What Is An Ecommerce Platform?
An ecommerce platform is a software application designed to offer end-to-end solutions to businesses for building, running, growing and managing their online stores. A modern ecommerce platform comes with features that include order, inventory and product management along with solutions for marketing, accounting etc.
Advanced ecommerce platforms offer integrated solutions for payment services(payment gateways, digital wallets, COD, net banking etc.) and logistics solutions for streamlined fulfilment. The best ecommerce platform also enables businesses to build multiple customers touchpoints and sell omnichannel.
What Are The Different Types Of Ecommerce Platforms?
When you build an online store, it needs to be hosted on a server to make it accessible to your various teams and your customers. By hosting your ecommerce website you store all your business data, customer records, product details etc. in one place.
Based on the type of hosting ecommerce platforms are of two types:
1. Fully hosted ecommerce platform
A fully-hosted ecommerce website builder takes care of hosting services and businesses don’t need to pay additionally for hosting. Fully hosted ecommerce solutions also monitor and maintain the servers and offer technical support to businesses where needed.
2. Non-Hosted ecommerce platform
A non-hosted or self-hosted ecommerce platform requires the online business owners to arrange for their own server space. Server space can be either built or rented from reputed server providers. Additionally, for a non-hosted ecommerce solution, the merchants need to have their own IT team to maintain and fix server issues if any.
Why You Should Use An Ecommerce Platform For Your Business?
While one can build an ecommerce site from scratch using an ecommerce platform for your business has many advantages. Here are a few of them:
Quick launch: With ready-to-use solutions of an ecommerce website builder businesses can build and launch their online store in a fraction of time as compared to building it from scratch
Cost-effective solution: Since online store builders have everything needed for running an online business in one place it becomes a time saving and cost-effective solution
Advanced Technology: Modern ecommerce platforms are built on advanced technology and keep offering regular updates to keep your brand ahead of changing ecommerce trends
Easy to pivot business model: The best platform for ecommerce comes with a comprehensive range of solutions for a variety of business models. This makes you take strategic business decisions and switch to new business models without investing time in development
A variety of options and plans to choose from: There are a lot of options when it comes to choosing an ecommerce platform for your business. You can choose the best online store builder along with the plan that best suits your budget
With so many advantages it is always a good idea to go with an ecommerce platform designed for the dynamic ecommerce market. StoreHippo, the best platform for ecommerce offers all the above advantages to its merchant retailers and also offers advanced features to build enterprise ecommerce solutions for big brands.
Which Features Make The Best Ecommerce Platform?
The best ecommerce platform is one that fits your current business requirements and offers features that help your brand grow. Also, the best ecommerce software should offer a 360-degree solution that offers inbuilt features and tools to build, market and grow your business easily.
While the best ecommerce platform depends on the unique requirements of any business in general a good ecommerce solution should have the following features:
Easy to use and ecommerce software with an intuitive admin interface
Inherent scalability and flexibility to adapt to unique business requirements of brands
Next-generation technology to build future-ready online stores
Customizable themes that help in building engaging and conversion-oriented ecommerce websites
Capabilities to build mobile apps and PWA stores to leverage mobile commerce
Product management solutions to easily manage and sell products online
Order management module to manage end-to-end orders and fulfilment
Inbuilt marketing tools to promote and grow the business
Host of payment gateways and other payment options to accept payment for the orders
Order management to automate and simplify management of orders
Multi-level security to build secure and trusted online stores
Integrated logistics solutions to automate and streamline deliveries
StoreHippo customizable ecommerce platform comes with 300+ built-in features and 120+ integrations to help online businesses build the most innovative online solutions. Built on the MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture StoreHippo helps brands build out of box solutions that help with disruptive growth.
Why StoreHippo Is The Best Ecommerce Platform For Businesses Of Any Type?
The inherently scalable and flexible StoreHippo best online store builder helps brands build tailor-made solutions for their brand. The headless architecture of the platform helps in building extremely personalised buyer journeys on all sales channels. Brands can easily add new customer touchpoints and go omnichannel.
StoreHippo offers inbuilt solutions for a variety of business models namely, D2C, B2B, mobile commerce, online multi vendor marketplaces, a network of multiple stores, multilingual websites, hyperlocal commerce etc. You can even build your own innovative and disruptive business model combining any of these models.
The fully integrated ecommerce website builder StoreHippo offers integrates seamlessly with third-party software and services providers of your choice through APIs. You can go with your preferred domestic and global payment gateways, fulfilment partners and logistics providers, marketing software, accounting solutions, ERP, CRM, and any other software or services of your choice.
StoreHippo ecommerce platform has 300+ native features which means you need not spend additionally in buying and syncing multiple apps to complete your business processes. You can leverage m-commerce by turning on PWA settings that make your ecommerce website work like a mobile app across devices and browsers. You can also build your Android and iOS apps right from your admin panel. You can run your business on the go using the admin mobile app. of inbuilt features to help you build, run and future-proof your large B2B or B2C business. With StoreHippo PCI-DSS compliant ecommerce platform you also get a marketing engine, blog engine, tax engine to help you manage your enterprise business better.
Want to experience change and ease of selling online across multiple channels? Explore StoreHippo next-gen ecommerce platform by starting your 14-day free trial.
