There are plenty of options to choose from. Of course, you’ll want speed, ease of use, great search engine results, mobile responsiveness, outstanding user experiences and security.
What else will be important for your business? Try our quick quiz to help you decide what might be best for you.
1. Cost of ownership – cautious or courageous
Are you looking for a low start-up cost or are you ready to make a major investment?
2. Your products – few or many
Do you have a large product catalogue or a relatively small range?
3. Speed to market – today or tomorrow
How quickly do you need to launch your new site?
4. Launch or develop – new or established
Do you want to start from scratch or build on what you have?
5. Technical know-how – engineer or driver
Do you want a solution you can manage in-house or to work with a partner?
6. Integration – silos or seamless
Is easy integration with other business systems important to you?
7. Customisation – standard or special
Does your business need a tailored solution?
8. International sales – home and away
Do you operate in multiple countries?
Magento
Magento is cost effective, with integration, customisation and scope to grow with your business
Magento is the world’s favourite open source ecommerce platform, with over 150,000 developers who are constantly innovating. With all those options you might want to work with a partner to get the best from your Magento solution.
Straight out of the box, Magento can provide you with a good-looking, effective shopping and checkout solution, but it’s also highly customisable. You won’t limited by numbers of users, products or transactions, so it’s also a cost-effective choice that’s easy to manage. You will pay a licence fee and hosting costs or work with a partner who will host it for you.
Magento features include one-click payments, guest checkouts and shipping to other addresses, if needed. There is also a range of tools for marketing segmentation and promotional targeting, including a gift registry and rewards points for example. Integration options are available with major enterprise systems like Microsoft ® Dynamics, SAP and Sage. Custom integration is also an option.
Who chooses Magento – If your products are unusual or unique, or you have a large product catalogue needing special categories, Magento will be a good, customisable solution for you. With both Community and Enterprise editions available, it’s also a good choice if you have a fast-growing business and you are looking for a platform that can grow with you.
Cloudfy
Cloudfy offers monthly pricing plans, is fast and easy to launch, with integration options and scope to scale on demand
Cloudfy is a Cloud-based business to business (B2B) solution specifically designed for retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers and distributors. A new Cloudfy ecommerce website can be launched in weeks rather than months. With regular updates and new features deployed in the Cloud it’s an easy-to-manage solution available on a monthly subscription basis that includes hosting.
Cloudfy provides integration with major enterprise planning, accounting, warehousing and other business systems. It also has a powerful application programing interface (API) and flat file integration tools. Scalability on demand is an important feature of Cloudfy.
Who chooses Cloudfy – For wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers who want to set-up an online ecommerce store, Cloudfy offers a cost-effective, low risk option. Cloudfy provides a simple, out of the box solution to get a business online very quickly with scope for customisation and scaling on demand.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce for existing businesses using WordPress that want to start their ecommerce journey
WooCommerce is a free plug-in to add ecommerce store and checkout functions to WordPress websites. It could be a good choice if you have an existing small business and are a WordPress user. It offers good basic functionality but doesn’t have as many ‘out of the box’ options or as much scope for customisation as some other solutions
WooCommerce can integrate with the existing theme of your WordPress site, so it’s easy to implement. However, if you don’t already have a WordPress site you might want to look at other options. The cost of hosting your WordPress site also needs to be taken into account.
Who chooses WooCommerce – WooCommerce is a good choice for businesses that already have a WordPress website and some technical expertise. WooCommerce is well suited to smaller businesses and new start-ups looking to sell online.
Shopify
Shopify is good for start-ups and fast-growing business that trade internationally
Shopify offers Cloud-based ecommerce options including automatic tax handling and shipping rates and support for multiple languages. It allows you to offer free shipping and accept a range of major credit cards like American Express, Visa and MasterCard. You can use the out of the box themes, but you’ll need some knowledge of Shopify for further customisation.
There are basic Shopify payment plans and additional transaction fees depending on your plan. There are also fees for credit card transactions, any extra apps you might want to use and other ‘non-standard’ features.
Who chooses Shopify – Shopify is a good choice if your business is small but growing fast, or you’re just starting up. It might also be a good choice for existing retail companies making their first move into ecommerce.
Demandware
Demandware is good for larger retail businesses that are looking for integration and marketing tools
Demandware Commerce Cloud is a hosted Cloud-based solution that is a good choice if you don’t want to handle server maintenance and software updates. You pay a subscription fee and a percentage of your sales.
It helps larger scale businesses to grow fast with integrated selling of a wide product range across multiple platforms. It combines ecommerce, order management, point of sale (POS) and in-store operations in a single platform that streamlines operations, sales and fulfilment. Personalisation is an important strength with Demandware.
Who chooses Demandware – Demandware is a good choice for larger scale retail businesses that prefer not to manage their own infrastructure. You might need to make some compromises on control and flexibility in exchange for cross-platform integration, security and scalability.
Do you need some help to choose the best ecommerce solution for you? Call one of our experts today.
