Deciding on the type of eCommerce Platform

One of the most common frequently asked questions from ecommerce website designers is about type of shopping cart most suitable for any retailer. Retailers, before trying to search the suitable ecommerce platform, should focus on the goals they want to achieve by setting up the ecommerce web store. Additionally, the features which they want to integrate in their shopping online cart also help in determining about the ecommerce platform.

Ignoring these critical issues would result in under utilization of the shopping cart or the shopping online cart would not be able to manage cart's operations effectively.

Emphasizing on the very fundamental issues offers a better clarity & retailers can choose their suitable platform from a few selected one like platform with light add-ons, hosted or SaaS, self hosted or custom ecommerce shopping online cart.

Types of ecommerce Platform

- Light add-on cart: This means that any cart which integrates with the existing shopping cart of the online retailer or Content Management System(CMS) like Word Press. The basic advantage of this platform is that it is inexpensive &suitable for those retailers with a limited number of items which requires very little customization.

Retailers, while opting for this platform, will face some issues regarding the flexibility of the custom items restricted design features.

- Hosted or SaaS Carts: Hosted Carts are those shopping online cart where the hosting is done on the web server of the online retailer. Conventionally, the hosted carts offer more flexibility for inventory management and customer service than any add-on cart.

This type of shopping platform is suitable for those start-up businesses with limited resources that have a few hundred items. The cost of initial setup is low, but the retailers need to spare for monthly hosting fees and fees for uploading further products.

Those retailers who have custom design needs or requirement of any customized data integration should not use hosted solutions. Using a hosted solution for any customization cost the same amount as that of using a licensed or purchased cart.

- Self-hosted open source or licensed/purchased cart: Those shopping carts which online retailers can place on their own servers or web hosting service belongs to this section. This cart is usually suggested for customized website designing. Retailers can download this type of the ecommerce platform on their servers and can modify them according to their requirements.

There are few downsides to this approach like the preliminary cost of setting up is high and the cost to upgrade is very high.

- Custom ecommerce shopping cart: This type of ecommerce platform is suitable for those retailers who are using various other web applications like ERP or CRM. Custom shopping online cart allows retailers to fully integrate the existing systems.

These are suitable for enterprise companies as the cost of setting up is very high and normally takes long duration for designing & commissioning.

Deciding on the type of ecommerce platform is always a tricky situation. To remove such an indecisive situation, most of the shopping online cart are coming up with their demo versions.

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