With work-from-home and social distancing becoming imperative due to coronavirus, people world over are inclining towards online shopping to fulfill their essential supplies.
This period may well slope the customers’ behavior towards online shopping forever because this is letting them discover the power as well as startling features of e-commerce platforms like never before.
For example, maximum customers might never have used E-commerce sites to buy hand sanitizers. But because of the lack of hand sanitizers in physical retail stores now, many are ordering the same from online sites.
COVID and The Economic Recession
As the country enters the extended lockdown period with only essential goods being available, businesses have requested employees to work from home, and some have been shut down temporarily.
Some industries have been hit harder than the rest, owing to the pandemic. For example, companies in the travel, retail, hospitality, transport, and logistics sectors have seen a downfall. With social distancing becoming the norm, several eCommerce businesses for non-essential items were temporarily suspended.
A current eMarketer report titled ‘Concerns May Increase Ecommerce as Consumers Sidestep Stores’, which quoted a Core sight Investigation, said, “Shopping centers/malls were predictable to be the most-avoided places, but more than half of defendants said they would also avoid shops in general.”
This mawkishness is leading people to furiously click their mouse buttons to land on E-commerce sites and shop. Why go out, when you can things delivered at your doorstep?
Increase in Online Shopping
All this frantic activity means that a massive strain is being put on the E-commerce firms’ supply chain thereby resulting in shipment delays, technical problems, and also labor shortages.
Amazon mentioned in its official blog that it is opening 100,000 new full and part-time positions across the U.S. in its contentment centers and delivery network to meet the surge in demand.
Amazon India also emphasized the increasing footfalls it is getting on its site. “As COVID-19 has a blowout, we’ve recently seen a rise in people shopping online. In the short term, this is having an effect on how we serve our customers.
The Rising Trend eCommerce Store Development
Businesses in the present time are focused to survive in the lockdown situation and for that to have an online store is one of the most suitable options.
Below we have mentioned the trendy eCommerce development platforms. These platforms are cutting-edge and ensure you all the essential features such as product display, easy payment checkout, secured payment gateway, strong content management, etc.
There are several e-commerce technologies available in the market, but the five listed here are ideal solutions for companies who looking to evolve in digital marketing and sales.
Shopify: – ll the e-commerce platforms available, Shopify might be the furthermost widespread and effective one out there, and you’ve undoubtedly already familiar with it. Shopify is the feature-rich platform available, driving over 600, 000 online stores and having over one million vigorous users worldwide. More than $72 billion has been bartered on Shopify as well, a witness to its wide reach and flexibility.
Wix: – Formerly a website builder with drag-and-drop features, Wix has become a steadfast hub for making online stores. As a website with e-commerce functionality, as divergent to being expert for this purpose, it doesn’t have the same range of choices. However, due to its drag-and-drop setup, you can see exactly how your storefront will look. Plus, your online store is set up to be mobile-friendly, which is informal for possible buyers to navigate and make purchases from their phones or tablet. Pricing is also controllable as its e-commerce plan is around $17 a month.
The only drawback that this platform has is that it is not as flexible as Shopify as you can’t sell across several channels without using apps, and it has no unrestricted cart recovery.
BigCommerce: – For huge and fast-growing industries, BigCommerce is the most companionable solution. It accommodates an e-commerce platform that functions both as a full SaaS solution and a shopping cart for other website types. As a result, it draws many comparisons with Shopify. This platform has solid store management proficiencies with various tools and features plus promotions, options to handle returns, coupons, discounts, and more. BigCommerce also has flexible shipping opportunities that give customers live quotes and rate calculators.
Weebly: – When it comes to value for money, only a few e-commerce platforms give full value for your money, and Weebly is one of them. It has 4 price plans, all personalized to e-commerce, plus profits such as Google Ads credits and email marketing. The best plan depends on your business. On its economic plan, the starter plan, you can sell up to 10 products. If you use the business plan, you can sell limitless products and not have to worry about transaction fees. Features such as uncontrolled cart recovery, gift cards, and real-time shopping rates are only existing via the most exclusive plan, the Performance Plan.
Volusion: – This platform is a cloud-based, hosted option that has been in presence since 1999, processing more than $28 billion in sales during that span. You can create customer accounts, which permit you to store customer details in the safest conceivable fashion and make shopping experiences hassle-free. Volusion offers a complete site search feature as well as e-commerce and product supervision tools like rich text product descriptions, native fulfillment choices, and subscription or loyalty options. It assimilates with various payment providers such as PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay.
Final Words
The technology is evolving and with the present situation into consideration, we must tell you that it’s the right time to embrace this evolution and switch to online business.
We hope this list will help you decide the right choice of platform. All the platforms have their own specialties and drawbacks. Thus, it will be better if you prioritize your requirements and choose the best possible solutions as per your business requirements.
