If you plan to take your physical store online, the first thing you need to decide is whether you will use a hosted or custom eCommerce solution. Hosted ecommerce solutions have their advantages, but they may not always meet the requirements of all businesses.
Although developing a custom ecommerce website may take more time and a greater investment than hosted solutions, it can provide greater scalability, flexibility, and functionality.
Here are some of the advantages of a custom ecommerce website to consider when weighing a pre-built, custom solution.
Custom showcase design
Customer experience is becoming the most important aspect of growing an eCommerce business. Gone are the days when you could attract users with a template-based web design. If you're looking to create an engaging user experience on your e-store, you need a custom interface. It will sync with your product types and also create a unique identity for your brand.
Scalability
The e-commerce business has a high potential to grow over time and it is a good idea to keep a supply for the e-store to grow. A custom eCommerce website is highly scalable. Over time, as your business grows, you can add more products to the store and acquire more customers. In the future, you may want to add features like live order status tracking to improve user experience and a custom store will allow you to do that. However, you need to hire a professional website design company to integrate such custom features.
High-end security
With as many personal data as credit/debit card number, password, address, etc. inserted in an electronic store, requires advanced security measures. To protect a site from security breaches, it is best to create a custom e-store with an advanced security system.
custom rules
Promotional offers play a crucial role on eCommerce websites and you may want to customize them to attract visitors. For example, you may want to allow shoppers to use different promo codes to spend different amounts of money. You may also want to prevent them from using the code for some specific products.
Out-of-the-box eCommerce solutions may not be able to accommodate these special rules. A custom website, on the other hand, allows you to set as many specific rules about promotional offers as you want.
Why do people opt for hosted ecommerce solutions?
By now, you must be wondering, why do people opt for a template-based eCommerce solution when custom solutions have so many advantages?
Several reasons can be cited for this. Custom eCommerce web development requires you to invest more than an out-of-the-box solution. Therefore, startups with less capital to invest may prefer a hosted eCommerce solution.
Developing customized e-stores also needs advanced technological knowledge. Build a robust online store or marketplace with eCommerce CMS like Magento or frameworks like Laravel, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, etc. It's not everyone's cup of tea. You need to hire professional e-commerce website development services to create a customized e-store.
