The best ecommerce management software
An e-commerce owner is always in a constant decision-making loop.
For most, the first decision after deciding to start a new site will be a choice of what the best e-commerce management software is for their needs.
The best e-commerce management software will be the one that fits best with your overall business strategy.
These two things need to work in conjunction if a company in the e-commerce space is to succeed.
If you already know your requirements, that should help you round down your options for e-commerce management software to only a handful of choices. Probably even less.
The Crucial Intersection: Strategy and Software
For an e-commerce venture to flourish, the alignment between strategy and software should be absolute.
The best e-commerce management software seamlessly merges with the business's vision, mission, and goals.
It needs to be the tool that enables your vision. Not the grudge that weights your everyday operations.
Trimming the Options: Knowing Your Requirements
Knowing your requirements serves as a compass.
With a clear roadmap, your choices narrow down considerably. Streamlining options based on specific needs is the key to making an informed and impactful decision.
While e-commerce is a big word that can include a variety of businesses, each business will have particular requirements based on its niche and products.
You have to understand these and how they will impact your operations.
However, there are a couple of things that any e-commerce site needs and that your e-commerce management software should accommodate:
1) Flexible listing pages with filtering options
2) Product detail pages
3) Flexible checkout and wishlist options
4) A content management solution that you can add to any of your pages
5) Inventory tracking
6) invoicing
1) Flexible Listing Pages with Filtering Options
A well-organized and user-friendly listing page is critical.
Customers should be able to navigate through product categories, find what they want or discover what they didn't even know they needed.
The best e-commerce management software offers flexible listing pages with advanced filtering options, allowing customers to sort products by price, brand, size, colour, and other attributes. When in doubt, remember to 'KISS' (Keep It Simple Stupid).
You aim to make the shopping experience seamless and enable customers to make informed purchase decisions quickly.
If your pages feel cluttered, filters are counter-intuitive or have tooltips to explain functionality, something is wrong.
2) Product Detail Pages: Painting the Perfect Picture
Detailed product information is the backbone of any successful ecommerce store.
The e-commerce management software must provide robust product detail pages that allow merchants to display comprehensive descriptions, high-quality images, customer reviews, and related product suggestions.
The more relevant information available to the customer, the more confident they will feel about a purchase, ultimately increasing conversions.
You should also make sure that your product pages are SEO optimized.
Search engines will index your products and show them in broad product searches that could match your products. Correctly structuring your product data to be displayed in search engines could mean a non-trivial amount of traffic.
3) Flexible Checkout and Wishlist Options
If your potential client gets to the checkout phase, you need this page to be on point. The last thing you want is a bunch of abandoned carts due to lack of payment options or sketchy functionality.
An efficient and smooth checkout process is vital. It will reduce cart abandonment rates and boost your revenue.
The best e-commerce management software should offer a flexible and streamlined checkout process, allowing customers to complete their purchases quickly and easily.
It should also provide a wishlist feature that enables customers to save items for future consideration, enhancing their shopping experience and increasing the likelihood of returning to complete a purchase.
Finally, tracking to follow up with abandoned carts can be crucial. If your checkout flow is well-designed, you should be able to follow up with abandoned orders and boost your conversion rates.
4) A Content Management Solution: Fueling the Marketing Engine
Content is key.
Yes, you've heard this to the point of exhaustion by now. It doesn't make it any less relevant.
Your content strategy not only needs to cover social media and ads. It needs to drive traffic and attention to your desired pages.
If you need to promote a group of products, a banner or articles in your content pages can be critical to increasing traffic.
Making sure that your pages can have content in them is wise. You can create campaigns, guest posts and even ads for products you want to promote inside your listings.
An e-commerce management software that integrates a robust content management solution empowers merchants to create and manage engaging content on their pages, including blogs, articles, videos, and more.
The e-commerce management software should enhance your SEO efforts and help you build a loyal customer base by offering valuable information and insights.
5) Inventory Tracking
Maintaining accurate inventory levels is crucial to avoid stockouts and overselling.
The last thing you want is to run out of your best-selling items!
The best e-commerce management software should provide real-time inventory tracking, enabling you to monitor stock levels and potentially automate restocking processes.
With accurate inventory data, businesses can effectively manage their supply chain and ensure seamless order fulfilment.
Accurate tracking tools can also provide insights regarding your current trends and potentially spot market shifts before they happen.
It's a given that no ready-made system will have an extensive business intelligence solution. However, some have the necessary basics and allow you to access the data.
6) Invoicing
Efficient and professional invoicing is essential for B2B e-commerce businesses.
A comprehensive e-commerce management software should offer built-in invoicing capabilities, allowing businesses to generate and send invoices automatically, reducing administrative overhead and ensuring a smooth invoicing process.
As your business grows, your needs will grow with it. Different countries will require additional invoicing options. What initially might have worked may not work in the future.
Make sure that the e-commerce management software allows for easy extensibility regarding third-party apps (or custom software) that can handle your new invoicing needs.
Hidden Features to Consider
While most e-commerce management software addresses the critical features mentioned above, businesses should also consider the following hidden features:
1) Extensibility and Vendor Lock-In
No matter how comprehensive an e-commerce management solution may seem, businesses must plan for future growth and changes in requirements.
Choosing software that allows for extensibility without strong vendor lock-in is essential.
The software should be able to integrate with third-party applications, plugins, and APIs to expand functionality and meet evolving business needs.
Countless companies have fallen into the vendor lock-in trap. In lots of cases, this is not intentional. A good solution with no extensibility might not feel like an issue.
However, as systems get dated, vendors go out of business or stop maintaining a product.
Confirm that your e-commerce management solution allows for easy extensibility and access to the internal logic. Internal API endpoints and easy access to a reasonably structured database are good signs.
2) Scalability and Performance
As an e-commerce business grows, its software should be able to scale and handle increased traffic and transactions without compromising performance.
Scalability ensures that the software can accommodate a growing customer base and handle peak periods, such as holiday seasons and sales events, without experiencing downtime or slow loading times.
While they are workarounds for out-of-the-box, monolithic solutions, you should know about them before they become an issue.
Solving scalability issues can be very simple in some cases and a nightmare in others. If you have doubts about what the architecture of your application should look like, make sure to consult with an expert.
Taking the right approach from the beginning can save you from devastating losses later.
3) Security and Compliance
The best ecommerce management software should prioritize security measures, including SSL encryption, secure payment gateways, and compliance with industry regulations like GDPR and PCI DSS.
Conclusion
Choosing the best e-commerce management software is a milestone for any e-commerce owner.
It marks the crossroads where business strategy meets the perfect technological partner. With a clear understanding of requirements, businesses can navigate options and choose the best solutions to enable their vision.
By embracing extensibility and planning for the unknown, e-commerce owners ensure that their software remains relevant in the ever-evolving world of e-commerce.
Remember that the best ecommerce management software is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Each business is unique. Take your time to explore the different options. Don't be surprised if none of them fit your requirements to the T.
With this in mind, your base requirement should be maximum flexibility.
In our experience working with founders we've found that the most common problem is early vendor lock-in to an inflexible system. The amount of money and time spent to decouple and rebuild the different parts of the system might be a multi-month (and sometimes multi-year) endeavour.
Regardless of what step of your e-commerce journey you are, make sure you have a clear picture of limitations and potential bottlenecks with your current software.
If you need to hire professional consulting on a new e-commerce management software or an assessment of your current system, please reach out.
You can see more of what we do and reach out at www.mellowcustomsoftware.com/contact. We'll be happy to get you started in your e-commerce journey!