Introduction to eCommerce

Episode #1 of the course Guide to choosing an eCommerce platform by Adam Bastock

 

With the online retail (eCommerce) industry growing yearly, how can you get a piece of the action?

Despite behemoths like Amazon and eBay looking like they own the market, there is a lot of room and growth for smaller players. Running your own store gives you full control, providing a huge number of benefits in the ever-growing industry of online retail.

Whether you run a small company, manage an enterprise-scale company, are an individual artist, or are looking to start out as an entrepreneur, this course will give you the rundown on the key platforms in the eCommerce space.

Each lesson will consist of the following format:

• Ease of Setup.This section will cover how easy it is to get up and running. There’s a lot that goes into a website, and even more into an eCommerce site, and some platforms are easier and quicker than others.

• Ease of Use. Once you’ve built your site, you have to live with it! From customer management and fulfilling orders to updating pages and adding new products, we’ll look at the implications.

• Associated Costs. Some are free, some are pay monthly “software as a service” (SaaS). The implications for the short and long term will be analyzed.

• Third-Party Integrations. If you use services such as MailChimp or Google Shopping, how easy is it to get everything talking to each other?

• Use Applications. Brief examples of industries/size of companies will give context to all of the above applications.

• Conclusion. The final section of each day will summarize the pros and cons of that platform.

This will give enough background information for you to then explore more about the platform you might choose.

An initial investment in your website is not only costing you financially, but more than anything else, it will be a large time commitment. It is important to make an informed choice BEFORE you start doing any work or you suffer the risk of wasting months and tens (if not hundreds) of man hours.

The following nine emails will cover the following platforms, in order of appearance:

1. WordPress/WooCommerce
2. Shopify
3. Magento
4. Prestashop
5. SquareSpace
6. OpenCart
7. Ebay
8. Etsy
9. Closing Notes

These are all of the major platforms that I’ve considered when migrating or advising new stores. There are many more options out there, but these count for the majority of them when looking at BuiltWith statistics.

 

Recommended book

“Online Store: The Simple Guide To Starting An E-commerce Business” by Madison Green

 

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