Top 10 Best Ecommerce Platforms and Shopping Cart Software Vendors

Because there are so many ecommerce platforms it can be hard to choose the one that is best for you. All ecommerce platforms are having different plans with different prices, transaction fees, trial periods and features. For that reason we have create a overview and reviews of the best ecommerce sites, so that it’s easier for you to find the ecommerce platform that suits your needs.

10 best practices to improve your online shop:

Online sales are still growing rapidly as shoppers seek for the best deals online. Only in the US the industry has an annually increases at 9.4%. Which means the total industry will be $291.9 billion in 2018. The industry is massive, but how can your shop be part of it.

Take your business to the next level with ten best practices:

Focus on your target audience
Make clear what the USP’s are
Focus on quality content
Provide a well-designed e-commerce site
What is your value proposition
Offers you can’t refuse
Provide a perfect expression
The art of persuasion
Provide attractive navigation items
Tell the visitor what to do

1. Focus on your target audience

A method which works great to leave a good impression, is to appeal to visitors of your webshop. Not by a standard “welcome to our shop”, but briefly naming dilemmas / issues that your visitor is dealing with. Talk to him / her and grow your recognition. Direct appeal to your target audience make them feel understood in their dilemmas / issues.

2. Make clear what the USP’s are

A lot of sites only communicates about what is being offered. But if you realize that a visitor via Google (a first visit takes only about 7 seconds) scanning a number of sites, then you should convince the customer in a glance why they should order here. Put the key USP’s (preferably max 4) on a prominent place like the header for example. Visitors immediately recognize what the shop is about. A major point to optimize the conversion of your shop is to be distinctive!

3. Focus on quality content

If you realise that a new visitor of your shop will determine in a average of 7 seconds whether to stay or go, then you should agree that its not convenient to present a lot of text (especially on the homepage) or a lot of information blocks. It is therefore essential to keep the main landing pages clean. The visitor will delve into the matter when he / she is persuaded.

4. Provide a well-designed e-commerce site

A shop that looks sloppy, for example the logo is missing or the branding is not consistent ensures that the visitor loses the credibility. Pay attention to appropriate web design is a prerequisite for a good first impression. A golden touch is not necessary, but a proper and reliable image though.

5. What is your value proposition

The more concrete, the better! Make sure the audience knows what this shop sells. A good slogan can clarify.

6. Offers you can’t refuse

Beside the fact that visitor just want to know where they are, what to expect, what and why they should buy here, is it important to put some offers they just can’t refuse on your site. You just want to introduce them, they provide the ultimate customer experience, so hopefully they come back more often and are loyal to your shop. There are a lot of methods how you can turn visitors in customers. For example you can offer a 25% discount, which makes the deal very attractive.

7. Provide a perfect expression

To make sure the visitor know in a glance where your shop is about you need to pay attention to the webshop layout and navigation, so visitors are able to understand the shop in a wink. Some shops are presenting a lot of text boxes, images, navigation links that a visitor has no idea where to focus on. In this particular case the chance a potential customer could be lost is substantial. The perfect expression keeps the layout simple to understand and with just enough information.

8. The art of persuasion

Raising texts make a great curiosity and build credibility. Often shops write only about offerings, but without their unique selling points. Explain the benefits, explain the distinctiveness, keep in mind to write results-orientated and ensure visibility. Try it out and see the results.

9. Provide attractive navigation items

If you want visitors to stay longer than 7 seconds, it is crucial to create sufficient navigation. The more attractive your navigation items are, the bigger the chance that a visitor will click it. Do not use standard items , for example: contact or products. Be more creative and choose for: benefits, unique approach, free introductory, etc.!

10. Tell the visitor what to do

Besides a great navigation structure, you need to pay attantion to interesting valuable content. The use of clear and convincing “call to action” will definitely help. Try to make it easy for your visitors, so that the threshold to go deeper into your shop will be as low as possible.

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Top 10 Best Ecommerce Platforms and Shopping Cart Software Vendors:

Shopify – A powerful eCommerce shopping cart!

SHOPIFY

With the online software of Shopify you can design and run your own web shop. Shopify is easy to set up through a wizard, so you can fully personalize the web shop. The basic plan is $29 and offers a lot of functionality (e.g using your own domain).

Signing up for Shopify goes through a secure https connection. You can choose a name for your webshop, and Shopify will automatically create a domain for you. If you want it possible to change the domain afterwards. After signing up you can choose between a wide collection of themes for designing your eCommerce web shop.

Shopify functionalities

Adding products: This can be done manually or through a CSV-file. You can describe products with a product number, tags, amount in stock, image and color and size. Its also possible to make the product temporarily invisible, so that they wont be shown in the shop yet.
Designing the web shop: The design of the web store is fully customizable. You can change the logo, colors, font and more. Al the design option can be overwhelming, but you can also choose to use a theme that does not needs further designing.
Web shop information: With Shopify its possible to setup a page with general information about you shop, like a general terms and conditions page or an about page.
Web shop settings: Shopify offers general settings like: e-mail, timezone, measurement units (e.g. pounds and inches), currency (dollars) and tax rates. Besides the general settings it’s also possible to connect you eCommerce web shop with Google Analytics.
Transporation cost settings: The transportation costs can be set for national and international delivery, depending on the weight of the package and the value of the product. With the more expensive Shopify plans its also possible to select the courier.
Domain settings: Default you get the url your-store-name.myshopify.com. Shopify can also create a new domain for you or you can use a already existing domain.

After launching the web shop you can share the url with Twitter and Facebook and you will get a overview of all the activities in the online web shop. The online web shop default has a sitemap and a search function so that the user can easily find products that they are interested in.

Shopio – A great eCommerce platform!

SHOPIO

To ensure your online business will be a success it’s crucial to choose a eCommerce site fits your needs. There are multiple eCommerce web shop providers available, but make the right choose between them can be quite a hassle. For making the right decision it’s important to take certain things in consideration, and if they are ignore it cost you money later on. What’s very important for a eCommerce site builder is that it’s easy to use and it has all the features need for hosting you online eCommerce store.

Shopio smallest plan is free!

Shopio offer five plan with different prices and options, where the small plan is free to use. Four of the five plans do have a limit on the number of products that the store can has, but despite that Shopio offers unlimited file storage and bandwidth. There by Shopio offers about 50 core features that are needed to run a online web shop, including a coupon generator. newsletters subscriptions and blog. Having all these features is the big advantage of Shopio.

But how is it possible that Shopio can offer all these features, even with the small plan being free? This is because Shopio income is generated by the 2% transaction fee that they charge. That why you only have to pay when you sold something, and still be able to use all the core features.

Easy to use interface

With Shopio it’s very easy design your web store. Shopio offers a variety of themes, feature and functions that you can use to build your web shop. And you can do this without being able to code, so that everyone is able to make a good looking design. Some things that you can edit are logo’s, product images and fonts. And if you are able to code, you could design your web shop with CSS and HTML.

Shopio product management

The product management system of Shopio is very easy to use because of the drag and drop function and other usefull tools to help you manage you products. There is no limit on the amount of images that you can use that way you can really show what the products are all about.

Shopio hosting security and security

When choosing a online web shop platform its important to know to choose a platform that has reliable hosting and security. This is important so you shop will stay open 24/7 and your customer can shop securely on the web shop.

Hosting

When having a online shop you will get customer from all around the world which means your shop needs to stay open 24/7. With Shopio you can trust that your shop will be available 24/7. Shopio uses the best cloud servers out there, which makes Shopio able to provide you with the best possible uptime and performance so you show can handle an massive amount of visitors.

Security

For security Shopio uses the best and latest security standards, so that all purchases and transaction made are fully secure. All data being received and sent to the customer, like checkout information, are fully encrypted. That way your customers can buy your products with confidence and without having to worries.