buying or selling a product/service is that the customers should be able to find what they are looking for. Easy navigation is vital for any website, but it is especially crucial for online storefronts.

Lost visitors will eventually result in decreased sales; therefore, every effort should be made to make the website clean and easy to navigate.

5. Mobile Friendly

Nowadays, around 60% of the people prefer mobile phones for online shopping. However, suppose you have a website that works well on a PC or laptop but is not compatible with mobile devices. Now what? The mobile customers will go and look for other websites to buy what they want.

Therefore, a website should be compatible with all types of screens, be it laptops, PCs, tablets, or mobile phones. This will ultimately help you gain more customers and increase sales which is the primary concern of an eCommerce website.

Why do Businesses Need eCommerce Websites?

An eCommerce website has become the most vital part of your business plan in the rapidly growing global economy. The increased amount of online shoppers is the powerful catalyst for eCommerce development.

If you are still confused about launching your online store, ask yourself why eCommerce is so much in trend around the world. Here, you will find various benefits of developing an online store.

1. eCommerce Helps in Cost Reduction

If you have an online store, it is not necessary to have all the products available to you in physical space. In fact, there are various companies that operate on the World Wide Web, where they show all their products through their eCommerce store.

This implies saving money not only by renting or purchasing a premises, but also internet, electricity, etc. On the other hand, if you still want to have a physical store for your customers to come and visit, it should not necessarily be that large. In either case, you will be saving your money.

2. eCommerce Platforms help Businesses Go Global

In connection to the above point, eCommerce platforms allow you to post your products for sale anywhere worldwide. Therefore, the customers will not need to travel to your place to see what you offer. If you have a physical store, you will be limited to your geographical area, whereas by having an online store, you will have the opportunity to grow your customer outreach.

Furthermore, it will eliminate all your geographical and linguistic barriers. Your eCommerce store translated into different languages will allow the customers to buy from other areas of the world.

3. Increase in Sales

eCommerce is mainly focused on one thing that is increasing sales. At the end of the day, the primary purpose of your eCommerce store is to sell more, and therefore this is what it is aimed at.

Having an eCommerce store will ultimately increase your business reach, improve your products thanks to the customer reviews, or be available all round the clock.

4. Maximum Security of Transactions

Today, shopping over the internet has become more safer than a physical store. You can sit back at your home with nobody spying over the secret number of your online transactions. Of Course, the online storefronts will have SSL certificates. This certificate not only allows safe shopping but also keeps your data encrypted in a way that it is absolutely safe to enter passcodes and keys.

It also protects even more confidential data, such as your credit card information. Security will continue to be the most significant concern in the near future, and eCommerce stores are absolutely safe to shop at.

5. You can Easily Receive Feedbacks on the Products

You might have always wanted to know what your customers think of your product so that you can improve where you lack. One of the greatest advantages of having an eCommerce store is that you can ask your customers to leave genuine feedback on your website. Additionally, customer feedback will build trust in your current and upcoming customers.

The more positive feedback you get, the more customers believe in your store, and ultimately more will be the purchase. eCommerce reviews are kind of a channel where the customers can see what they can expect from your website.

So, this was all about eCommerce and its importance. Now let us come to our main focus point, i.e., Which platform is the best for eCommerce web design and development.

Before getting into the detailed comparison, let’s look at the brief application of each platform. Shopify is a subscription-based eCommerce platform with more than 1000 apps to add various functionalities to your website. Magento is appropriate for enterprise-grade businesses and can host multiple websites with just one admin panel. It also includes various plugins and tools free and paid.

Talking about WooCommerce, it is suitable for SMEs. It can create a web store from scratch by just using WordPress. To create an enticing eCommerce store, we would suggest you hire a website design company. A web design agency can ensure a website that includes everything you want in your store.

Cannot decide between Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce? You are not the only one; each and every business faces this situation while developing an eCommerce store. These three platforms are the most popular eCommerce platforms in the industry today. Let’s read further to clear your confusion and let you select the best.

Shopify Overview

Founded in 2006, Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake launched Shopify after the attempt of opening Snowdevil. Snowdevil is a web store for snowboarding equipment. From just five people in a coffee shop, Shopify has grown to approximately 5000 people across the globe. Till 2009, Shopify powered more than 1 million stores in over 175 countries.

With this rapid growth, Shopify became the most popular platform to start, run, and grow your business. It offers online businesses a wide range of services like payments, marketing, shipping, and customer engagement tools. These features simplify the process of running an online store for small businesses.

Whether a jewelry designer, musician selling mixtapes, or a business looking to grow, with Shopify, you can sell anything you want. The sky’s the limit to what you can sell on this platform. In addition, Shopify offers numerous features that will improve your web store.

Features of Shopify

1. SEO

Search Engine Optimization is a fundamental requirement for all online business owners. This helps improve search engine ranking and visibility and thereby driving more traffic and customers to your website. Shopify comes with several SEO tools that help website owners appeal to search engines while they are busy working on other features of the website.

2. Securit

Shopify is capable of handling hacker protection, security compliances, and upgrades. This will allow you to focus on raising money and conversion rate. Also, you would be able to access dedicated support whenever you face any problem. The support team provides valuable assistance to the startup that wants a solution with no or fewer expenses.

3. Analytical Tools

You can also keep track of the website’s progress with Shopify’s Analytical Tools. Through this feature, business owners can actually track how the visitors located them online and other helpful information that can help them enhance their marketing efforts.

4. Hassle-free customization

Business owners with less or no technical knowledge can also use Shopify to develop a high-quality web store. This is all because of its easy customization features. It is extremely simple and convenient to set up an online web store with Shopify’s interface. It also includes guides and instructions to facilitate the development of a user-friendly website design.

5. Integration

There are many business owners that rely on third-party software tools to ease their business processes. Shopify provides you the convenience of integrating useful tools like WooCommerce, MailChimp. This helps businesses streamline the entire work process, thereby eliminating the hassle of individually accessing the different programs.

Since each and every website development platform has specific benefits and drawbacks, therefore, let’s discuss Shopify’s pros and cons to get a clear idea about whether to use Shopify or not.

Strengths of Shopify

1. Built-in Tools

Shopify offers top-notch in-built tools for finding products to sell, creating your website, marketing your products, and many more. If you are a budding startup, you can keep your investment down by using Shopify’s free tools. With these extensive free tools, businesses can have a better Point of sale for a more profitable business.

2. Easy to Configure and Setup

Shopify offers the convenience of quickly opening a web store with no extra cost. Since all the features are conversion-optimized, the user interface is tidy, user-friendly, and easily understandable. Shopify offers a 14-day free trial in which you can learn the features. The trial period does not ask for any coding experience.

On the Shopify website, you can find the documentation and the video tutorials for your reference. If that doesn’t work within your skill set, you can ask for help from responsive website development companies.

3. Ease of Use

Shopify is an easy-to-use and robust website development platform. This enables you to create and launch your eCommerce website in a minimal time. If you are looking for a customized design, then the development can go for a few weeks. If you are a non-tech person, hire web design firms as per your needs.

Drawback of Shopify

1. Not for Long Run

It is not easy to move your eCommerce store to a different platform. Because of this, choosing an eCommerce platform becomes tricky as you have to plan for the future. No doubt, you can use Shopify, but for a business that wishes to manage everything, it is better to move to a self-hosted platform.

2. Shopify Pricing

Shopify Storefront owners depend on the add-on features that advance Shopify plans and offers. The free version of Shopify only gives the basic features. So for advanced plans and built-in tools, you need to pay a higher cost. The pricing plan of Shopify or any other hosted platform will eventually become expensive.

In general, Shopify is an effective eCommerce platform, but in the end, the decision falls as per the company’s needs.

Magento Overview

Magento – An open-source eCommerce platform developed by Varien Inc., is now known as Magento Inc. It is a very useful platform for businesses looking to grow online. It is a scalable eCommerce platform and has many control options. This helps the developers build user-friendly and search engine-friendly websites.

Magento was first launched on March 31, 2008, as an open-source eCommerce software. Till then, it has helped small business organizations build online businesses. It offers searching and sorting of products in several seamless ways. In addition, it is easily integrated with various third-party sites that are needed to run an online business effectively.

Magento is one of the best eCommerce platforms in the web development industry. This is a PHP-based software that provides several features and an easy user interface. In addition, it offers almost all the facets required for an eCommerce solution to be successful. These facets include managing products, catalogs, and orders, along with marketing and promotion.

Features of Magento

1. Product Browsing

Suppose you visit a website that is having a bad user experience, and you fail to find the product you wanted. Would you continue browsing on the same website? No, Right? Therefore, Magento provides functionalities that help you deliver an enhanced user experience to your customers. The functions include zoom-in and zoom-out on the image, multiple product images, wishlist addition, and many more.

2. Catalog Management

No matter what you are selling, the catalog of your web store holds absolute importance. Magento is a comprehensive platform that helps you in various ways. For example, you can showcase your products virtually, edit and delete product reviews, inventory management, and many more.

It also supports sharing the products on social media. Avail of web design services from us if you are looking for a professional Magento eCommerce website.

3. Order Management

Magento also offers the feature of Order Management of your eCommerce website. This feature includes viewing, creating, and editing the products from the admin panel. Some of the advanced features include Multiple invoice printing, email notifications, call-center support, and RSS feed for new orders. Also, customization of the order status can be availed with Magento.

4. Mobile-Friendly Solutions

We all know that more than 60% of online shoppers prefer shopping from their mobile devices. And with Magento, you can attract this vast demographic of mobile users. Building mobile-friendly websites and applications with Magento is a seamless process. It offers mobile HTML5 for creating mobile-compatible eCommerce stores.

5. Marketing and Promotional Tools

Magento also offers various promotional and marketing tools, which makes your advertising and marketing accessible. This Magento feature offers up-selling and cross-selling products, promotional pricing, free shipping, and monitoring coupon usage. Hence, Magento helps you to promote your products easily.

Magento is one of the biggest eCommerce platforms. Just like Shopify and WooCommerce, Magento has hundreds of web stores worldwide. However, being the most responsive web design service, we have seen some of the strengths and failings of Magento. Here we go!

Advantages of Magento

1. Highest Flexibility

Magento allows you to start selling your products or services with just a primary shop. However, when it grows, its design becomes quite challenging. For Magento, flexibility is crucial; hence its plans are designed to increase its progressions. Furthermore, due to its open-source nature, we could modify the source code as per our needs and desires.

2. Large Community of Users

Magento has a large community of users because it is the most used eCommerce website development platform worldwide. This community of users always ensures quick support. Moreover, they are motivated to develop numerous plugins and extensions. Therefore, if you have any issue related to Magento, you are more likely to get quick support as there is a massive community of Magento users.

3. Magento Unique features that other platforms lack

Magento has a variety of features helping you manage multiple stores, allow multiple locations, currencies, language, and pricing. Compare any other platform with Magento, and it will definitely stand out with its ample features. For example, with Magento, you can set up the product price according to a group of people.

You can keep different prices for your staff, regular customers, and VIPs, respectively. Additionally, with the community version of Magento, you can enjoy various features that other eCommerce platforms lack.

Disadvantages of Magento

1. It’s Expensive

Magento has many versions, the community version is free, and the enterprise version costs you more than approximately $15,000. Furthermore, the premier Magento version of which is targeted at large businesses, costs you more than approximately $22000 per annum. Add an extra third-party fee if you are unable to install the extension by yourself. Hence, Magento is way too expensive.

2. Time Consuming

This eCommerce platform is time-consuming as it has a slow loading time. Therefore, it isn’t easy to customize your website in Magento as compared to other eCommerce platforms. In addition, it is not easy to migrate from another eCommerce platform to Magento as it imports data at a prolonged rate.

Due to its flexible architecture, it becomes complex and time-consuming to set up a Magento store. This is one of the reasons behind the slow loading time of the Magento platform.

WooCommerce Overview

WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress and has been downloaded around 3.9 million times by January 2020 worldwide. WooCommerce operates approximately over 37% of the websites on the world wide web. It was primarily developed by the WordPress Theme Developer WooThemes.

WooThemes further hired developers, namely Mike Jolley and James Koster at Jigowatt, to work on Jigoshop that ultimately became WooCommerce. When WooCommerce is integrated into a WordPress website, it adds basic functionalities to it such as product management and shopping cart..

WooCommerce can help you develop a basic online store that can sell a variety of products and services. You can sell physical goods, digital goods, ongoing membership, and affiliate transactions. WooCommerce can manage various essential features like inventory management, international customers, sales tax management, coupons, and shipping cost calculation.

WooCommerce Features

1. Seamless WordPress Integration

The significant advantage of choosing WooCommerce is that it is developed on the most popular CMS worldwide – WordPress. As a result, the concepts that work on WordPress also work the same on WooCommerce. Since using WordPress is so easy, the integration of WooCommerce with WordPress makes a website owner’s work much easier.

2. Unparalleled Flexibility

Whether you are selling physical products, virtual products, or even if you are working with external/affiliate products, WooCommerce is the right choice for you. You can easily customize WooCommerce to sell any kind of product/service. The best part of WooCommerce is that you don’t have to be technically strong to customize it.

3. Vast Extensions Library

If you are planning to build an eCommerce store, you need a lot more than just a website and products. You need to set up shipping, payments, marketing, accounts, and a whole lot of things. WooCommerce comes with a massive variety of extensions that makes the website functionality much easier. WooCommerce extensions library comprises more than 400 extensions.

4. Simple & Powerful

Even Though WooCommerce is a small platform, it does not only target developing small stores. With WooCommerce, you can even create professional storefronts. With the robust in-built tools, you can do a lot of things like managing orders, updating delivery status, and many more. In all, WooCommerce has everything that is needed in a professional web store.

5. Ample Theme Options

Have you seen two Bath and Body Works stores? You haven’t, right? Similarly, there cannot be two stores that are exactly the same. To stand out from your peers, you need to develop a store that is unique and speaks your own story. WooCommerce is compatible with WordPress themes.

Now that we know the features of WooCommerce let us now discuss the advantages and disadvantages of WooCommerce. Read further to learn more.

Advantages of WooCommerce

1. Great Flexibility

One of the major reasons for using WooCommerce is you can sell any kind of product regardless of your business niche. You can sell physical products, virtual products like downloadable novels, external products, and more. It also offers flexibility that allows businesses of all types and sizes to set up a store. You won’t have to worry about your business expanding past plugin capabilities.

2. Maximum Security

WooCommerce being an online platform, must have secure payment gateways in place. This should be done to ensure that your customer’s credentials are not compromised. WooCommerce comes with secure payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal. Because of the popularity of this platform, hackers constantly try to target it.

WooCommerce developers keep updating the platform regularly in order to prevent it from cyber-attacks. However, the plugin does not come with a backup facility to restore the data in case the attack is successful. With WooCommerce, you can add a backup that will keep the customer data stored in an encrypted form.

3. Infinite Customization Options

WooCommerce helps you develop a website that is specific to your business niche. It has limitless free plugins available on the WordPress Plugin Directory. If you want the paid versions, you can find them on WooCommerce.com and Codecanyon.

Even though the free themes are limitless and impressive, if you don’t find a theme to suit your business, you can choose the one that is similar and customize it according to your business niche.

One of the huge benefits of using WooCommerce is that you don’t need to be technically strong. WooCommerce Wizard allows you to create a site with no knowledge in HTML and CSS.

Disadvantages of WooCommerce

1. It’s WordPress Specific

Even Though WooCommerce has many advantages, it is still a plugin. Therefore, you cannot use it in websites that are not hosted by WordPress. This thing makes it difficult for the businesses who want to use WooCommerce but have a website on some other platform. They will need to migrate their website to WordPress for WooCommerce.

2. Not a Cost-Effective Solution

While it is free to download and install WooCommerce, some extensions may require payment to make your website work at a suitable capacity. This is the most significant disadvantage of WooCommerce as it feels like there are hidden costs for business owners.

Let’s say you want a payment gateway other than Paypal; for that, you will have to pay a bill. In addition, various extensions will require subscriptions that means you will have to deal with those every year. These subscriptions may cost you anywhere from $39 – $249, depending on how advanced you want your store to be.

It looks like you’ve gained enough knowledge about all three platforms. Congratulations! You’ve cleared a critical step. But a lot of things might confuse you to choose a platform for your website development. The very first thing may be which eCommerce platform you should start your business with.

This year everyone seemed to be tempted with Magento; earlier, it was WooCommerce and Shopify. The more you speak with the website design companies or the marketing companies, the more confused you will be.

All three platforms have billion-dollar companies behind them, which will assure you of getting updated and enhanced with time. Since all the three are well supported and famous, all have an intense competition when it comes to choosing one.

Shopify offers the easiest way to start your online business but compromising the flexibility, Magento provides enterprise-level flexibility but for the sake of ease of use. However, WooCommerce sits somewhere in the middle of both platforms, offering a significant amount of flexibility while staying easy to use.

Confused about which platform you should go with? Let’s carry on with a detailed comparison between the three platforms to help you choose the most appropriate one for your website development.

Magento vs. Shopify

Magento and Shopify both are eCommerce platforms, and both offer us exorbitant products. As such, both these platforms should be in close competition with each other, right?

Absolutely Not.

The reason it would be unfair to compare these two platforms is that both platforms serve different parts of the industry. Magento vs. Shopify would be like matching a fresher programmer with an experienced one – same platform, different experience. Nonetheless, both have their own value in the market.

Shopify is preferred over Magento because it has more affordable pricing, comprehensive out-of-the-box functionalities, and numerous built-in themes. At the same time, there are many who choose Magento over Shopify because of its open-source nature, endless flexibility, outstanding features, and a massive dedicated community.

Shopify is the perfect eCommerce solution for beginners or people with no prior coding experience. On the other hand, Magento is appropriate for experienced developers and businesses who have been in the eCommerce industry for a very long time. When you plan to build on Magento, it will require more human work, and assume that you have prior coding knowledge.

Shopify vs. WooCommerce

Shopify is superior to WooCommerce as it offers specific features at each subscription stage, out-of-the-box rich features, and requires no coding skills. Whereas you should consider WooCommerce over Shopify because it has powerful SEO functionality, ample plugins, add-ons to choose from, and most importantly, rich customization potential to meet your business needs.

Both Shopify and WooCommerce are good eCommerce website development solutions. However, the choice comes down to individuals’ preference and their business requirements.

If you want a user-friendly, plug ‘n’ play solution and less customization, Shopify would be the perfect fit for your web design. But if you are an experienced WordPress user looking for a flexible eCommerce platform, WooCommerce would be a great and lucrative option. It comes with varying costs approved by stand-alone applications as well as extensions.

Magento vs. WooCommerce

Just like we compared Magento and Shopify, the comparison between Magento and WooCommerce also falls under the same class. This makes the selection between the two relatively easy. Just choose one that suits your business requirements.

Both the platforms require prior experience and knowledge, and it can be expensive to set up a web store with these two. As such, if you are comparing Magento and WooCommerce, it’s the debate about business needs, not the capabilities.

Magento is suitable for large businesses looking for a better and more customized solution built from scratch. And also to the companies who are not afraid to invest their time, money, and efforts.

WooCommerce will be best for small companies or budding startups looking for a cost-effective eCommerce web solution. While WooCommerce requires some pre-knowledge of WordPress, it is more suitable for beginners as compared to Magento.

Shopify vs. WooCommerce vs. Magento

Now that we have seen the detailed description of each platform individually and have also compared them with each other, it is clear that all three have their target audience and strengths.

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that is suitable for small businesses looking for an eCommerce solution without investing too much time, effort, and money.

For businesses that are already running a WordPress website but are looking for a more flexible and enriched eCommerce functionality, WooCommerce is an excellent way to go.

Magento is the best solution for medium and enterprise-level businesses who are looking for a comprehensive and tailored eCommerce solution absolutely from scratch.

Final Words

Having analyzed WooCommerce, Shopify, and Magento, the biggest question that arises is – Which Platform to Choose? This is often the case in such questions, and the simple answer to these questions is – It Depends!

There are a lot of factors that are to be considered while choosing an eCommerce platform for your website. For example, your technical skills, size of the store, features required, and also budget, all these factors help you decide which eCommerce platform is perfect for your online business.

There are three scenarios where there is a clear answer to this question.

You have fewer technical skills and want to quickly launch your store with minimum fuss, go with Shopify.
You have a great budget and want the most perfect solution to launch an enterprise eCommerce solution, go with Magento.
You are interested in learning new things for yourself and want a solution that will grow your business without restricting its potential, WooCommerce is for you.

Now the decision is yours. You need to analyze your business requirements, budget, skills, and the necessary things before choosing any website design platform. If you lack the technical skills and want to hire a responsive website development company, WeDoWebApps LLC would be honored to help you with our outstanding eCommerce website development services. Get in touch to know more about eCommerce platforms and our services. So, WooCommerce, Magento, or Shopify. What are your thoughts?

Magento 2 eCommerce Website Development : Steps to Create an Engaging One

Posted on by Tarun

These days, when the internet overruns our lives, online shopping has become immensely popular. Where there were around 1.92 billion online buyers in 2019, the expected number of online buyers in 2020 was 2.05 billion. And in 2021, the expected number of digital buyers is 2.14 billion.

Irrespective of where the online buyers buy their products from, online buying is gradually increasing with time. Now that it is a pandemic, people are scared of going to the physical stores for shopping, and they prefer buying their stuff from online stores. Thus, building a solid online presence is very vital to make good sales. If you have not yet jumped into eCommerce web development, it’s never too late.

There are several ready-to-use eCommerce platforms that have made website development seamless and efficient. Magento 2 is the most suitable option among various other eCommerce platforms because of its unique features, functionalities, flexibility, scalability, and customizability. Robust performance is the plus point.

In this article, we will discuss why Magento 2 is the right choice for website development and will also provide a step-by-step guide to develop a Magento 2 eCommerce website. So, let’s dive deep into it.

But first, What is Magento 2?

An open-source eCommerce platform developed by Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner under Varien Inc., released on March 31, 2007; Magento 2 is very useful software for building your digital presence and is currently the most comprehensive custom eCommerce development platform.

Magento is one of the highly used content management systems for creating engaging online stores by its robust and scalable architecture. It can go well with the latest technologies like PHP7. This means a faster loading time as compared to Magento 1. Magento 2 enables users to update their eCommerce websites automatically.

Due to the rich features and extensible codebase of Magento 2, organizations with small and large operations worldwide use it for a wide variety of projects. As a result, Magento custom development is highly in demand in 2021, and the market will continue to increase.

Why is Magento 2 the Right Choice for eCommerce Website Development?

In this tech-savvy world, any retailer thinking to build a successful digital presence is the smartest decision they can make. However, a suitable platform is required to build that presence. And among all the available eCommerce platforms, custom Magento development can be the right choice to kick start your business. Wanna know why Magento 2 is the right choice? Let us get to that straight.

1. Open-source Platform

The best part of Magento website development is that Magento 2 is open-source. This means it allows developers to build an attractive and engaging eCommerce store by integrating the extensions. It offers a multitude of extensions, themes, and many more to make your Store one of the best storefronts on the internet.

2. Numerous Customizations and Tools

This eCommerce platform offers customization facilities by which you can develop the storefronts according to your business requirements. In addition, various analytical tools like Google Analytics, bigCommerce Analytics, Inspect Let, etc., can be easily integrated with Magento 2.

3. It comes with a Digital Marketing Assistant.

Being an open-source platform, Magento 2 offers SEO, meta tags, site maps, URL suggestions, keyword suggestions, etc., to optimize your eCommerce store. In addition, Magento 2 comes with an in-built digital marketing assistant that assists businesses in managing traffic. All the digital marketing features in Magento 2 have helped the companies to rank their eCommerce storefronts to the top of the search engine.

4. Mobile-Friendly Websites

Smartphones these days are the basic necessity of a human. Approximately 70% of the people prefer buying products from their mobile phones, making it crucial for the businesses to develop their website mobile-friendly. With Magento 2 web development, one can easily drag and drop, zoom in and zoom out, or slide the products listed on the website. These features make Magento 2 stand out from the competition.

5. Provides Security

Providing security to the eCommerce platform is very necessary to keep it safe from hackers. If you want your website to be safe from hackers, I advise you to Hire Magento Web Development Company that specializes in providing security to your websites. Magento 2 offers high-level security to eCommerce websites. With 5 folders in the root directory, it makes websites less vulnerable to cyber attacks. Hence, it ensures developing secure eCommerce stores.

Master the art of eCommerce with our web development services, tailored to leverage Magento 2’s powerful features for creating engaging online stores. Dive into how we can help build your ideal eCommerce platform!

Let’s get an idea about the top brands using Magento 2 for eCommerce website development.

Magento 2 being the most used eCommerce website development platform, you would be surprised to know how many companies are using Magento 2 for the benefit of their business:

Fred Perry
Hermès
Christian Louboutin
Paul Smith
Missguided
Oliver Sweeney
Kurt Geiger
Agent Provocateur
BVLGARI
Nike
Liverpool FC
Helly Hansen
K Swiss

The list continues to go on. But, you can see so many big companies using Magento 2 for their business website development and competing in the agile market. Due to the obvious reasons mentioned above in this blog – the reasons to choose Magento 2 for eCommerce website development.

OK, so how to build a Business Storefront using Magento 2?

How to Build an eCommerce Storefront Using Magento 2?

Now, as we know that Magento 2 has robust development tools and features that can give your website a promising online business launch, let’s go through the critical steps to develop an eCommerce website using Magento 2.

In this blog post, let us learn the process to set up an eCommerce website using Magento 2, as this is the most used platform among eCommerce businesses. So, here goes the steps for the same:

Step 1: Review the Technology Stack Requirements

Like other web development platforms, even Magento 2 has specific technology stack requirements, which are as follows:

OS: Linux x86-64, and other Linus distributions. Magento 2 is currently not supported by iOS or Windows. However, you can develop the Magento 2 websites locally on Mac and Windows using virtualizations and NAMP applications.

Web Server: Apache 2.4 or Nginx 1.x. For Apache, you need to enable Apache mod_rewrite and mod_version modules.

Memory: At Least 2GB of RAM is required to install and update Magento 2 and other extensions.

Database:

MySQL 5.6 – Magento 2.0.x and 2.1.1
MySQL 5.6, 5.7 – Magento 2.1.2 and higher
MySQL 8.0 – for On-premise installations

PHP: PHP 7.2 and PHP 7.3 is supported by Magento 2. Magento 2.4 – the new version of Magento 2 supports PHP 7.4.0. To optimize performance and avoid the common issues, you must jot down the PHP extensions, PHP settings, PHP OPcache.

Security:

Secure Socket Layer Certificate for HTTPS
Transport Layer Security for PayPal integration.

Mail Server:

Mail Transfer Agent
SMTP server

Step 2: Select the Hosting Provider

To ensure your website’s stable performance and build a successful online business, choosing a reliable web hosting provider is imperative. Always remember that the hosting services you choose should satisfy Magento 2 system requirements. Many hosting vendors in the market offer the required equipment and tools for running Magento 2. Moreover, some people specialize in the platform and provide one-click installation.

Choose a server with a fast response time. If you want to improve the conversion rate of your Magento 2 website, it should not take more than 2 seconds to load. Therefore, always evaluate before choosing any hosting provider. The hosting plan for Magento 2 and other payment gateways should always contain SSL certificates. Instead of choosing a hosting plan according to your current business requirements, choose a plan that is scalable to your future needs.

The Magento 2 Hosting price may vary from company to company. However, always choose a reliable one rather than going for low costs. Lastly, there are always potential issues that may lead to a website shutdown. Therefore, you will need a dedicated team who is ready to support you 24*7. These factors are essential to be considered while choosing a hosting provider.

Step 3: Download and Install Magento 2

Downloading and Installing Magento 2 right away is a controversial topic. Some people think that the new versions take time to get stable, whereas Magento 2 always recommends staying updated with the latest versions, i.e., Magento 2.4.0. You can get Magento 2 open-source from the official website of Magento.

Once you have downloaded and installed Magento 2, follow this path to get to a page where you can download the package: Product> Where to Start> Get Started, or Resource> More Resources> Download Release and Patches, or community> Connect> Get Open-source.

Now, choose a method to install Magento 2. There are two popular options for online businesses: Composer and Achiever. With this step, you can download Magento 2 with or without the sample data. As a Magento web development company, we recommend you choose the composer option for most situations. Nonetheless, you will need technical skills to use the composer method. If you are a beginner in Magento 2 and lack technical skills, it is better to hire an experienced Magento website development company.

Step 4: Complete General Configuration

Once you have installed Magento 2 successfully next, you should complete the essential information for your website.

From the Dashboard, go to Stores> Settings> Configuration> General. Here, finish the basic initial settings regarding country, region, languages, store name, etc. Filling the initial settings is crucial for legal compliance and the customers to get a clear idea about your business. The information provided by you will be present in the emails sent by your website.

Step 5: Update your Store Design

An excellent user experience is something that customers always consider while they visit any online store. In addition, the beautiful appearance of the website can impress online buyers. Therefore, it is necessary that you develop a visually appealing and user-friendly website.

From the dashboard, you can navigate to Content> Elements. From here, you can create pages, blocks, and widgets. In this, you can create pages to showcase your catalog and other helpful information. Blocks allow the admin to add and manage the HTML code. Finally, widgets can be added to HTML codes for improving the core functionalities.

Now that you have created the CMS pages, blocks, and widgets, the next step is to customize your website’s visual by going to Content> Design> Configuration. Then click on the edit button to customize the website you want to set up. Apart from these basic settings, it is vital to configure your website’s theme. The correct and visually appealing theme plays a crucial role in attracting more and more customers to your website.

As a business owner, you can choose the default theme or customize a theme on your own. A default theme called LUMA is available with Magento 2, which consists of anything you need to start selling. If you do not want to use the default theme, you can even shop the theme templates from the 3000+ themes available on the Magento Marketplace. Here you can find a theme that is specially designed for your offerings.

Ready to build an engaging Magento 2 ecommerce website? We’re a leading Ecommerce Development Company specializing in Magento solutions!

Step 6: Configure Catalog

Products/Services, categories, subcategories are the vital components of any eCommerce website. Magento 2 provides you the right to add or upload and manage your catalog efficiently. With Magento 2, you can create as many categories and subcategories as you want to be on your eCommerce store.

How to add a new product to your storefront? Catalog> Products> Add Product. Following are the categories you can use to define your product: Simple Product, Grouped Product, Configurable Product, Virtual Product, Downloadable Product, or Bundle Product. Product Name, SKU, Price, other attributes, description, product images or videos, and so on. These are the sections available on Magento 2 for adding a new product.

If you want to import products in bulk, you can do it via a CSV file by following this path: System> Data Transfer> Import. After that, categorization can be done. Arranging the products with the categories and subcategories helps the customers to navigate to what they want quickly.

People developing a website using Magento 2 always make the mistake of creating layers of subcategories, due to which the customer has to click 3-4 times to reach the final product page. This irritates the customer, and they leave your website. Therefore, if you want to develop an eCommerce website, we would suggest you hire a professional custom Magento development company as they know what your customers actually want.

Read also about PSD to Drupal and Magento Conversion

Step 7: Set up a Shipping and Payment Method

When it comes to eCommerce websites, shipping and payment methods impact the abandoned cart rate. This is not the issue with Magento 2. Magento 2 offers a wide range of shipping and payment methods that give shoppers various ways to pay for their purchases.

If you want to find the shipping method configuration, you can find it under the Store> Settings> Configuration> Sales> Delivery Methods. With Magento 2, you also get the option to set up for allowing multiple shipping addresses and define numerous product categories for different shipping addresses.

When you check the Payment method bar, you will get the various payment methods you can set up for your eCommerce website. These payment methods include PayPal, Braintree, Klarna, Check/Money order, Bank Transfer, AmazonPay, COD, etc.

You can set up your payment method and configure your integrated payment gateways. Magento 2 even enables you to extend payment options with third-party payment modules or API integration.

Step 8: Preview and Go live

When all the above steps are performed well, recheck your website to ensure everything is placed correctly.

If you are configuring your website locally, the last step you need to perform, i.e., push your files on the webserver. Once this is done, your website is now live on the internet for the customers to enjoy shopping.

Summing Up

Magento 2 is a compelling eCommerce website development platform that is always in high demand and will continue Advantages of using Magento 2 for e-commerce website development include a wide range of customization options, scalability, and strong support for SEO and marketing to grow. If you want to get your website developed by a professional Magento web development company, WeDoWebApps LLC is the right choice for you. Contact us and share your requirements for unique website development and delivery. Contact us for Magento developer Florida.