Internet penetration and the growing smartphone market has boosted eCommerce business in India. 1 in every 3 Indians shop online using their smartphone. Whether small or big, physical and digital product business owners have gone digital, and for every eCommerce business, an eCommerce website is a key medium.
As per statistics, the Indian E-commerce market is expected to jump from $38.5 billion in 2017 to $200 billion by 2026.
eCommerce is now a trending force to the Indian market. And for any eCommerce business to function, the most important medium is an eCommerce website. But, before we jump to popular website builders available for any eCommerce store, here is a glance at the widespread use of eCommerce websites in the Indian market.
The above figures state that E-commerce is now a growing trend in the Indian market. While it seems to be a great plan moving forward, creating a website can be expensive. From choosing a template to managing the inventory, and using a CMS tool, it is an expensive affair.
eCommerce Website Builder
Various eCommerce website builders allow businesses to create and run an online store with extensive features, security, and ease of use. By using a good eCommerce platform (website builder), businesses can sell, manage inventory, fulfill orders, secured payment options, and even operate efficiently through a variety of management tools.
Here are a few things to consider while choosing the best website builder suited for your business needs are as follows:
- Flexibility
- Security
- Channel Integrations
- Mobile Responsiveness
- Affordable Pricing
Benefits of Using an eCommerce Platform
Once the features are filtered based on your business needs, knowing how the eCommerce platform will benefit your business is a prime concern. Irrespective if an eCommerce website is a self- hosted or cloud-hosted, an eCommerce platform does offer a couple of benefits and functional tools. Few of the many include:
Product management tools
These tools help managers to analyze the sources of insights used in one’s software. Thus, being able to record the engagement of website visitors and software users. Some of the known ones include product analytics software, development tracking tools, and road mapping software.
Product presentation
Additionally, how an eCommerce presents a product online is what drives the customer’s attention. Online tools that help quantify and qualify your product approach is one of the major benefits of using an eCommerce platform. Experimenting from a wide range of approaches will help a business to choose the best tactic suited for its need.
Price Right
Choosing the right price for a product is challenging. Pricing one’s product is dependent on multiple factors such as manufacturing cost, shipping cost, marketing campaigns, profit margins, competitor’s price, etc. Combining the total cost, yet convincing the customers that the product is priced may have contrasting viewpoints. Hence, various business tools provided by eCommerce platforms help in dynamic pricing.
Marketing Tools
One an e-commerce store has been set up, the next big step is to manage and market your store with promotional tools that play a major role. From setting up the right payment options to answering customer queries, a marketing tool can help them all.
Best results for search
Instead of exploring all the products available, a customer prefers searching their wants. On-site and off-site search results help customers to get what they exactly are looking for. This increases the conversion of a potential prospect into a consumer and what makes a search tool an important one for an eCommerce store, whether desktop or mobile.
Ecommerce platforms allow the business owners to display product information in a way that it suits the eCommerce retail needs. This indirectly ensures a collective benefit for both the customers as well as the business.
Three Types Of eCommerce Platforms
Popular eCommerce Website Builders in India
Free E-Commerce Platforms
When an eCommerce platform says it’s a free ride, well they don’t really mean 100% free. They are backed with certain external costs such as the domain, web hosting, payment processing fees, or other extensions. There are strict conditions while creating a free platform. Hence, creating a website on these platforms is okay for part-time sellers who have just a few products in the store. They do not need a wide range of tools to manage their website and have few expectations with regards to their online store.
eCommerce Platforms with Free Trials
Free trial platforms allow one to sign up at first to explore the availability of plans and features for your online store. One needs to pay for the plans eventually. Before you make the payment, you need to figure out if it’s actually worth the payable amount. This is a good way for an eCommerce business owner to test the platform, before putting their money in.
Free eCommerce Software
An eCommerce software is an application that runs behind an eCommerce website screen. Although the software provides the same functions that a builder does, it incurs an ongoing cost. Installing the software can be done for free, the costs are included later, once management begins.
Here is a list of the budget-friendly eCommerce website builders that can help create your online store in just a few clicks.
Free eCommerce Website Builders In India
Magento
Magento is free to install and has been listed trustworthy by many of its users. In addition to the installation, one can choose among the three versions available:
- Community Edition – Free version of eCommerce platform
- Enterprise Edition – Paid version
- Magento Go – Paid version, hosted on Magento Servers
Through this eCommerce website builder, one can easily install extensions available on the Magento Connect Marketplace. Also, the marketplace is known to be one of the largest app markets. Magento has plenty of resources to choose from such as CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, who offer eCommerce plugins on Magento.
Furthermore, one can design their website as per their needs and pick out from highly defined templates that are available in the store.
Features offered by Magento include:
Wix Commerce
The cloud-based development platform has almost 1 million users across the globe. Through Wix, one can avail professional tools and services for their eCommerce Business. The advanced integrated dashboard is a one-stop management tool. Additionally, inventory management, order fulfillment, payment options, and marketing needs, Wix helps design it all. So, one can easily add unlimited products and make use of three payment gateways with no added transaction fee.
Creating a store on Wix includes just 7 steps:
- Log in to your Wix account or Sign Up
- Choose from over 500+ professional templates
- Customize the online store’s design your way
- Add unlimited products to your store
- Add a payment provider and assemble shipping
- Choose a custom domain
- Publish your eCommerce website and start selling
Shopify
Shopify is an all-in-one commerce platform that caters to businesses of any type. It allows a 14 days free trial period and various pricing plans to choose from. So, one can easily create a website through leading-edge management tools. The platform allows one to add unlimited products and choose from 4 payment gateways at a 0%* transaction fee.
Shopify eCommerce allows one to:
- Set up multiple staff login based on the chosen plan
- Accept credit card orders.
- Add product images, set stock levels and manage inventory
- Detailed product description
- Bulk-import products from an Excel or CSV file, eBay, or Magento
- Organize products through Shopify collections.
- Inbuilt content management system (CMS)
- Allows to create new web pages
- Built-in blog software to create a new blog or import from WordPress
- Accept credit card orders with Customizable order notes
- Real-time order status tracking
- Integrated order fulfillment services like Amazon Services, Shipwire, and Rakuten Super Logistics.
- Fraud detection system for suspicious orders
- Target and Manage customer groups with marketing emails.
https://www.shopify.in/tour/ecommerce-website
BigCommerce
The open SaaS (Software as a service) platform allows an eCommerce business owner to build, innovate, and grow, all under one place. This fully hosted website builder has a WordPress plugin of the integration of an existing site with BigCommerce. So, can set up their shop for free and pay post the 15-days trial period. Furthermore, one can add unlimited products and avail 5 payment gateways at 0% transaction fee on BigCommerce.
With BigCommerce, an eCommerce business can stay ahead of competition with:
- Built-in Apps and tools that ensure a collaborative business growth
- Unparalleled DDoS protection, site uptime, fraud alerts, and PCI compliance secures your eCommerce website at all times
- The one-stop hub allows selling products on eCommerce marketplace like Amazon or Social Media platforms like Instagram through the BigCommerce Control Panel.
- No transaction fees
- Responsive and customization themes to choose from
WooCommerce
WooCommerce Plugin is an open-source WordPress eCommerce plugin and it is free to install. This is what makes it a great source to build websites for online selling, as well as the ability to add unlimited products on the platform. Moreover, you can also choose from 7 payment gateways at a 0% transaction fee.
Few of its features include:
- High Scalability
- Maximum Flexibility
- User- Friendly and Secure
- High Extensibility
- Shipping Extensions
- Accounting Extensions
- Subscriptions
Ecommerce has gained momentum in India and building your own eCommerce store is just a few clicks away. From the various Commerce website builders options provided above, you can easily create, sell, and manage your eCommerce website by choosing one that is best suited to your business. That’s not all, with Dash101’s channel integration feature, you have your shipping needs covered as well.
Dash101, brought you by Shop101, is not just a shipping partner, but your business partner. It is a one-stop-shop for all your shipping needs.
