5 min read

So, you’ve started a creative business which sells your products or services online. Or perhaps you’ve been well established in the world of e-commerce for a while, but you’re looking to jump ship or expand. How do you distinguish between a good and a bad platform, and how do you protect yourself with safe sources to use? Angela Baker explains.

Online businesses trust e-commerce platforms

You can find a lot of creative businesses on platforms such as Etsy, selling hand-crafted items and unique designer pieces. For many creative businesses, these platforms are the means to reach out to people and grow their audience, ultimately turning their small venture into something bigger. But are creative businesses well-protected by e-commerce platforms they’re using?

The big four – Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento are collectively used by over 1.5 million e-commerce businesses.

The biggest e-commerce from these four is Shopify, uniting over 800,000 online businesses. Such a big number of users is a sign that Shopify, in particular, is a trustworthy platform, where an online business can strive and succeed.

It was so, until recently.

Shopify and Jeffree Star Cosmetics Drama

Last year, Jeffree Star, a famous YouTuber and the owner of Jeffree Star Cosmetics, collaborated with another YouTuber and friend Shane Dawson to launch an eye shadow palette ‘Conspiracy’. The creators expected millions of people to visit their online store, which used Shopify, and they contacted the platform before the launch to check if it was ready for hosting so many people.

When the time of launch came, shocked fans discovered that Shopify crashed because it couldn’t handle so many people. This forced Jeffree Star Cosmetics to delay the launch for several hours while Shopify tried to fix the error. One of the most frustrating thing with Shopify’s mistake was that people who added items to the cart and went through the payment verification didn’t get any confirmation that their purchase was successful. Because of dramas like this, online brands have started doubting the capacity of one of the biggest e-commerce platforms.

So, even if such a successful e-commerce platform like Shopify can let its users down, how do you identify a platform you can trust?

Let’s take a look at the signs that give away a bad e-commerce platform.

The Absence of Responsive Design

Consumers expect online brands to have responsive websites. According to the stats, 50% of all USA shoppers buy from mobile devices and 57% of all traffic comes from mobile devices.

Responsive website design is not a whim, it’s a requirement. And today, it’s almost inexcusable if you have unreadable, cluttered, badly designed website. A sign of a bad e-commerce platform is if it doesn’t allow brands to create websites with clean and responsive designs for both desktop and mobile versions. Since so many purchases are made from mobile devices, a brand could potentially lose half of its customers because it doesn’t have a responsive website design.

Bad SEO Optimization

Many first-time users of e-commerce platforms and young brands often stick to a default theme until they make enough money for a custom-made design. While a basic theme is more available and easier to use, it can cause serious issues if it’s not SEO optimized, like duplicate content, which Google is not fond of.

If the theme is not SEO optimized, brands can also have issues with URLs. For instance, one product can have two URLs, listed together with other products and separately in a different category. A product should always have one unique URL, otherwise, a search engine wouldn’t be able to list it properly in search results.

Low-Quality Interface

A sign of a bad e-commerce platform is difficult website maintenance and annoying interface. Let’s take a look at an example.

Many brands decide to have their blogs. Platforms like WordPress, which also hosts WooCommerce, offer e-commerce brands all the tools to create high-quality websites and blog pages - except for one. A decent editor.

While it has all basic SEO optimization tools, it’s bad in terms of proofreading and aligning the content (creating bulleted lists, subheadings, etc.) To proofread your content, you can use online tools like Grammarly, WowGrade or SupremeDissertations. WordPress also offers many plugins to edit and proofread content more effectively. However, the good ones aren’t free, and young brands cannot often afford them.

To compare, other platforms that host e-commerce businesses, like Wix and Magento, do have a great interface to create a high-profile website. So, look for the platform that allows you to create a responsive, SEO optimized website design, with a flexible high-quality interface that will be easy to work with.

Security Issues

The biggest concern for an e-commerce brand is securing the whole customer experience, from storing private information to having a safe payment process.

That’s why many websites have started using HTTPS encryption protocol, which is an extension of HTTP that allows:

• better security – HTTPS uses SSL cryptographic protocol, which secures any data between a server and a browser, keeping safe all the personal information

• better SEO value – Google prefers HTTPS because of its security

• increased customer loyalty – since your website is secure, customers would be more confident to make a purchase or enter their personal information

Today, you can hardly find an Internet user who would trust buying from a website that has a Not Secure sign in the address bar. The lack of proper security measures is a sign of a bad e-commerce platform. As an online brand, you want to create a positive experience for your customers, and making this experience secure is your priority.

So, when you create a business plan for your online brand, make sure that you choose an e-commerce platform that you can trust in terms of security.

Maintenance Costs a Lot

Online brands should be prepared for additional costs when it comes to website maintenance. But a good e-commerce platform shouldn’t charge you too much just to keep your website running.

Using e-commerce platforms can be quite pricey. “Using SAP Hybris as our e-commerce platform cost us nearly $10,000 a month when we launched our website because of additional charges, custom templates, and other premium features”, says Christine Baker, the head of operations at PickTheWriter. For a young brand, it’s a lot of money.

For instance, Shopify users are required to purchase third-party apps from Shopify’s app store even to perform some basic tasks, like edit a blog article. Although the average Shopify app subscription is $1-$3 dollars a month, it can cost you a lot if you use, let’s say, a dozen different apps.

Another maintenance issue that Shopify doesn’t allow personalized email accounts to support the customers, similar to support@yourstore.com. Stores have to redirect customers to other support channels to receive their complaints, which leaves an unpleasant experience. But brands aren’t the ones to blame for it.

Charging online brands for extra features isn’t a sign of a bad e-commerce platform. A sign of a bad e-commerce platform is pressuring brands to buy additional features just to run their website successfully.

Over to You

With online e-commerce platforms, it became possible for everyone to sell the products and grow their business. For creative businesses, e-commerce platforms can be a great outlet to showcase their craft, reach out to people and grow their audience.

But to choose the right e-commerce platform for your creative business, it’s essential to do your research. You need a platform that will allow you to create a responsive website that will ensure a positive customer experience for the consumers and a great user experience for you. A good platform should have high standards of security, but it shouldn’t cost your brand a lot to use it.

Another important point is that an e-commerce platform should be a facilitator for your brand, allowing it to grow instead of creating obstacles, as it did with Jeffree Star and the Shopify drama.

Hopefully, our article will help you make the right decision and find the e-commerce platform that will become the foundation for the success of your online brand.