Qualities of the Best eCommerce Website Templates and Platforms
A lot of people have this misconception that ecommerce businesses, adopting a fully automated business model, do not suffer from the same challenges as a brick and mortar store. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Online store management is also filled with roadblocks and challenges that can be trickier in some cases than managing a traditional business because it relies - at least for the most part - on your choice of ecommerce store builder.
Building an online store in this generation is made simpler with the help of ecommerce website templates and site building platforms such as Strikingly, WooCommerce, Shopify, etc. If you want to scale up easily, you’re going to need the help of any one of these platforms. But if you want to guarantee success, you’re going to need to choose wisely.
Ecommerce website builders are not created equal
Most site builders have one thing in common, they all promise to make building an ecommerce website easy by taking away the need to read or write code so you can focus on developing engaging content for your site. The differences lie in the services that they offer and the cost that come with acquiring add-on features. Having said that, here are some of the qualities that the best ecommerce website builder should possess.
1. Minimal startup cost
When you’re in the process of starting a new venture, it’s only natural that you want to minimize the overhead expense on when you build an ecommerce web site so you can channel your energies to developing a great product or service. All site builders will have a cost associated with their use. Make sure that this cost is something your business can comfortably afford, especially during the early phases. Work the cost into your budget and pad it heavily so you can factor in other related expense such as transaction fees when your online store makes a sale or app integration costs.
The ideal scenario is one where in you don’t have to pay much to get your store set up. As the best free ecommerce website builder, Strikingly enables you to build your online shop at virtually no cost. Its free accounts can add the Simple Store section to build ecommerce web site content without having to pay for anything just yet. Once your business takes off, you can scale up and upgrade to a paid plan so you get the benefits of having a personalized domain and a custom branding for your site. The best part is that Simple Store doesn’t charge a separate transaction fee for sales made through your store so you can take this away from your projected costs.
2. Scalability
You want an ecommerce website builder that grows with you as you grow your business. Your online store is your company’s central hub. You need a platform that gives you a lot of room to grow so you don’t feel the need to migrate your entire site to a new platform. Strikingly continues to grow in scale to keep up with changing business needs. It introduces new features and services regularly to support the growth of the many ecommerce websites in its platform.
3. SEO-friendly features
Most ecommerce website builders specialize in building online stores and not much else. They would throw in a blogging feature in there just to make it seem that they can help you to create a full-featured site but it may not support your SEO objectives. Make sure that your choice of site builder offers SEO tools and an intuitive website editor so you can easily tweak and improve your site’s searchability.
