Global ecommerce is undergoing explosive growth. Ecommerce sales worldwide are projected to reach $6.38 trillion USD by 2024. Traditional ecommerce platforms can’t keep up with today’s dynamic business world and ever-changing customer demands. Graduating to a state-of-the-art ecommerce platform can drive more sales and future-proof your business.
In a crowded market with dozens of cloud commerce solutions, you’re probably wondering which ecommerce platform is best for your business needs. Acquiring a new ecommerce platform is a significant investment in your company’s future. Therefore, you should contemplate carefully and select a cloud commerce solution that meets your current needs and prepares your business for the future.
Below, VTEX will provide five important factors to consider when choosing an enterprise ecommerce platform:
Which ecommerce platform is best: 5 things to consider
- Total cost of ownership
An ecommerce platform’s total cost of ownership (TCO) should be at the top of your consideration list. From licensing fees to hosting, integration, deployment and maintenance costs, cloud commerce platforms can require significant resources and budget. When evaluating which ecommerce platform is best for your business, you should research all options carefully to find a solution that offers the best value for your money.
A cloud-native, fully integrated commerce solution like VTEX significantly reduces a platform’s TCO and generates the highest return on your investment. With our complete ecommerce-marketplace-OMS platform, you will get everything you need in one place to run a successful business. VTEX’s SaaS ecommerce platform manages all software maintenance and upgrades automatically to reduce your operating costs and boost business profitability.
- Architecture flexibility
Every ecommerce business has unique needs. An ecommerce platform must provide a flexible architecture to enable seamless integration with any back-end system or third-party application your business needs to thrive. Traditional cloud commerce platforms have a rigid architecture that offers little room for third-party integration and customization. Inflexible ecommerce platforms produce integration challenges that can cause your business to lose productivity.
Which ecommerce platform is best for seamless integrations and unlimited customizations? Choose an enterprise ecommerce platform like VTEX that has a flexible, API-first architecture. With a modular API-first architecture, you can easily incorporate any third-party app or microservice to the platform to build a tailor-made digital commerce business for your needs. API-driven platforms will help you create unique experiences that differentiate your brand.
- Ease of use
In contemplating which ecommerce platform is best for your business, the software’s usability is a significant factor to keep in mind. Software that’s difficult to use will frustrate your employees and lead to poor productivity. Make sure the software you choose is easy to set up, navigate and use and requires minimal effort to maintain. High-quality enterprise software will allow employees to easily work with the platform and allow easy customizations without a crazy amount of coding.
Which ecommerce platform is best for usability and productivity? Go for a cloud commerce platform that offers a low-code development platform. With a low-code ecommerce and development platform like VTEX, your developers can build new storefronts, modify user experiences and create front-end applications in record time with minimal coding. An easy-to-use, low-code platform simplifies ecommerce processes and reduces your development and deployment costs.
- Workflow agility
The only thing constant in the business world is change. You must be extremely agile to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing business environment. Failure to innovate and respond quickly to new market conditions can jeopardize your business’s viability. Legacy ecommerce platforms have a tightly integrated, inefficient and monolithic architecture that slows down business processes. You must upgrade to more agile enterprise platforms to promote speed and business flexibility.
Which ecommerce platform is best for enhancing business agility? VTEX’s headless commerce platform provides the perfect solution for accelerating business processes. With our lean, decoupled architecture, you can deploy new functionalities and experiences rapidly to become a highly adaptable business. Choosing an enterprise ecommerce platform with a headless architecture will help you evolve with changes in the market.
- Omnichannel capabilities
From mobile apps to Instagram and refrigerator screens, modern consumers are shopping anywhere and everywhere. The future of retail is omnichannel and you need the right technologies to implement your omnipresent strategy. Legacy platforms are incapable of creating omnichannel experiences across diverse sales channels and emerging touchpoints. You need a platform with omnichannel capabilities to build the “phygital” shopping experience of the future.
Which ecommerce platform is best for building an omnichannel retail experience? To create a seamless shopping journey across your sales channels, you need a cloud commerce solution that employs an API-first approach. API-driven platforms house customer experience content centrally and distribute them to all your touchpoints at once. Upgrade to VTEX’s modern API-first solution to prepare your business for the future of commerce.
Grow your ecommerce business with VTEX
An ecommerce platform is your partner in growth. Consequently, choosing the right solution will have a significant impact on your business’s success. The five criteria we discussed above should help you find which ecommerce platform is best for today’s and tomorrow’s business needs.
VTEX offers a complete ecommerce platform to meet all your business needs in one solution. Our proprietary ecommerce technology is helping the world’s biggest brands achieve new heights of success. Contact us to consult with a VTEX specialist to learn how our cutting-edge platform can take your business to the next level.
