3 Best International E-commerce Platforms For Your Business
Digital commerce is a crucial avenue for businesses willing to enhance their client base and boost sales of their products and services. This article brings to you the 3 best international eCommerce platforms to offer your goods and services.
Why Should Businesses Adopt E-commerce Platforms?
1. Minimized operational costs
Having a store on an international e-commerce platform does not require a great amount of initial capital. From a long-term perspective, purchasing a domain and hosting or paying for web design and worthwhile e-commerce service is more cost effective than purchasing or renting physical business premises.
Moreover, integrating AI chatbots helps to save much business hours and customer service costs through conversational solutions. In addition, automation keeps all the inventory and finances in one place, avoiding the need to spend money on additional software.
2. Increased sales
Online store allows businesses to make their products and services available 24*7/365 to customers beyond their physical store capacity and local market. While businesses have access to a wider audience, they can also leverage targeted marketing and personalized offers which result in increased sales, customer retention and repeat business.
Fact: According to Shopify (2022), global online retail sales are projected to reach $6.51 trillion by 2023, with ecommerce websites contributing 22.3% to total retail sales.
3. Simplified buying process
E-commerce helps customers buy directly from you after searching for a product online, without having to leave home or interact with a salesperson. Online stores fulfill the need to browse digital catalogs without any stress or hurry, compare similar products from different suppliers as well as their prices and reviews.
It offers consumers the choice to shop from anywhere around the world instead of being limited to their local vicinity. Since they are not required to visit a retail store, this helps them save time and enjoy a simplified buying process.
3 Best International E-commerce Platforms To Consider For Your Business
1.Shopify
With millions of sellers in 170 countries, Shopify is a highly popular and feature-rich e-commerce platform available today. It offers pricing as low as $29 per month, inclusive of a 14-day free trial. Majority of vendors find the Shopify basic plan ideal to manage their store’s needs.
It allows you to build a branded ecommerce website for your store and involves two staff accounts, unlimited product listings, discount codes, abandoned cart recovery, manual order creation, and Free SSL Certificate which are vital to run your online store smoothly. Nevertheless, advanced features like performance reports are not involved.
Shopify offers other options such as Shopify Plan, Shopify Advanced Plan, Shopify Plus and Shopify Lite, out of which Shopify Plan which is $79 per month is the most popular. It includes additional features such as gift card payment, Shopify POS, performance reports which helps you track your website’s loading speed and uptime, and other factors.
In general, Shopify is an all-in-one commerce platform that helps vendors build a modern and personalized online store. It allows them to sell their items on web, in person, in brick-and-mortar locations, on social media sites, in seller marketplaces as well as through email, text and chat.
2. Wix
Wix offers a highly customizable drag-and-drop site editor and is a reliable hub for creating online stores. The platform is easy to use, especially because it provides many high-quality e-store templates to select from, that does not require coding and are free.
Besides providing user-friendly tools, it offers multichannel integrations, secure backend and crash-resistant infrastructure like multi-cloud hosting services, and browser compatibility adjustments. It gives vendors access to a global audience with the power to sell more, scale quicker, and diversify their business strategy.
The Business Basic plan of Wix eCommerce is at $17 per month. Its VIP plan involves the exact same e-store features, along with extras such as the selling of subscriptions, selling in various currencies, and automated sales taxes.
3. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is one of the most affordable and compatible eCommerce solutions for large and fast-growing businesses. As a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, the server costs are included with BigCommerce, making it a low-priced option as compared to an on-premise platform.
Moreover, the platform offers the easiest onboarding experience since one can build a classic and fully functional eCommerce website with the provided tools and resources, without requiring technical expertise. This customer-centric platform also allows your customers to enjoy advanced filtering options based on brands, categories, reviews, pricing and more.
The Standard plan of BigCommerce is at $29.95 per month and it offers a 15-day free trial. While BigCommerce offers a well-rounded entry-level plan, it has no abandoned cart feature with the Standard plan and in general, it has a restricted number of free themes available.
Tips for global sellers when choosing an eCommerce platform
International sellers must consider the following aspects when selecting an eCommerce platform to create their online store:
- A selection of different modes of online payment should be available to avoid high cart abandonment rates.
- Automated translation is required to reach worldwide customers without any language barriers.
- Global shipping and tax calculations features should be available to enhance the checkout experience for your customers while also simplifying your accounting work.
4. Strong e-Commerce security is a must and below are 5 crucial factors that need to be considered:
- Use of firewalls and running regular virus scans.
- Use of HTTPS with SSL certificates.
- Use of PCI-compliant payment gateways.
- Adhere to data privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.
- Running regular backups.
As a Digital Marketing Agency in Mauritius, we believe that international e-commerce platforms offer businesses a cost-effective way to expand their reach and boost sales. Embracing e-commerce opens doors to global markets and better customer relationships, propelling businesses to thrive in the digital era.
