What Is an Online Store Platform?
An online store platform is software that helps B2B, B2C and enterprise ecommerce businesses build an online store to sell their products and services digitally. With turnkey online store builders, you can create an ecommerce store in a lesser time and lesser budget as compared to developing it from scratch. Online store platforms are also called Ecommerce platforms or ecommerce website builders.
Technically, ecommerce software allows you to do hundreds of business-related tasks in one place. Such as-
Create an online store
Manage inventory and shipping
Evaluate the monthly performance
Marketing and advertisement of products.
Handling customers and their grievances.
Fulfilling orders and maintaining order history.
Process online and offline payments.
In short, you can manage all of your business operations at one place i.e you get a complete ecommerce platform.
What Are The Different Types Of Online Store Platforms?
In the market, you will get a lot of turnkey platforms that let you create an ecommerce store. They are -
1. Open Source
A type of ecommerce website builder where the owner gives copyright of the code to the end-users. Users can edit, change, and modify the code according to their needs. However, you need an additional layer of security, set of developers/agency, third party tools, etc which add to your operational cost.
2. SAAS
It is subscription-based software. With SaaS ecommerce software, businesses can take advantage of prebuilt, customizable themes, basic product handling, marketing capabilities, and other needed functionality. The greatest benefit is that you neither need a large IT team nor advance technical knowledge to build a website.
3. Licensed software
An ecommerce software where you have to purchase the license to use it for your business in the way you want.
4. PaaS
PaaS means Platform as a Service. Generally, PaaS software is a platform on which your own software can be built and connected to other business systems.
StoreHippo is a SaaS-based fully hosted and managed online store platform which is easy to use and has rich features. StoreHippo's interface has been made for startups, small businesses that do not have an advanced team of developers.
How To Choose The Best Online Store Platform?
To choose the best ecommerce website builder you need to look at various parameters so that you go with the right fit to solutions. Below are the essential features to look at before finalizing the best ecommerce platform.
Mobile responsive themes in an ecommerce platform let you build mobile-ready sites with no need for hiring expensive developers
The User interface of the online store builder should be easy to understand by a non-technical person
- Payment Gateways to increase your checkouts and eliminate cart abandonment by adding multiple payment methods
Why StoreHippo Is The Right Online Store Platform For Your Business?
When you are starting out, StoreHippo is the best Ecommerce platform to build your online store.
1. Visually appealing and pre-designed themes
StoreHippo gives you the ability to sell products quickly with customizable and pre-designed themes with drag and drop functionality.
2. Mobile-friendly store
Convert more mobile buyers with StoreHippo mobile-optimized themes. Create fast loading sites quickly.
This lets you easily monitor all the activities like payments, sales, content updation, processing orders, inventory, etc in a single place.
4. Powerful marketing tools
With In-built marketing and SEO tools, you can increase your online visibility and reach the right customers who are searching for your products.
5. Integrated Payment solutions
StoreHippo has 60+ both domestic and international payment gateways for faster checkouts.
6. Shipping Management
Automate all the manual shipping tasks in one go with StoreHippo shipping solution - ShipKaro. You can also integrate with shipping providers of your choice.
7. Mobile Application
Create a mobile app right from your dashboard. The app is pre-coded for you. You only need to tweak it according to your business goals.
Additionally, there are 300+ features in the StoreHippo ecommerce platform. Experience all the StoreHippo features for free. Sign up for a 14 days free trial today.
