As E-Commerce is very popular these days and almost every organization is moving to online business for their growth and success.

But those who are planning to move to this platform, don’t know various aspects of e-commerce portal and due to this, they are unable to take right decision of choosing a correct portal.

So, here this article may help you in this regard.

1. Choosing a platform

When choosing an e-commerce platform for online business, following factors need to be considered:

Own website or their portal

Next you need to decide, whether you wish to host your online store on your site or on e-commerce platform. If you chosen your site, you need to take care of everything from beginning to end, which is quite difficult as everyone is not technical expertise.

That’s why max companies used e-commerce platform for hosting their stores. But before selecting the one, go through all the features offered by e-commerce platform.

Options for Design

Some of the E-Commerce platforms offered pre-built themes to design your online store to give a good look. You can choose one of them or if you have some specific needs for your online business, then to meet some platforms offered designers or developers who can design your store accordingly.

What your business is selling

Before choosing a platform, first your product options must be defined, as what you are selling, determines which e-commerce platform can be used by you. All E-Commerce platforms does not support every kind of product. Some platforms built to handle only physical product, some to handle digital product and some both or one. Some platforms support unlimited products and some charge according to their qty.

So, before selecting the one, read its terms and conditions carefully, whether platform supports your product or not.
Tools for Integration

Many E-Commerce platforms offers tools meant for integration with various services such as marketing, finance, reporting, inventory and others. So, try to choose the platform which offers you those tools which you are already using.

Pricing and Features

Different E-Commerce platforms offered different features and thus their price also varies. So, choose the one which satisfy you in terms of features and fits in your budget.

Payment Gateways

Various payment gateways are available such as Strip, PayPal, Authorize but choose the platform which is using your ones.

Extra Fees

Read the terms and conditions carefully to know if platform is charging any additional fees in the name of setup fees, processing fees, themes fees etc.

2. Most popular e-commerce platform

There are various e-commerce platforms but the best ones are as follow:

1. Magento – Small businesses who are hosting storefronts so that their customers can be enterprised, for them, this is a good option. It offers community edition for free. For 100 SKU’s, pricing begins at $15 per month. Price for Enterprise edition is not in the list.
2. BigCommerce – This platform is meant for both small to big businesses. For supporting unlimited products, pricing starts at $34.95 per month.
3. Shopify – Shopify is a very popular and best ecommerce platform which permits their clients to have good storefronts. They provide various themes and apps integrated with famous services. For physical storage, it has POS. For unlimited products, it costs starts at $29 per month.
4. InfusionSoft – This is having an option of e-commerce and it is especially meant for automation of sales, automation of marketing and for customer relationship management. Its pricing starts at $299 per month.
5. Selz – It is an ecommerce platform which is recently introduced and allows you to have embeddable widgets and storefront, hosted on Selz. Like others, it does not charge on monthly basis. They only charge a commission of 5% + $0.25 for the transaction occurred.

3. Selection web hosting

After following the above steps, choose the web hosting provider who may host your online store properly on your site or at chosen e-commerce platform.

4. Good Domain name

After selecting a hosting provider, assign a good domain name to your online platform, by which people know you. And then start conducting online business with your customers.