Ecommerce Ingredient List: 11 – Ecommerce Platforms

What do you need to get ecommerce right? What are the Ingredients for Ecommerce Success? So far, we have looked at things that are fundamental to having a sustainable business, things like understanding your Value Proposition and deciding what Products to sell.

In this article, we begin to look at some of the systems and solutions available to sell online.

What is an Ecommerce Platform?

An ecommerce platform or system, or solution is software that allows you to sell products or services online, usually through a website. Sometimes the ecommerce platform is the website, and sometimes it is an add-on or plugin that augments your website.

Globally recognised examples include Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, Hybris, SalesForce Commerce Cloud and WooCommerce.

Despite what the sales teams of these companies tell you, there is not a lot of difference between these systems when it comes to the core functionality. All of these solutions include basic parts of the user journey:

• Product Catalog – A database of your products and their relevant attributes including price, description, product image and information to allow customers to navigate to and choose what they want to buy.
• Basket or Cart – A virtual list of things that you have put into your shopping trolley that you want to buy when you get to the checkout.
• Checkout – the page where you pay for the items in your basket.

At the back-end, Ecommerce platforms provide an engine to manage certain operational and administrative processes. The complexity of those interactions and integrations are where different systems try to differentiate themselves. Functionality that may also be included in a platform include:

• Promotions, Discounts & Coupons – the ability to change the price in different situations, according to specified rules.
• Product Recommendations, Cross-sell & Up-sell – mechanics to increase basket or order value by showing related products to customers through the journey.
• Reporting – Key metrics that show the health of your ecommerce business.
• Pre-Built Integrations – with Payment Gateways, Shipping Providers, Social Media and ERP solutions.

From a technical point of view, there are also some architectural differences between these systems. There are a few concepts here.

• Software as a Service (SaaS) – Platforms such as Shopify position themselves as providing a ‘turn-key’ solution so a merchant doesn’t have to think about the technology or IT. These solutions are usually charged on a monthly or marginal basis. The downsides include a lack of flexibility and control over the functionality roadmap.
• Open Source – Magento began as an Open Source platform and continues to allow developers to heavily customise the platform. This allows for increased flexibility, but also increases costs. Open Source systems may require more IT resources or outside expertise to develop and manage.
• Hybrid, Headless and more – Both SaaS and Open Source have advantages and disadvantages. So platforms like BigCommerce are emerging which take the advantages of each of these approaches and merge them together.

How to Choose an Ecommerce Platform?

Every ecommerce project is different. Every company has different requirements and desired business outcomes. Every business unit has a different budget, which means that the ecommerce platform that is right for you, might legitimately be different to someone else.

You can start by answering some simple questions.

• How many SKU’s or Products will be in your Ecommerce catalog?
• How may simultaneous transactions do you expect in peak times?
• How complicated are your products? Can they be customised?
• Do you have a standard or novel business model?
• What languages do you want to support?
• How many currencies do you want to support?
• What is your Budget? How much can you spend on the build and running costs?
• Do you have existing systems that you need to integrate with? e.g. ERP, Loyalty
• Do you need B2B functionality like account or volume based pricing?
• Do you have in-house IT resources or support?
• Do you have IT policies that need to be adhered to? e.g. Is an Open Source solution ‘allowed’. Does the system need to sit on a certain codebase or technology stack?
• What does the ecosystem look like? How many partners are there in your part of the world? Does the app marketplace include all the tools you need? e.g. is there a ready made integration for your required Payment Gateway?
• How much control do want over the UI / UX including design?
• What will you need in 2 years time? Are you willing to re-platform? Will your chosen system scale sufficiently?

The answers to the questions above will be different for every business. There is no ‘best’ ecommerce system – only the best ecommerce system for you.

If you are a larger business, you may want to run an RFP process to generate a shortlist of software vendors and system integrators.