E-commerce platforms come and go quickly, with a few of them managing to establish themselves as leaders in the industry. Among those that remain established for many years, there tends to be a few that are chosen by the largest retailers, though you wouldn’t necessarily know this from looking at market share information.
While plenty of very small, new eCommerce platforms get attention on review websites, the rate that they’re being adopted at and the reviews they get don’t necessarily tell you about what the capabilities of those eCommerce platforms actually encompass.
For serious eCommerce businesses, there are complex features that need to be included in the platform that allow large amounts of inventory, many orders, many customers and other aspects of doing business that eCommerce enterprises deal with to be handled.
Who Backs It?
As the dot-com bubble established, online businesses can come and go very quickly. Knowing the entity behind the eCommerce platform is imperative to making a choice.
ECommerce platforms that are backed by very large companies are generally ones that get the best development and that are likely to remain active for the longest period of time.
Magento, for instance, is produced by the enterprise division of eBay, one of the most successful online businesses in the world. Because it has the backing of an established eCommerce entity itself, the features on the program are geared toward serious businesses that need very scalable and capable software.
This has led the Magento eCommerce platform to become the choice of some very large brands, such as COACH and Signature Hardware. When an eCommerce platform is used by extremely large companies, such as the aforementioned and many others, it’s obvious that the software can scale up to any level required.
While new entries come onto the market and generally get a lot of attention, this doesn’t and give good information about the company that backs it and if the company that backs the eCommerce platform has the resources necessary to develop it to levels required by larger eCommerce enterprises.
Support
Any eCommerce platform is really only as good as the amount of support available for it. When new products take off, it’s not likely that they have the level of support that more established, larger and more well developed platforms will have.
For example, an eCommerce platform such as the aforementioned Magento will typically have certifications available for working on that platform, allowing people who provide services to businesses to establish themselves as experts. This also helps the businesses to be sure that they’re hiring the right people to work on their platforms and, because of that, it’s easier to get the platform customized, expanded, to migrate information from other platforms to the new eCommerce platform and so forth.
Whenever you choose an eCommerce platform, it’s important to do some investigation into it and to make certain that it is well established and that there is plenty of support available to it. It’s also important to make certain that it is capable of growing along with your business.
To your success!
Anton Pachkine – General Manager of FinestShops (follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn or call 1-800-675-0162 ex 704
FinestShops offers premium Magento and X-Cart managed hosting for companies without a large IT department and will manage your online store and servers like your own dedicated IT department so you and your staff can concentrate on growing your sales and serving your customers. Visit www.finestshops.com
