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4 eCommerce Options and Finding the Right Fit for Your Business
Nov 15 2022
Ecommerce has opened huge doors for businesses to sell their products online directly to their customers! Billion-dollar businesses are built online offering eCommerce options and sites.
When it comes to eCommerce there are four options on how to execute it: Selling through third-party sites, selling through an eCommerce platform, adding eCommerce software on your site, or creating your eCommerce site.
Businesses may use more than one of the options below at once.
Third-party eCommerce sites are sites like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy where businesses can create an account and start selling their products on the site.
The advantage of these platforms is that they are very easy to get started. The disadvantage is that you have to stand out in a crowded marketplace and drive demand for your product.
The focus of efforts on a third-party eCommerce site is to make your products look as appealing as possible and generate demand. Most businesses focus on optimizing their listings and using digital marketing to drive traffic to them.
There are eCommerce websites where you can use their platform to create your own “shop” on another website. Shopify is among the most popular of these types of sites.
On sites like Shopify, businesses can set up a store by uploading products and using templates to customize the website. The advantage of this is you can have your eCommerce platform quickly. The downside is that it isn’t as flexible as having your site.
When creating your site on these platforms you’ll need to focus on all aspects of website setup and design to make your site come to life. The upside is that these sites have templates to make it easy. Businesses can be up and running in as little as a few hours.
If you have a website that already exists or wants control of your site there is software that can be used to add eCommerce to your site. The most popular platforms for this are Magento Cart and WooCommerce.
This software takes care of the heavy lifting in terms of coding and setup but does still require some development efforts.
The advantage of this option is that it is easier to execute and has a lot of flexibility. The challenge is that it can be more complex to implement vs. Shopify. Many medium to large enterprises choose this option for eCommerce, as it is a good balance of flexibility and simplicity.
The most challenging option to execute is to create your eCommerce site. This is rarely done since there are many solid and flexible eCommerce platforms existing.
That being said, if eCommerce is your core competency you can build your platform. This would be very expensive and time-consuming, but for some, is a worthwhile investment!
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