An e-commerce store is typically built on an e-commerce platform, which is a software application that allows you to sell products or services online. Using a platform makes it easier to get started selling online, because you don’t need to have any software development skills. E-commerce platforms often include built-in tools for marketing, analytics, inventory management, fulfillment, and other aspects of your business.
Here is a list of some of the most popular e-commerce platforms:
Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce, and Squarespace are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms, which feature web-based software available on a subscription basis. With a SaaS platform, you don’t need to know HTML or have any web development skills. You can simply choose from the options available in the platform.
WooCommerce and Magento Open Source are two examples of open-source platforms, which feature software that allows the user to access and edit the original source code. This means you can customize the website in almost any way you want. Just keep in mind that making these types of changes in an open-source platform often requires web development skills—or the ability to hire someone to make these changes for you.
Other e-commerce tools
Besides working in an e-commerce platform, you will likely use other tools to do your job as well. These tools might be helpful for communicating and sharing information with your team, managing projects or marketing campaigns, reviewing analytics, tracking customer service issues, and more.
Here are a few types of e-commerce tools you might use, along with a few examples of each type:
Customer relationship management (CRM): These tools help businesses manage and monitor multiple aspects of their company, including sales, marketing, analytics, and customer service. Here are a few examples:
Team collaboration: These tools help teams stay organized and make it easier for them to communicate with each other. Features that might be included in these tools are email, video calls, cloud storage, messaging, file sharing, and more. Here are a few examples:
Digital advertising and PPC: These tools help teams manage their online advertising campaigns:
Digital marketing: These tools make it easier to manage marketing campaigns for email, social media, or other channels:
Search engine optimization (SEO): These tools assist with monitoring and improving a website’s performance in search results:
Analytics: These tools help businesses analyze their website traffic, sales, and other data.
