5 Best Sales Platforms to Help Companies Win Customers
The first-ever American eCommerce business was the Boston Computer Exchange, a 1982 online marketplace for people interested in buying and selling used computers. eCommerce is now an international, multi-trillion-dollar market. Given the sheer amount of competition from other large and small businesses, one of the best decisions you can make is choosing the right sales platform for your company's current and future needs. Using these five best sales platforms to help companies win customers, you can take steps to help ensure the success of your business and create a stable foundation for further expansion.
Amazon
When discussing the world of eCommerce, it is virtually impossible to ignore the megacorporation Amazon and its international marketplace. As one of the most popular and well-known online sales platforms, Amazon can either be used to establish a toehold for your new business or as an additional revenue source to supplement your main website. No matter the size or prominence of your business, partnering with Amazon will likely be beneficial in assuring some passive income on top of your active income.
The most effective money-making tactic is to set up a digital store on Amazon for selling your goods and services, but this is far from the only benefit. Even if your eCommerce business does not sell any actual goods, you can easily promote Amazon products through affiliate links selectively placed in your content. After becoming an Amazon Affiliate and hosting such links, anytime someone clicks through your hosted link and makes a purchase, you will receive a portion of the final sale.
BigCommerce
Should your business find itself constantly dealing with the issues of how to sell products with dozens or even hundreds of options for color, finish, and size, it may be worth considering investing in a sales platform like BigCommerce. While ideally, you will not need this level of complexity, BigCommerce makes it possible to sell a single product SKU (stock-keeping unit) with up to 600 variants. This utility is especially useful in allowing you to easily display and sell inventories of larger size, which other sales platforms may not accommodate.
Thankfully for users who do not possess strong talents in website coding, you will not need to know anything about CSS (cascading style sheets) or HTML (HyperText Markup Language) to set up your website. BigCommerce also makes managing multiple social media channels and tracking earnings and customer data very easy, either through the platform itself or by downloading 3rd party software from the BigCommerce App Store.
Shopify
If you are starting a small eCommerce business and have little to no idea where to start, you may want to consider employing the services of Shopify. While it may lack the suite of complex inventory tools of BigCommerce, it makes up for it with a collection of over 6,700 plugins, apps, and add-ons for customizing your website. Shopify also provides you with the ability to recognize blind spots and other website issues and notifies you of their existence while offering information on how to fix them.
With multiple service plans depending on the size and scope of your business, the Shopify sales platform allows you to start selling goods and services on websites, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and Walmart. You can also benefit from 24/7 access to customer service and technical support, along with an impressively detailed array of online resources for helping to resolve any issues or questions as needed. While heavily customized Shopify websites will require a decent amount of coding on your part, the included toolsets make it worth considering.
Squarespace
If you are interested in having the freedom to adjust the appearance of your eCommerce website without having to start building it from scratch, Squarespace may provide an excellent middle ground. Unlike some website creation services offered by other sales platforms, Squarespace allows users to change templates on the fly to check out new designs without creating a whole new storefront. It is also worth noting that if you are using one of the free website themes available through Squarespace, it will be updated automatically to save you the trouble of regular maintenance.
Those looking for more of an all-in-one option will also benefit from Squarespace, which includes analytics and email marketing tools that often must be installed or incorporated into other sales platforms. Squarespace also has no current limits on your website's database or storage, allowing you to upload the best possible videos and images without worrying about running out of space.
Wix
Not every business needs to sell hundreds of products, and Wix is built for simplicity without sacrificing design ability or security. Well known for providing the user with website templates appropriate for their businesses, Wix will also give you plenty of detailed instructions in assembling your storefront. You can also easily make edits across various elements of your web pages and drag-and-drop page sections wherever you like.
With a dedicated security team providing enterprise-level protection for all its websites, Wix users can rest assured that their financial data will remain safe. While there is no limit on the number of products that can be listed, eCommerce with Wix generally relies upon a streamlined inventory for maximum success.
Before deciding which online sales platform will help your business the most, you should take advantage of free trials and see for yourself. Check out our other articles to learn more about making the most of your technological resources and budget.
About Dan Martin: Daniel Martin is a technology researcher and writer with more than a decade of experience. He is a professional librarian and an experienced tech teacher, writer and blogger. Specializing in technology, Dan has taught courses in technology and writing at the college level, developed web pages for businesses and higher educational institutions, written on tech topics for leading national publications and created numerous how-to guides.
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