E-Commerce Marketplace

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E-commerce in 2022 is still an active market despite how many people see it as a dying one. It is indeed starting to suffer saturation, but most of the reasons why this happens are because of the repetition in terms of style and approach.

In this article, our a boutique travel and lifestyle public relations agency has teamed up with Webster Solutions, to share advise about creating an effective e-commerce website.

Consider that you have all the tools already ready and the only thing left you have to do is select a marketplace, you can easily turn things around and make a compelling e-commerce website that can last for a long time.

If you’re new to this or are generally just stuck, no need to worry we got everything ready, and by the end of this article, you’ll know what platform to choose.

Before everything else, it is important to understand that committing to one platform would mean that you’ll stick to it forever. Meaning that if you decide to change service providers, it would take you a lot of time and resources to pull off, which isn’t that worth it. That’s why you should know yourself if you’re sure of the platform, and if it can sustain your business goals and give you advantages in the future.

There are tons of software and websites that you may use that are either paid or free, but in this guide, we’ll stick with the premium one since they are just better in terms of features and quality.

Wix
Wix should be a familiar service provider for you since it is similar to WordPress which helps you build a website from a template. However, Wix greatly differs because it’s beginner-friendly and the templates are made to match specific usage, something that they would expect from their customers.

As a service, they are great, and acquiring a plan is never a hassle. They have a free option but forget about that, their paid subscription is just better because it gives you a better website look and tons of customization options.

Its web editor is user-friendly, however, if you’re aiming to build a marketplace with Wix, you might have to invest even more since you have to hire a programmer to do everything, and to make sure that the website won’t suffer from bugs and design mistakes.

For a straightforward online shop, Wix is more than enough, and because it offers great scalability, no one’s stopping you from upgrading and moving to the next level besides yourself and your business.

WooCommerce
One platform that is gaining a lot of traction because of its simplicity and freedom is WooCommerce. Crafting a marketplace from scratch on this platform may not be easy, but it is something that a beginner can do when given just a couple of things to learn.

What’s best is that customization in WooCommerce isn’t that expensive so you don’t have to shell out a lot of your resources just to make your website look good.

It’s stable, mobile-friendly, and also straightforward, which makes it one of our favorites and a recommendation for people that are just learning online marketing.

Shopify
Not a lot of people appreciate Shopify enough because it has been in the game for a long time. Often when asked about the platform to recommend, most people would instantly say Shopify because it is the face of the online marketplace and it allows you to sell what you have in store.

It might be a paid service but everything that you are putting into this platform is worth it because it gives you peace of mind and saves a lot of time when it comes to website configuration and design.

Shopify is the perfect website to use if you’re eager to sell your products right away. The setup is easy and beginner-friendly, so you’ll spend less time customizing and more time earning money and publishing your items.

It may have the best features in the competition but Shopify isn’t really for everyone. Those that have limited and tight budgets might have a hard time keeping up with all the fees and also subscription, so if you don’t have that much audience and traction yet, we recommend checking out the other options.

Create your online shop today. Contact us for more info.

​By Vishal Dudhal, partner, Webster Solutions and consultant for Allen Marketing Communications, Inc.

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