eCommerce Platform Development 2023: Overview, Importance, Key Functionalities, Integrations, Steps, Cost in 2023. From buying fashion, footwear, watches, and handbags to purchasing groceries, appliances, and wellness products, in today’s digital era, almost everyone relies on eCommerce platforms. According to Statista, the eCommerce industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.51%, leading to $6.35 trillion by 2027.
Given the stats, it is clear that eCommerce will continue to be on an upward trajectory for the foreseeable, making it a lucrative industry for many startups. But one of the major concerns here is without proper web app development and guidance to the market, the eCommerce business is doomed to fail.
However, to help you out, we will explore everything you need to know about eCommerce platform development so that you can start your online business on the right foot.
What is an eCommerce Platform?
An eCommerce platform is a software application that allows the commercial process of buying and selling products or services online. An eCommerce web app can boost your business visibility around the world and help you provide extraordinary customer experience.
Business owners can manage digital sales, virtual assets, availability, inventory, and marketing all in one place, i.e, eCommerce platform. Some of the common types of eCommerce platforms that you might come across are:
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Business to Business (B2B): Refers to the exchange of products and services between businesses. For example, Alibaba, HubSpot, Trello, and Hootsuite.
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Business to Consumer (B2C): A commercial model of selling and purchasing products between businesses and consumers, for example, Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, and Trivago.
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Consumer to Business (C2B): A business model where consumers create or provide services to businesses. Some examples of C2B are Upwork, Fiverr, Tongal, and Airbnb.
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Consumer to Consumer (C2C): Refers to the business model where consumers trade with each other—for example, eBay, Craigslist, and OLX.
The eCommerce platforms can either be Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), or On-premise.
Importance of Custom eCommerce Platform Development in 2023
While off-the-shelf eCommerce solutions might seem highly profitable at first, they might not always work as smoothly as you expect and can also cost more money in the long run.
On the other hand, developing a custom eCommerce web app by outsourcing a development team allows you to design the platform based on your unique requirements.
Some of the major advantages that eCommerce development can offer to your business are as follows:
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Improved Customer Experience
The unique and interactive design of the eCommerce web app makes it easy for users to navigate through the platform to find the products they are looking for, leading to improved customer satisfaction and experience.
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Great Analytics
As the eCommerce platform collects data on customers’ buying patterns and behavior. The data then can be analyzed and used by businesses to better understand the market to develop effective marketing and performance strategies, improving customer services.
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Lower Business Cost
By investing in eCommerce web app development, businesses can easily save the expenses of renting or buying physical stores and staffing. Apart from that, outsourcing development companies like Decipher Zone allow businesses only to pay for what features and services they want to develop. Thus, eliminating the need to hire multiple developers and pay excess overhead payments monthly, leading to cost savings.
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Gain Better SEO
eCommerce web app development allows businesses to handle search engine optimization (SEO) from the beginning and makes it easier to market the platform in the industry.
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Flexibility
As a startup, it can be difficult to scale the in-house team within a short time. However, by outsourcing developers, you can get the flexibility to scale the team up and down according to the requirements.
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Help You Stand Out From Competitors
Last but not least, if you want to stand out from the competition in your industry, building a high-quality eCommerce web app with the latest features is the answer, as it will help in driving more traffic.
Key Functionalities for an eCommerce Platform Development
Now that you know what an eCommerce platform is and how developing a custom web app can be beneficial for your business. It is time to take a look at the key functionalities you should incorporate into your eCommerce platform.
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Database:
The database is an essential part of eCommerce to structure vast amounts of data collected every day on the web app. Also, it helps to store, modify, and retrieve customer data and product details, maintain inventory, and track transactions.
It is also necessary to connect the database with the eCommerce platform securely to enable smooth order processing.
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Personalization of Pricing and Catalog:
Personalized pricing and cataloging are one of the most appealing features of the eCommerce platform. It allows you to create a personalized call to action for each customer, improve customer loyalty, provide higher conversion rates, offer better customer understanding, increase user engagement, provide exclusive access, and create geographical exclusions.
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Customized Reports:
For planning strategically and using the right marketing tools, customized reports play an important role. Here, one can create dimensions and metrics to be displayed on the dashboard to keep track of KPIs.
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Order Processing:
Another crucial part of the eCommerce platform is facilitated order processing. It should enable volume-based pricing, bulk ordering, quick reorders of previous orders, order exports, and multiple requisition lists for every user.
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Multiple Payment Method:
The eCommerce platform should also offer multiple payment options, making the payment processing quick and easier for the customer. Some of the popular payment options that can be added are Credit Cards, PayPal, UPI, Pay on Delivery, etc.
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Inventory Management:
A business needs to manage and update the goods on the platform. Having an inventory management system in the eCommerce platform will allow sellers to manage products to avoid them getting out of stock.
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Analytical Reporting:
Analytical reporting is yet another functionality you need to consider while developing an eCommerce platform. It will help you gain insights into the sales team performance, balance and credit limits per user, and reports for required dimensions.
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Cross-platform Compatibility
In today’s digital world where users have different multiple devices, the eCommerce platform needs to be compatible with different operating systems, making it easier for users to access the web app from whichever device they are using.
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eCommerce Platform Integrations Worth Considering
Apart from the key functionalities that you need to consider, here are some worthy platform integrations that can be beneficial for your custom eCommerce platform. These are:
CRM Integration
Customer Relationship Management tools collect data on every customer interaction and dispel the mystery behind poor retention and cart abandonment. It builds detailed profiles for every lead including their browsing history, purchasing history, and demographic data.
Integrating CRM in eCommerce allows you to keep track of targeted cross-sells and upsells, provide uninterrupted customer service, gain AI-powered insights to make informed decisions, and have zero information loss or overlooked.
ERP Integration
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) supports automation and helps run the business efficiently.
Read: ERP Application Development
Integrating ERP into the eCommerce platform provides centralized order management, data-driven procurement, smooth order fulfillment, extra inventory control, and zero missed order and payments.
PIM Integration
Product Information Management (PIM) provides a centralized space to collect, manage, and improve product data. Integrating PIM in eCommerce helps businesses in minimizing product information, manage conflicts in complex pricing hierarchies, offer faster marketing, and unify the format of product data.
Steps to Developing a Custom eCommerce Platform
Now comes the most essential part of the blog, steps you need to follow if you want to develop a successful custom eCommerce platform.
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Understand Your Business Goals: The first step towards a custom eCommerce platform development is to understand why you want to sell products and services online, do you want to drive online traffic to the physical store, or whether you want to expand your business worldwide.
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Determine eCommerce Business Model: Next step is to determine whether your business falls under B2B, B2C, C2C, or C2B categories.
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Know Your Target Audience: Once you have decided on the business model to follow, comes the important part of understanding the potential customers, so that you can customize the user experience, user interface, content, web page design, etc. accordingly.
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Hire Developers: After deciding the basic requirements of the eCommerce web app, you need to hire developers who have experience in the eCommerce development industry, share your requirements with them, and collaborate to finalize the product development.
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Develop, Deploy, Test, and Launch Web App: Once you have hired developers and shared the requirements documentation, developers will start working on the project development, conduct static code analysis, deploy the web application in the production environment, launch it in the market, and further maintain it.
eCommerce Platform Development Cost in 2023
Developing an eCommerce platform can cost as low as $50,000 or as high as $300,000. Remember that creating an MVP (minimum viable product) with minimum features will be more affordable than a web app that includes all the features and functionalities required.
Read: Cost to Develop a Web Application
Also, the cost of the eCommerce platform development highly depends on various factors such as the deployment mode, complexity of the web app, features, functionalities, hosting, domain, technology stack, location of the outsourced development company, third-party integrations, testing, and maintenance.
How can Decipher Zone Help in eCommerce Platform Development?
We at Decipher Zone have a team of developers with years of relevant experience. Whether you own a startup, mid-scale, or enterprise-level business owner, we can help you in developing a web app according to your requirements at a pocket-friendly rate.
All you need to do is contact us, share your requirements, and get a customized quote for eCommerce web app development.
So what are you waiting for? Connect with us today!