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The Power Of eCommerce Solutions For Small Businesses – A Perfect Investment For Boosting Profitability

The Power Of eCommerce Solutions For Small Businesses – A Perfect Investment For Boosting Profitability

Can you imagine that back in the day, people actually thought that the internet would not catch on? Boy, how wrong were they!

As time has proven repeatedly, novel ideas and bold steps, though not appreciated immediately, do create deep ripples in the business world. The emerging eCommerce solutions for small businesses perfectly embody this claim.

Times have never been better for entrepreneurs in the history of our society as they are at the moment. Big or small, business setups are meeting with phenomenal success and bagging decent profits with only a fraction of the effort and dedication needed to push them forward when compared to the way things were a couple of decades back. eCommerce is one of the ways to do that.

Why Do eCommerce Solutions For Businesses Matter?

Before we go any further and explore some of the most trusted options trending online at the moment, let’s just take some time to understand why eCommerce solutions for service businesses have become such a big deal. And why now of all times?

We’ve known for a while how powerful the internet can be when it comes to accessing content, products, services, and whatnot.

However, this potential was limited only by our hesitation to completely adapt to it.

There was a change underway here but a pretty slow one, up until last year – then came the pandemic.

While as destructive as it was, COVID-19 actually helped us progress as a digital society more than what we might have done organically. It made people increasingly reliant upon internet-based services which are both convenient and safe.

graph showing growth of retail eCommerce revenue in the us in 2017-2024

Thus, eCommerce solutions for small businesses go to see their epic rise, and all for concrete reasons:

Types Of eCommerce Solutions For Small Businesses

There is no one-fix-for-all when it comes to eCommerce solutions for service businesses and online stores. There are a plethora of options in the market, but they can all be generalized into three broad mainstream categories, each with its merits and limitations:

Open Source Solutions

As the name suggests, the source code for such eCommerce solutions is not a secret but instead publically available. This allows tons of independent developers to work on the tool, improve its features (even add new ones), and further smoothen its functioning, and it is totally free.

Anyone can use an open-source solution to lay the foundation of an eCommerce system in their website.

Despite these promising features, such tools suffer from one inherent flaw: they are usually far from being perfect.

The security features are also subpar in most cases.

Moreover, you can’t really expect someone to complete it (if it is in its beta stage, for instance) because developers often quit on such projects when they hit a roadblock.

Overall, open-source eCommerce solutions rarely contend with the big fellows, but exceptions like WooCommerce (which is one of the leading eCommerce solutions on the internet) keep them in the race.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)

This is by far the best eCommerce asset for any business website.

SaaS, much like cloud software, is hosted by a remote server, not that of the business owner. It is more of a software rental type deal than buying software but offers a decent return on investment due to its many features and flexibility.

Since such software pack tons of resources and are compatible with most web development apps and frameworks, they can make the setup process rather simple. WordPress and Python are excellent for SaaS building (if you want to start from scratch), and they illustrate the point excellently, the latter more than the former.

Through such tools, web development not only becomes simpler but much more systemic, allowing developers to create a site that not only functions well but also never fails to impress visitors. Such websites are usually hyper-successful in the eCommerce arena as well.

The hefty ROI and increased conversion rates through better optimization are reasons why people look for such solutions when it comes to premium-level web development.

However, if you want something easier, then solutions like Squarespace and Shopify are perfectly acceptable too.

Headless Commerce

This one is most probably not an option for you and is rarely used, but headless commerce does have some unique applications that have earned it a place in this categorization.

eCommerce systems have a backend (for you and your team) and a frontend (for the consumers), and in some cases, businesses might want the same backend frame to work for different frontend ones.

Let’s say that a multinational business presents its products differently in different countries.

However, this company wants to integrate all of its sales with a single backend.

This is where headless commerce comes into play, however, its inflated cost may be a bit too much for small businesses.

For people working on a limited budget, the benefits might be outweighed by the demands to run it.

But in situations where it works, it performs excellently.

Some Of The Best eCommerce Solutions For Small Businesses

Here are our picks for some of the most highly acclaimed eCommerce assets that small businesses have used to great effect:

pie chart showing ecommerce platform market share in the us in 2021

Shopify

Shopify is one of the most famous choices for small businesses yearning for a taste of eCommerce.

It is a SaaS eCommerce platform that allows you to connect with billions of international buyers. The competition is tough, but if you master the skills of product marketing in the digital space and optimize your store well (and of course, provide good services), you’ll get it all up and running in no time.

Just one thing though, Shopify is not free, however, the ROI is good.

Shift4Shop

You may not have heard of this little birdy, and that’s because Shift4Shop is a small player in the business, however, this is precisely what makes it perfectly compatible for small businesses (likes attract). It is a SaaS platform, like Shopify, and is pretty simple to use.

We’d say that this one is perfect for you if your business has limited needs and a limited budget.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a perfect example of an open-source eCommerce solution for small businesses, but its capabilities are by no means limited or unfinished. It is one of the most refined open-source eCommerce assets, trusted by millions.

You might’ve probably heard of it in relation to WordPress, that’s because it has perfect compatibility with this web development software, allowing you to create personalized eCommerce stores.

It is a perfectly simple way to get started with eCommerce if you don’t know where to dig first.

Squarespace

Squarespace is another SaaS provider and works pretty much like competing options, using template-based designs: simple, effective, and easy to manage.

Bottom Line

The rise of eCommerce in the past year has been unprecedented, but this change was inevitable. The pandemic merely catalyzed the process. But it all works out for the best of the business owners who now have minimal pressure to improve their business state.

eCommerce solutions for small businesses such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and Squarespace have helped millions of businesses drive up profits. Things have also improved on the customer’s end through the simplification of online shopping and enhanced customer support.

However, the true power of any eCommerce setup lies in excellent web design (i.e. if you plan on setting yours on your own website via WooCommerce).

Without it, everything else falls apart.

Thus, you should get in touch with expert web developers and get started with digitizing your business to make it thrive like never before!

Call us now

Cyril Allgeier
Cyril Allgeier
(713) 851-7945
Stephen Greenspan
Stephen Greenspan
(484) 808-7179
KEVIN DUNN
KEVIN DUNN
(720) 370 3720

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