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Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website
TOP 5 FASHION ECOMMERCE PLATFORMS TO BUILD WEBSITE

Despite the significant impact of Covid-19, the fashion industry is still on a roll, with the potential to reach $1 trillion globally by 2025 (according to Statista) thanks to eCommerce.

According to the IDEA 2022 research, the fashion eCommerce business in Vietnam is a highly competitive area, with up to 69 consumers using the eCommerce channel for every 100 fashion shoppers.

With the high potential of this commerce business, developing an eCommerce website is a must for success, necessitating the search for a platform on which to build a specialised eCommerce website for the fashion industry.

Businesses can use the following platforms to deploy fashion websites: Big Cartel, Haravan, Shopify, Woocommerce, and Magento.

Characteristics of fashion eCommerce 

Eye-catching UI/UX design

UI/UX is a criterion that businesses frequently establish when creating an eCommerce website in order to develop a comfortable interface for a group of users who are passionate about fashion and maximise the capacity to engage with customers.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website-uiux design
Eye-catching UI/UX design
A fashion eCommerce website frequently need to invest in higher-quality, eye-catching images/videos. From there, assisting businesses in more readily describing products, particularly promotions on banners, considerably contributes to driving customer buying demand.
Furthermore, businesses must consider concerns such as cross-device compatibility, the placement of call-to-action buttons, and layout design that demonstrates the variety of product designs from the navigation bar. navigation) to page-by-page specifics.

Comprehensive functional system

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website - functinal system
Comprehensive functional system

To meet the eCommerce business demands of fashion enterprises, organizations require a comprehensive functional system ranging from basic to complex, which includes:

  • Catalog Management: Manage properties, pricing systems, inventory, photos, and videos to keep them running
  • Content Management: Content development for CMS pages, image hosting, theme customization, and website design
  • Customer Management: Control information, behavior, and consumption habits to build strategies for each specific customer group
  • Sales Management: Set up and operate sales, order, payment, and shipping processes
  • Marketing Management: Implement and optimize programs to attract potential customers with built-in support tools
  • System Management: Seamless supply chain response with shipping navigation and automation management tools
  • Store Management: Navigate and maintain your eCommerce business from online to offline
  • Cart & Checkout: Manage shopping carts and process the next payment steps for customers
  • Analytics and Reports: Monitor and measure eCommerce performance to give detailed reports to improve business efficiency
Furthermore, firms must develop certain additional particular roles to address the fashion industry’s problems, such as:
  • Omnichannel sales allows business to follow customers across all channels, including eCommerce platforms, social networks, and social commerce websites.
  • Multi-layer menu displaying a range of product categories
  • Experiment using a variety of marketing strategies: Loyalty programmes, livestreaming, shopper entertainment, and affiliate marketing all assist to broaden methods of reaching out to potential consumers.
  • Huge traffic to deal with enormous traffic volumes during “selling seasons”

Integration with a range of third-party services

To provide clients with a comprehensive shopping experience, fashion enterprises may frequently combine a number of payment options, shipping services, management software, and business analysis tools to enhance the e-commerce business system.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website - intergation
Integration with a range of third-party services

Numerous common payment options available today must be integrated into the website, including:

  • Card payment: Domestic card, VISA, Mastercard, etc
    E-wallets: MOMO, Zalopay, etc
    Payment gateway: OnePay, VNPay, PayPal, etc
    COD (Cash on Delivery)
Incorporate major shipment monitoring applications and shipping companies such as Express Delivery, Economical Delivery, Viettel Post, and others. Businesses might explore integrating back-office administration and operation software such as SAP, Salesforce, Ocracle, and others. Lastly, incorporating BI tools like as Tableau, Looker, and others will aid in the long-term analysis of company strategy.

Possibility to expand in the future

Often, firms at the start of a fashion business will not focus on the capacity to develop eCommerce websites in the future since platforms that enable this function are typically scarce. But, in terms of strategy, investing in a platform that supports this function can help organisations gain a competitive advantage over competitors in the market.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website - expand
Possibility to expand in the future
This feature enables fashion organisations to edit and add new functionality to meet future business objectives. Furthermore, this capability allows fashion enterprises to simply swap languages, currencies, and extend from one website to several websites in order to position their brand internationally.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website 

Haravan

Haravan is a well-known SaaS eCommerce platform in the Vietnamese industry, offering a variety of options for both enterprises and individuals. Haravan is used by a variety of websites, including Juno, Biti’s, Maison, and others.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website - haravan
Some websites that are using Haravan include Juno, Biti’s, Maison, etc.

Platform review

Pro:

  • A repository of readily available and diversified interfaces for the fashion industry
  • A diverse feature, ranging from basic to complex, for starting an e-commerce business

Cons:

  • The layout of existing templates causes duplicating, and it’s challenging to alter themes or create your own interface because doing so will have an adverse effect on the entire system
  • The system of specific functions for the fashion sector is still limited
  • Only integrated with services/utilities located in Haravan’s ecosystem
  • Because it is a SaaS platform, it will be difficult for Haravan to expand the website in the future

→ Rating: 2/4

Haravan is suitable for start-up furniture businesses or SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) with operations mainly in Vietnam.

Pricing

Haravan is considered to have a reasonably low and diverse eCommerce website implementation cost for various businesses:

  • Standard: 200.000 VND/month for personal sellers
  • Pro: 600.000 VND/month for businesses that want to deploy Omnichannel
  • Grow: 1.500.000 VND/month with the advantage of automating programs to take care and resell customers
  • Scale: 3.000.000 VND/month for building loyal customers

Tuy nhiên, doanh nghiệp nên suy xét khi sử dụng Haravan trong dài hạn vì chi phí giấy phép sử dụng và các tiện ích mở rộng sẽ ngày càng tăng theo thời gian sử dụng. 

Deployment time

However, businesses should consider when using Haravan in the long term because the cost of licenses and extensions will increase over time.

Shopify

Shopify is a SaaS ecommerce platform favored by the international ecommerce business community because of its fast implementation time and reasonable starting cost.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website - shopify
Websites using Shopify like Leonardo, Crocs, Seeson, etc

Platform review

Pro:

  • Having a large selection of templates ideal for the fashion industry
  • Functional system from basic to advanced, supporting eCommerce business

Cons:

  • The layout of existing templates causes duplicating, and it’s challenging to alter themes or create your own interface because doing so will have an adverse effect on the entire system.
  • The system of specific functions for the fashion sector is still limited.
  • More third-party services than Haravan, although still only integrated with services available in Shopify’s app store.
  • Because it is a SaaS platform, it will be difficult for Shopify to expand the website in the future

→ Rating: 2/4

Shopify is considered suitable for start-ups or SMEs with global operations.

Pricing

Starting an eCommerce business using Shopify is quite inexpensive at beginning, with several options:

  • Basic Shopify: $29/month appropriate for start-ups with limited sales volume
  • Shopify: $79/month suitable for growing internet companies
  • Advanced Shopify: $299/month ideal for growing enterprises that require comprehensive reporting and analytical capabilities
  • Shopify Lite: $9/month perfect for companies who wish to add sales and payment buttons to their current website or blog.
  • Shopify Plus: $2000/month provides advanced eCommerce solutions for large businesses that need to process large volumes of orders

Nevertheless, the long-term cost of utilising Shopify will rise owing to rising costs for extensions, yearly usage fees, and % per transaction on the system.

Deployment time

The typical time to develop an e-commerce website is 1-7 days or more, depending on the system’s complexity.

Big Cartel

Big Cartel is a platform that assists in the creation of specialised eCommerce websites for the fashion industry or for art goods such as ceramics, paintings, and photographs. Big Cartel is used by several websites such as Atakontu, Indikidual, and others.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website - big cartel
Some websites are using Big Cartel like Atakontu, Indikidual, etc

Platform review

Pro:

  • Wide variety of themes for the arts, including the fashion industry
  • Comprehensive functional system: basic, advanced, specific

Cons:

  • Only services accessible in Big Cartel’s app store are incorporated.
  • Because it is a SaaS platform, future expansion of the website will be tough to plan.

→ Rating: 2.5/4

Big Cartel will be appropriate for startups, SMEs, or new e-commerce participants that need to handle the complicated “issue” of fashion eCommerce.

Pricing

Website setup expenses are modest, with few possibilities for solution packages such as Haravan or Shopify:

  • Package 1: Free for businesses that need to experience
  • Package 2: $9.99/month suitable for businesses with a limit of 50 products
  • Package 3: $19.99/month suitable for businesses with a limit of 500 products

Deployment time

Big Cartel allows you to develop a fashion e-commerce website in as little as 1-2 weeks, depending on the system’s complexity.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open source platform, as a WordPress plug-in introduced in 2011 and allows businesses to use completely free. Popular websites using WooCommerce in Vietnam include Hai Trieu, Orchard, etc.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website - woocommerce
Popular websites using WooCommerce in Vietnam include Hai Trieu, Orchard, etc

 

Platform review

Pro:

  • There are several free and paid themes for the fashion industry available from the WordPress and WooCommerce community that are simple to adapt or develop.
  • eCommerce functional system ranging from basic to sophisticated
  • Simple connection with a wide range of third-party services
  • Businesses may plan to extend their website in the future because it is a source code platform

Cons:

  • The functional system is still restricted in terms of fashion-specific elements.
  • Scalability is not very great in comparison to other open source systems like as Open Cart, Magento, and others.

→ Rating: 3/4

WooCommerce is suitable for fashion businesses who are used to WordPress before and are in need of developing an eCommerce system.

Pricing

Because it is an open source platform, fashion firms can use it for free; nevertheless, businesses must pay development costs while utilising the platform, such as:

  • Domain: $15/year
  • Hosting: $120/year
  • SSL Certificate: $50 – $300/year
  • Website development: $1,000 – $3,000 depending on the complexity of the system
  • Extensions: $10/utilities
  • Website maintenance and upgrade costs: $200/year, depending on the cooperation unit

Deployment time

An eCommerce website will take longer to create than the previous three platforms since it must be constructed from the ground up, which will take at least 1-3 months.

Magento

Magento is an open source platform with 2 versions: Magento Open Source (free) and Magento Commerce (paid). Some websites are using Magento such as Canifa, Hoang Phuc International, OnOff, etc.

Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website - magento
Some websites are using Magento such as Canifa, Hoang Phuc International, OnOff, etc

Platform review

Pro:

  • Numerous fashion-specific themes are available from the worldwide developer community, marketplace, and Magento website developers, allowing businesses to use current themes or quickly alter them to meet their unique needs. Create your own user interface.
  • Complete functional system: fundamental, advanced, and specific
  • Simple connection with a wide range of third-party services
  • Excellent scalability: multi-language, currency, and easy feature development in the future

Cons:

  • There is no theme repository from Magento to support businesses

→ Rating: 4/4

Magento is appropriate for a wide range of fashion business types, including B2B, B2C, and B2B2C, as well as a wide range of business sizes, including startups, SMEs, and huge corporations. Nevertheless, because the cost of deploying Magento is sometimes very high, Magento is favoured by major organisations.

Pricing

Magento Open Source, like WooCommerce, is an open source platform, therefore it is free to use; nonetheless, businesses must consider the following costs:

  • Domain: $15/year
  • Hosting: $120/year
  • SSL Certificate: $50 – $300/year
  • Website development: $1.800 – $10.000 depending on the complexity of the system
  • Extensions: $60 – $600/utilities
  • Website maintenance and upgrade costs: $200/year, depending on the partner

Businesses will be working directly with Magento’s development team for Magento Commerce, thus they will have to pay licence fees as well as certain additional charges such as:

  • Licenses: $22.000 – $125.000/year
  • Domain: $15 – $400/year
  • Hosting: $500 – $6.500/year
  • SSL Certificate: $50 – $300/year
  • Website development: $10.000+
  • Extensions: $60 – $600/utilities

Deployment time

A complete Magento project typically requires 3 to 6 months of deployment time, with some projects requiring up to a year. The reason for this is the complicated functioning structure and the lack of Magento experts.

Summary

In general, Haravan and Shopify will be excellent for startups or SMEs since they provide a selection of cost-effective solution packages for any business need when establishing fashion e-commerce in a short period of time.
Conversely, Big Cartel is also suited for startups or SMEs looking for low-cost solutions in a short period of time, but with specialised features to address the idiosyncrasies of the fashion busines.
Businesses who have previously used WordPress can use WooCommerce to enhance their fashion e-commerce website, but they should be mindful of potential feature concerns in the future.
Magento, in particular, has practically all exceptional features, ranging from the website interface to the functional system to the capacity to connect and extend, making Magento more suited for a wide range of company kinds and models. Yet, many organisations evaluate the time and cost of deployment while selecting Magento.
Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website
Top 5 fashion eCommerce platforms to build website
SECOMM understands the obstacles that businesses encounter when deciding which platform to use to begin their e-commerce journey, having created complex eCommerce websites such as An Nam Gourmet, Laybyland, Jasnor and others.
Contact SECOMM now for a no-cost consultation on comprehensive eCommerce system development alternatives!
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Cosmetics eCommerce 5 Platforms For Website Development
COSMETICS ECOMMERCE: 5 PLATFORMS FOR WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

Cosmetics eCommerce is currently developing into a fresh and promising sales channel for companies in addition to the traditional sales channel. Businesses must work hard to sustain and achieve breakthrough growth through eCommerce platforms, though.

As a result, numerous cosmetics companies started developing online cosmetics business websites and found surprising success, such as Kylie Cosmetics, Hasaki, and Guardian,…

These websites’ success can be attributed to their early selection of an adequate and suitable eCommerce platform. Which platforms are appropriate for the cosmetics industry, then?

Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) is a highly flexible SaaS eCommerce platform that allows companies to offer the best B2B and B2C shopping experiences. Moreover, Salesforce gives Commerce Cloud access to Einstein AI to further enhance this system’s intelligence.

Top cosmetic brands currently using Salesforce Commerce Cloud to deploy eCommerce include L’Occitane, Lancôme, Loreal, Nars, Neutrogena, NYX Cosmetics, and Shiseido,…

Cosmetics eCommerce 5 Platforms For Website Development
Salesforce commerce cloud

Pros:

  • SFCC offers a flexible and scalable hosting infrastructure as a cloud-based SaaS platform, and this vendor will be in charge of configuration, updates, maintenance, security, etc., helping users save time and money in these areas.
  • Since SFCC is practically a ready-made solution, businesses only need to express their ideas, and SFCC’s IT team will develop them in a matter of weeks.
  • The amazingly functional system supports cosmetic eCommerce businesses by allowing customers to select product sizes, purchase items in sets, take advantage of shock deals and flash sales, and receive new customer discounts and loyalty points.
  • Unlike other SaaS platforms, SFCC scales and manages traffic spikes for sales seasons and other unplanned events with ease.
  • Synchronizing sales channels, reaching, and serving clients across many channels are made possible by omnichannel solutions for the cosmetics industry.

Cons:

  • Developers and businesses are required extensive SFCC understanding.
  • SFCC charges users on a revenue-based model. Depending on the selected plan package, customers will pay 1 or 2% GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) to preserve website ownership. This means that the higher the revenue, the more expenses must be paid to SFCC.
  • Limited integration with 3rd party services.

=> SFCC is suitable for B2C and B2B cosmetic businesses.

Magento

Magento is a popular open-source commerce platform in the field of eCommerce, with nearly 200,000 websites in use. Currently, Magento has 2 versions: Magento Open Source (free), and Magento Commerce (paid).

Cosmetic eCommerce websites built successfully on the Magento platform with high brand awareness include Laneige, Sigma Beauty, and Hasaki,…

Cosmetics eCommerce 5 Platforms For Website Development
Magento

Pros:

  • Many cosmetics themes from the global developer community and Magento website developers so businesses can use existing themes which easy to customize or use self-designed themes.
  • Functional systems from basic to advanced, specialized for the cosmetic industry such as choosing product size, buying in sets, exclusive deals, product suggestions, viewed products, member incentives, etc.
  • Due to its comprehensive customization options, Magento enables businesses to fully own, control, and customize the source code, facilitating the efficient operation of systems. Moreover, Magento may be customized to fit the eCommerce requirements of enterprises of various sizes.
  • Highly scalable, beneficial for future system expansion, and featuring multiple sites, stores, languages, and currencies.
  • Because Magento is a complete eCommerce system, it can guarantee smooth operation and minimize potential dangers from data systems and transaction processes, resulting in high security. As a result, the reputation of the website, system safety, and user rights are all improved.
  • There is a huge skilled Magento developer community present worldwide, ready to help with technical issues as well as provide assistance in creating eCommerce solutions appropriate for each business model.

Cons: 

  • There is no repository of themes from Magento to support businesses.
  • Implementation typically takes three to six months, but it might take up to a year due to a sophisticated functioning system.
  • Although the platform is free to use, the cost of implementing eCommerce with Magento is quite high, about $50,000-$100,000 depending on the complexity of the project.

=> Magento is appropriate for a range of cosmetics business types, including B2B, B2C, and B2B2C, as well as for various business sizes, including start-ups, SMEs, and major companies. However, large organizations use Magento because it is frequently relatively expensive to deploy.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that allows businesses to transform a regular WordPress website into a professional eCommerce website with full features and easy customization with just a few simple steps.

A few good examples of big brands that have built successful eCommerce websites with WooCommerce and generated huge sales such as: MOI Cosmetics, Bo Shop, Nuty Cosmetics, AB Beauty World, Beauty Garden,. ..

Cosmetics eCommerce 5 Platforms For Website Development
WooCommerce

Pros:

  • There are many free and premium themes from the WordPress and WooCommerce communities for the cosmetics sector which are easy to customize or businesses can use self-designed themes.
  • Functional systems from basic to advanced for cosmetic eCommerce business such as similar product suggestions, viewed products, discount vouchers, and new customer incentives,…
  • Easy integration with a variety of 3rd party services.
  • The cost of building an eCommerce website is not too high compared to other open-source platforms like Magento, with total annual costs ranging from $110 to $1,500+ for domains, hosting, themes, extensions, plugins, etc.
  • eCommerce website implementation time with WooCommerce takes about 1 to 3 months to complete.

Cons:

  • The functional system is still limited in terms of features specific to the cosmetics industry.
  • The scalability is not as high compared to other open-source platforms such as Open Cart, and Magento because it depends on the WordPress system.

=> WooCommerce will be suitable for cosmetics businesses that are familiar with the WordPress platform and want to develop an eCommerce system.

Shopify

Shopify is a popular SaaS platform in the world that provides a variety of solutions for businesses of all sizes to successfully build eCommerce websites. After being in the market for about 20 years, Shopify has gradually grown to become one of the top eCommerce platforms in the world, trusted by many Vietnamese and foreign companies. 

Kylie Cosmetics, Innisfree, Sulwhasoo, Cho Tinh Cua Boo, Guardian, and Ofélia are some examples of companies in the cosmetics industry leveraging Shopify for eCommerce websites and enjoying great success.

Cosmetics eCommerce 5 Platforms For Website Development
Shopify

Pros:

  • Available and diverse themes for the cosmetics industry.
  • Functional system from basic to advanced, supporting eCommerce business such as similar product suggestions, viewed products, discount vouchers, and new customer incentives.
  • The initial cost is quite reasonable with a variety of options for businesses from $29/month to about $2,000/month.
  • The time to build an eCommerce website is quite fast from 1-7 days, or more depending on the complexity of the system.
  • Shopify has a large developer community to serve businesses.

Cons:

  • The layout of existing templates causes duplicating, and it’s challenging to alter themes or create your own interface because doing so will have an adverse effect on the entire system.
  • The system of specific functions for the cosmetics sector is still limited.
  • A wider range of 3rd party services but still only integrated with services available in Shopify’s app store.
  • Deployment costs are both advantages and disadvantages of Shopify when the initial cost is quite reasonable, but in the long run, businesses have to pay the cost of using the platform, interface, application, etc., regularly every month. This makes it difficult to manage cash flow.
  • Because it is a SaaS platform, it will be difficult for Shopify to expand its website in the future.

=> Shopify is considered suitable for start-ups or SMEs with global operations.

Haravan

Haravan is a leading technology firm in Vietnam, that was founded in 2014, with the intention of eventually extending to many other Southeast Asian nations.

It specializes in offering businesses and merchants in Vietnam solutions for eCommerce, engagement marketing, and omnichannel retail.

Haravan has gained the trust of many companies in the cosmetics industry as a result of the efficiency of the website system that the business has created and the ground-breaking online retail sales.

The Face Shop, The World of Lipsticks, The World Skin Food, and Lam Thao Cosmetics are some well-known cosmetics companies in Vietnam that have launched eCommerce websites using the Haravan platform.

Cosmetics eCommerce 5 Platforms For Website Development
Haravan

Pros:

  • Available and diverse themes for the cosmetics industry.
  • Wide range of applications, from basic to advanced to start an eCommerce business.
  • Reasonable eCommerce deployment cost, various packages from 200,000 VND/month to 3,000,000 VND/month, making it easy for customers to choose.
  • ​​The time to build an eCommerce website is fast, only about 30 minutes for businesses to own a website with all the necessary features to get started. However, for the website to work effectively, businesses need to spend more time researching and developing the system.

Cons:

  • The layout of existing templates causes duplicating, and it’s challenging to alter themes or create your own interface because doing so will have an adverse effect on the entire system.
  • The system of specific functions for the cosmetics sector is still limited.
  • Only integrated with services/utilities located in Haravan’s ecosystem.
  • Because it is a SaaS platform, it will be difficult for Haravan to expand the website in the future.

=> Haravan is suitable for start-up cosmetics businesses or SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) with operations mainly in Vietnam.

An extremely critical first step in developing a cosmetic eCommerce website is selecting the appropriate platform. Businesses may develop websites more quickly and affordably while enhancing their competitive advantage and sustainable growth by choosing the right eCommerce platform.

The improper platform, on the other hand, will cost firms a lot of money and effort to adopt and switch platforms repeatedly. Therefore, in order to select the best platform, organizations must take into account the objectives and issues with the current model.

With many years of experience in successfully implementing eCommerce for many customers in many countries, SECOMM specializes in providing consulting services with comprehensive and professional eCommerce implementation solutions. 

Contact SECOMM today for free support and advice.

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5 eCommerce platforms for the furniture website development
5 ECOMMERCE PLATFORMS FOR THE FURNITURE WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

eCommerce is currently developing into a fresh and promising sales channel for furniture companies in addition to the traditional sales channel. Businesses must work hard to sustain and achieve breakthrough growth through eCommerce platforms, though.

As a result, numerous furniture companies started developing online furniture business websites and found surprising success, such Sieu Thi Noi That va Trang Tri Baya, Nha Xinh, Cozy, or Noi Phat Hoa Phat.

These websites’ success can be attributed to their early selection of an adequate and suitable eCommerce platform. Which platforms are appropriate for the furniture industry, then?

Main aspects of the eCommerce furniture industry

UI/UX standard furniture eCommerce website interface

5 eCommerce platforms for the furniture website development
UI/UX standard furniture eCommerce website interfaces

​​The first criterion businesses set when developing an eCommerce website is a standard UI / UX interface, friendly to users who enjoy shopping for furniture online and other home goods to increase customer interaction.

Similar to eCommerce websites in other sectors like fashion, electronics, etc., websites in the furniture sector must feature stunning and high-quality photographs and videos.

This makes it simpler for companies to communicate product information to customers, especially with banner advertisements that have an easy-to-use interface and a pleasing style that will pique shoppers’ interests.

Businesses also need to consider other concerns including call-to-action button placement, cross-device compatibility, and layout designs that display a range of product designs from the navigation bar to page-by-page details.

Comprehensive functional system

5 eCommerce platforms for the furniture website development
Comprehensive functional system

Furniture firms need a functional system from basic to advanced to fully meet consumers’ buying expectations and maximize the user experience. This system should include:

  • Catalog Management: Manage properties, pricing systems, inventory, photos, and videos to keep them running
  • Content Management: Content development for CMS pages, image hosting, theme customization, and website design
  • Customer Management: Control information, behavior, and consumption habits to build strategies for each specific customer group
  • Sales Management: Set up and operate sales, order, payment, and shipping processes
  • Marketing Management: Implement and optimize programs to attract potential customers with built-in support tools
  • System Management: Seamless supply chain response with shipping navigation and automation management tools
  • Store Management: Navigate and maintain your eCommerce business from online to offline
  • Cart & Checkout: Manage shopping carts and process the next payment steps for customers
  • Analytics and Reports: Monitor and measure eCommerce performance to give detailed reports to improve business efficiency

Businesses also need to develop some additional specialized features to address the furniture industry’s “own challenge,” such as:

  • Omnichannel to track customer footprints across all channels from eCommerce platforms, and social networks, to eCommerce websites and mobile apps to deliver a seamless shopping experience.
  • VR/AR or 360-degree view brings a visual experience and realistic visualization of the product, thereby enhancing the online furniture shopping experience.
  • Customers who request customized products can specify the colors, materials, and sizes they want and pay a deposit. The supplier will then continue to produce the furniture items in accordance with the requirements and deliver them to the customer once they are finished. The consumer will then pay the supplier the balance at that time.

Integration with a variety of third-party services

5 eCommerce platforms for the furniture website development
Integration with a variety of 3rd-party services

Furniture businesses frequently integrate a range of payment options, shipping services, management software, and business analysis tools to optimize eCommerce business systems in order to provide customers with a comprehensive shopping experience.

Some popular payment methods businesses can integrate on the website to diversify payment methods to help customers have many choices such as card payment; eWallet; payment gateways.

Businesses might take into consideration software like ERP (SAP, Salesforce, Oracle), among others, when integrating back-office administration and operation software.

Finally, incorporating BI tools like Tableau, Looker, etc. will aid in the long-term analysis of business plans.

Scalability of the website

5 eCommerce platforms for the furniture website development
Scalability of the website

Businesses that are just starting to use eCommerce won’t concentrate on the website’s scalability in the future because platforms that provide this feature are sometimes hard to find. But tactically, spending money on a platform that facilitates this function will provide organizations an advantage over rivals in the market.

These aid furniture companies in making necessary adjustments, creating new features, and expanding their online systems to support several stores, languages, and currencies in the future.

Top 5 eCommerce platforms for furniture website development

Haravan

Haravan was founded in 2014 and is a very popular and popular eCommerce deployment platform in the Vietnam market with a variety of solutions for businesses and individual sellers.

Pros:

  • Available and diverse themes for the furniture industry
  • Wide range of applications, from basic to advanced to start an eCommerce business
  • Reasonable eCommerce deployment cost, various packages from 200,000 VND/month to 3,000,000 VND/month, making it easy for customers to choose.
  • ​​Time to build an eCommerce website is fast, only about 30 minutes for businesses to own a website with all the necessary features to get started. However, for the website to work effectively, businesses need to spend more time researching and developing the system.

Cons:

  • The layout of existing templates causes duplicating, and it’s challenging to alter themes or create your own interface because doing so will have an adverse effect on the entire system.
  • The system of specific functions for the furniture sector is still limited.
  • Only integrated with services/utilities located in Haravan’s ecosystem.
  • Because it is a SaaS platform, it will be difficult for Haravan to expand the website in the future.

=> Rating: 2/4

Haravan is suitable for start-up furniture businesses or SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) with operations mainly in Vietnam.

Shopify

Shopify is a popular SaaS platform in the world that provides a variety of solutions for businesses of all sizes to successfully build eCommerce websites.

Pros:

  • Available and diverse themes for the furniture industry.
  • Wide range of applications, from basic to advanced to start an eCommerce business.
  • The initial cost is quite reasonable with a variety of options for businesses from $29/month to about $2,000/month.
  • The time to build an eCommerce website is quite fast from 1-7 days, or more depending on the complexity of the system.
  • Shopify has a large developer community to serve businesses.

Cons:

  • The layout of existing templates causes duplicating, and it’s challenging to alter themes or create your own interface because doing so will have an adverse effect on the entire system.
  • The system of specific functions for the furniture sector is still limited.
  • A wider range of 3rd party services than Haravan but still only integrated with services available in Shopify’s app store.
  • Deployment costs are both advantages and disadvantages of Shopify when the initial cost is quite reasonable, but in the long run, businesses have to pay the cost of using the platform, interface, application, etc., regularly every month. This makes it difficult to manage cash flow
  • Because it is a SaaS platform, it will be difficult for Shopify to expand its website in the future.

=> Rating: 2/4

Shopify is considered suitable for start-ups or SMEs with global operations.

ZielCommerce 

ZielCommerce is an eCommerce platform with ready-made solutions specialized for the furniture industry.

Pros:

  • Many themes are specific to the furniture industry, allowing businesses to customize according to their needs, helping to reflect the characteristics of the industry and position the brand image.
  • Detailed internal eCommerce website construction challenges can be solved with the help of a comprehensive system of functions that combines the fundamental, sophisticated, and niche aspects of both customer and business needs, such as the best order processing system.

Cons:

  • The ability to integrate with 3rd party services is still limited. This platform only supports add-ons available in its ecosystem, so businesses will not be able to link with the ERP, POS, CRM, BI, etc. Therefore, when using Ziel Commerce, businesses need to transfer all existing data to the platform’s servers.
  • Although highly appreciated for the ability to expand the website system, this is still the disadvantage of Ziel Commerce in the long run. Accordingly, this platform will not support businesses to expand or develop new features because businesses cannot own the source code, so when affected, it will destabilize the entire website system.
  • Ziel Commerce is not yet popular in the Vietnam market, so there is no Vietnamese version yet.
  • Deployment time will depend on the complexity of the system, the average time is from 3-6 months.
  • High implementation cost of about $50,000 per project.

=> Rating: 3/4

ZielCommerce will be the optimal choice for B2B, and B2C furniture businesses to deploy eCommerce websites or build mobile apps. However, this platform is not really popular in the Vietnamese market but is especially favored by foreign furniture retailers such as Frampo, Zeyka, etc.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that allows businesses to transform a regular WordPress website into a professional eCommerce website with full features and easy customization with just a few simple steps.

Pros:

  • There are many free and premium themes from the WordPress and WooCommerce communities for the furniture sector which are easy to customize or businesses can use self-designed themes. 
  • Functional system from basic to advanced for eCommerce business.
  • Easy integration with a variety of 3rd party services.
  • Because it is an open-source code platform, businesses can plan to expand their website in the future.
  • The cost of building an eCommerce website is not too high compared to other open-source platforms like Magento, with total annual costs ranging from $110 to $1,500+ for domains, hosting, themes, extensions, plugins, etc.
  • eCommerce website implementation time with WooCommerce takes about 1 to 3 months to complete.

Cons:

  • The functional system is still limited in terms of features specific to the furniture industry.
  • The scalability is not as high compared to other open-source platforms such as Open Cart, Magento because it depends on the WordPress system.

=> Rating: 3/4

WooCommerce will be suitable for furniture businesses who are familiar with the WordPress platform and want to develop an eCommerce system.

Magento

Magento is a popular open-source commerce platform in the field of eCommerce, with nearly 200,000 websites in use. Currently, Magento has 2 versions: Magento Open Source (free), and Magento Commerce (paid).

Pros:

  • Many furniture themes from the global developer community and Magento website developers so businesses can use existing themes which easy to customize or use self-designed themes.
  • Easy integration with a variety of 3rd party services.
  • High scalability: multi-language, currency, easy future feature development.

Cons:

  • There is no repository of themes from Magento to support businesses.
  • Implementation typically takes three to six months, but it might take up to a year due to a sophisticated functioning system.
  • Although the platform is free to use, the cost of implementing eCommerce with Magento is quite high, about $50,000-$100,000 depending on the complexity of the project.

=> Rating: 4/4

Magento is appropriate for a range of furniture business types, including B2B, B2C, and B2B2C, as well as for various business sizes, including start-ups, SMEs, and major companies. However, large organizations use Magento because it is frequently relatively expensive to deploy.

5 eCommerce platforms for the furniture website development
Furniture eCommerce platforms in comparison

Choosing the right platform is an extremely important first step when building an interior eCommerce website. Choosing the right eCommerce platform will help businesses save budget and time to build a website while increasing competitive advantage and sustainable growth. On the contrary, when choosing the wrong platform, it will cost businesses a lot of time and budget to deploy and switch platforms many times. Therefore, businesses need to consider the goals and problems in the current model to be able to choose the most suitable platform.

With many years of experience in successfully implementing eCommerce for many customers in many countries, SECOMM specializes in providing consulting services with comprehensive and professional eCommerce implementation solutions. 

Contact SECOMM today for free support and advice.

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WOOCOMMERCE 2022: ITS BENEFITS AND DOWNSIDES TO CONSIDER
WOOCOMMERCE 2022: ITS BENEFITS AND DOWNSIDES TO CONSIDER

As eCommerce becomes a new trend that encourages a slew of brands to enter the market, selecting the right eCommerce platform to build a successful eCommerce website becomes critical. While Shopify is the most popular SaaS platform, Magento is the top choice in the open-source platform, and the WooCommerce plugin has won the trust of many brands due to its outstanding features and ease of use.

What is WooCommerce?

woocommerce 2022 its benefits and downsides to consider
What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that allows brands to set up an eCommerce website by adding eCommerce functionality to an existing WordPress site. This plugin can transform a regular WordPress website into an eCommerce website with all the necessary features and easy customization with just a few clicks.

The benefits of using WooCommerce 

woocommerce 2022 its benefits and downsides to consider
The benefits of using WooCommerce

It’s free to get started

Price is an essential factor to think about when selecting a platform for implementing eCommerce. Popular platforms on the market today have prices ranging from free to several thousand dollars per year, making it even more prominent and preferred by businesses because this plugin is entirely free to download and install.

As a result, any business can benefit from its features without committing to costly support contracts or software licenses.

The flexibility of the open-source platform 

It is an open-source plugin built on the WordPress CMS that gives users complete control and allows them to easily customize their eCommerce website to their specific needs. WooCommerce, in addition to being suitable for a variety of businesses serving different customer segments, also provides long-term scalability, giving businesses of all sizes more flexibility in deploying eCommerce.

Integration with WordPress

The seamless integration between WooCommerce and WordPress brings many benefits to this plugin because of the availability of the large WordPress community throughout the years. WooCommerce can take advantage of the platform’s massive ecosystem of plugins, themes, guides, and other unique features.

Yoast SEO, for example, has long been a well-liked plugin with numerous international translations, ease of use, and advanced SEO support. Since WooCommerce integrates with WordPress, Yoast SEO also integrates with WooCommerce.

Especially when a business has a website on the WordPress platform and needs to turn it into an eCommerce website, WooCommerce will make it easy and seamless, so users do not have to start over with a brand new platform.

Providing qualified-standard content management 

Content Marketing is the key to an effective eCommerce website. If businesses are looking for an eCommerce platform built on the world’s most popular content management system (CMS), WooCommerce can fulfill that expectation.

When the WooCommerce plugin is integrated into WordPress, many content management options, including Blogs, Landing Pages, Product Descriptions, Email Marketing, and SEO plugins (Yoast WooCommerce SEO), will help sellers optimize content for search.

Providing in-depth analytics

Integrated analytics is another advantage of the plugin because the more you learn about customers and how they interact with your eCommerce website, the more you can adjust to meet customer expectations. For example, businesses can use sales data to learn about customers, thereby establishing a customer persona to increase sales in the future.

Furthermore, it provides a comprehensive WooCommerce analyzer displayed in a clean and user-friendly interface. Businesses can then easily integrate WooCommerce with third-party analytics services such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and others.

The downsides of using WooCommerce 

woocommerce 2022 its benefits and downsides to consider
The downsides of using WooCommerce

Technical maintenance support

When using this plugin, the user is responsible for keeping the eCommerce website up-to-date, accessible, and functional. In fact, there is some support from the hosting company and the WooCommerce community, but it does not allow users to simply call for technical assistance.

Plugins will notify users of security updates, but users must install and handle problems themselves. In fact, hosting companies will support this. Still, users need to have a bit of technical knowledge to facilitate the process of supporting related issues to avoid affecting the performance of the eCommerce website.

This disadvantage stems directly from the fact that businesses have complete control over the eCommerce website system’s source code and data. Maximum authority entails maximum accountability. Although businesses continue to receive support for WooCommerce issues, compared to other eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, etc., WooCommerce still has many shortcomings in the technical maintenance support process.

Speed and Security 

With the constant increase in unauthorized access (Website Hacking), website speed and security are more critical than ever. Speed and security are significant advantages for SaaS platforms such as Shopify and BigCommerce. At that point, your eCommerce website is housed in the infrastructure of these platforms, and a team of technical experts will continuously monitor and resolve any issues that arise to keep the website running smoothly.

Similar to a technical maintenance situation, WooCommerce essentially leaves the user responsible for the speed and security of the website despite the wide range of 3rd party support options.

Although speed and security are not an issue for some new businesses deploying eCommerce websites, this is still a significant drawback of this plugin when businesses are responsible for many issues ranging from technical maintenance to website speed and security, especially if the eCommerce site is on the verge of rapidly growing from hundreds to thousands of hits.

Growth and Scalability  

Because it is a WordPress plugin, it will operate in accordance with WordPress functions. Meanwhile, WordPress functionality is not explicitly designed for eCommerce but rather is based on the flexibility of open-source code. This means that when a user exceeds a certain query threshold, the way WooCommerce works is broken.

For example, when a large number of shopping carts are added, or checkout occurs at the same time, or when too many users visit the website simultaneously, overload occurs, making the operation of the eCommerce website difficult. This is difficult because the WordPress system and the WooCommerce plugin are no longer compatible. 

If your eCommerce website is still small and growing, this is not a problem; problems can still be quickly resolved. However, as the size of your website expands and grows rapidly, this is a disadvantage in terms of both performance and cost that businesses must consider before proceeding.

In a nutshell, WooCommerce is a fantastic plugin that many businesses would love to choose when deploying an eCommerce website. However, besides the outstanding advantages, there are still certain downsides, so businesses must carefully consider and compare with other platforms before starting out. 

With many years of experience implementing eCommerce in many countries, SECOMM provides free consulting services with professional eCommerce solutions.

Contact us today for free support and advice!

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Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery
TOP 5 ECOMMERCE PLATFORMS FOR EGROCERY

With the boom in recent years, ecommerce is a potential business form pursued by many businesses, especially egrocery stores. According to Statista, the grocery ecommerce market in the United States is likely to exceed $24 billion by 2023.

Realizing the potential of the egrocery market, several businesses have deployed grocery ecommerce websites early and experienced breakthrough growth, such as Grofers (Blinkit) and BigBasket in India, Bach Hoa Xanh, An Nam Gourmet, Farmer’s Market, WinMart, and Organica in Vietnam.

The common thing that makes the success of the above brands lies in the ecommerce platform. Therefore, to develop and operate an effective ecommerce website, the role of platforms is enormous.

So which ecommerce platforms are suitable for the grocery industry?

Platform selection criteria

User interface and administration interface

For the website interface, in addition to meeting basic needs such as UI/UX standards and showing the brand’s characteristics and the eGrocery industry, businesses also need to focus on the presented product images. Therefore, on the website, everything needs to be synchronized and precise.

The administrator interface (admin) must be easy to use, navigate, control, and manage all data in the system.

Functional system

With eGrocery, the system of ecommerce features needs to be diverse from basic to advanced, solving complex characteristics of the grocery industry such as products with multiple units, weight difference, and price volatility, export-import complex warehouse, and synchronized data throughout the system.

Some functions required in a grocery ecommerce website system such as:

  • Primary functions: Meet the most basic needs when operating an ecommerce system, such as order management, checkout, payment, shipping, etc
  • Advanced Functions: Functions that enhance the consumer experience and accelerate the shopping process such as order tracking, abandoned cart recovery, similar product recommendations, product search fast products, multi-layered product portfolio, etc
  • Specific functions: Functions that help to thoroughly solve the difficulties of implementing specialized grocery ecommerce, meeting the needs of customer segments and businesses such as fast delivery, choice of time delivery point, etc

Integration capabilities

To have a seamless online volatility store system with multiple sales channels, businesses must integrate their ecommerce website with other payment services, shipping services, management software, analysis, report, and distribution systems:

  • Payment: Integrate various payment methods from domestic cards to international cards, such as payment gateways (Paypal, Stripe, OnePay), e-wallets (Momo, ZaloPay), etc.
  •  Shipping: Integrate with international shipping providers like DHL Express, Fedex, Ups, USPS, and popular shipping providers in Vietnam like Fast Delivery, Economy Delivery, Ninja Van, etc. With order tracking applications to help process and operate the delivery processes
  • Management software: Easily integrate CRM, ERP, and POS software to get a seamless connection on all supply channels from offline to online
  • Analysis and reporting: Integrate analysis and reporting software such as Business Intelligent, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.

This integration helps businesses overcome the limitations of the “rice-powered” process, increase the automation of the system, limit business mistakes, and ensure high accuracy and performance.

Ability to extension

To accompany businesses to develop over time, from startups, and SMEs (small and medium enterprises), to large corporations, from B2B, B2C, and D2C business models to B2B2C, commerce electronics platforms must be highly scalable. High scalability helps meet all future business growth needs, such as multi-site, multi-country, and multi-currency, all manageable on “one screen.” Not only that, but highly scalable platforms also support businesses to operate the system stably regardless of the traffic in promotion campaigns.

Evaluate 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery business based on each criterion

Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery
Some platforms that support egrocery business: Ziel Commerce, Shopify, Haravan, WooCommerce, Magento

Ziel Commerce

Ziel Commerce is a readymade grocery ecommerce platform with all the features designed to support an online grocery store business.

Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery ZielCommerce
Ecommerce platform Ziel Commerce

Website interface

Ziel Commerce provides a repository of themes specifically for the grocery industry, allowing businesses to customize according to their needs, helping to both reflect the characteristics of the industry and position the brand image.

Remarkably, the interface for administrators is also invested by the founders to make it most accessible for businesses to use. But currently, Ziel Commerce is not popular in the Vietnamese market, so there is no Vietnamese version for businesses.

Functional system

As a platform designed specifically for the eGrocery industry, Ziel Commerce can meet all the most specialized needs of businesses, including fundamental to advanced functionality systems and existing industry-specific solutions.

Integration capabilities

Ziel Commerce has a significant drawback in integrating the website system. In addition, this platform only supports add-ons available in its ecosystem, so businesses will not be able to link with the ERP, POS, CRM, BI, etc., systems in use. Therefore, when using Ziel Commerce, companies need to transfer all existing data to the server of this platform.

Ability of extension

Although it does not own the source code, Ziel Commerce is still a highly appreciated platform for its scalability compared to SaaS platforms. Ziel Commerce supports businesses to expand their ecommerce website system from one to many stores/websites, multi-language, multi-currency without many obstacles. However, in the long run, Ziel Commerce cannot support businesses to expand or develop new functions because firms cannot affect the source code; if it affects it, it will cause instability for the commercial website system. 

→ Rating: 3/4

Ziel Commerce provides an almost comprehensive online grocery store website building solution for businesses, from website interface and functional system to scalability. However, the implementation cost is relatively high, about $50,000/project in 6 months. Therefore, Ziel Commerce is only popular with retail chains, has high functional demand, and operates mainly abroad. However, when using Ziel Commerce, businesses should consider adding the platform’s integration, limiting instability in the operation when 3rd party systems are not compatible with the platform.

Shopify

Shopify is a SaaS ecommerce platform favored by the international ecommerce business community because of its fast implementation time and reasonable starting cost.

Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery Shopify
Ecommerce platform Shopify

Website interface

Shopify provides a variety of interfaces, including grocery industry and UI/UX standards, but cannot be edited according to the characteristics of the business.

Functional system

Shopify’s functional system is relatively complete, meeting the basic needs of businesses. But to use advanced functions, companies have to pay a certain amount of money every month, leading to an increased cost of using the functional system. In addition, even Shopify can barely provide eGrocery industry-specific resolution functions.

Integration capabilities

Because it is a SaaS platform, businesses cannot affect the source code, and it is not easy to integrate with many 3rd parties. Companies can only integrate utilities provided by Shopify or a platform partner.

Some utilities that companies can integrate with Shopify include:

  • Payment: Paypal, Stripe, SagePay, AliPay Global, etc
  • Shipping: DHL Express, USPS, UPS, etc
  • Administration: Microsoft Dynamic 365 (ERP), Oracle NetSuite (ERP), Acumatica (ERP), etc
  • Marketing: Google Tools, MailChimp, Facebook Pixel, etc

Ability of extension

Similar to the ability to integrate, the scalability on Shopify is not high because businesses cannot influence the source code to edit and upgrade the website. Therefore, online grocery businesses can only use Shopify for the first time.

→ Rating: 2/4

Shopify is only suitable for businesses new to the ecommerce market, startups, or SMEs (small and medium enterprises) because of the reasonable development cost and time to deploy an online grocery store business website.

Haravan

Founded in 2014, Haravan is an ecommerce platform based on Shopify. Currently, Haravan is a popular platform in the Vietnamese market with more than 50,000 business people and trusted brands.

Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery Haravan
Ecommerce platform Haravan

Website interface

Haravan has many standard UI/UX interfaces suitable for the grocery industry, including free and paid. At the same time, the interface for administrators supports Vietnamese and is easy to use, so businesses do not face many difficulties when using it.

Functional system

Haravan provides many utilities – functions for online grocery stores in Vietnam.

In addition, similar to Shopify, to use more advanced functions, businesses have to pay a monthly application fee of about 100,000 VND/month/app.

However, businesses can’t find parts that deal with the grocery’s specifics in Haravan’s app store and can’t develop in terms of specific functions. Enterprises can only use the functions included in the package and app store.

Integration capabilities

For integration capabilities, Haravan can integrate with Haravan’s partners such as transportation (Economic Delivery, Fast Delivery, Ahamove, GrabExpress, etc.), payment (Ngan Luong, VNPAY, Napas, PayPal, etc.), etc.).

It is difficult for businesses to integrate for 3rd party utilities outside Haravan’s ecosystem on their ecommerce website.

Ability of extension

As for the extension of the ecommerce website system, Haravan can only support the multi-language – currency but cannot expand from one to many websites/stores. It is challenging to manage all the data on a foundation.

As the business gradually grows and expands, Haravan will no longer be functional enough to maintain an online grocery store business. As a result, companies are forced to switch to more specialized platforms such as Magento, WooCommerce, and OpenCart. But, of course, switching platforms will create many other problems such as costs, time, personnel, etc.

→ Rating: 2/4

Similar to Shopify, Haravan is only suitable for businesses new to the ecommerce market, startups, and SMEs. But Shopify can support online grocery business globally, and Haravan only stops at the Vietnamese market.

Woocommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source platform in the form of a WordPress plugin, allowing businesses to use it completely free.

Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery WooCommerce
Ecommerce platform WooCommerce

Website interface

WooCommerce and the community provide businesses with various themes designed for the grocery industry. At the same time, this platform also allows influencing the source code to customize according to needs, helping businesses quickly convey brand messages and images.

Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, the admin will continue to manage the website on the WordPress interface itself. This makes it easy for businesses using WordPress to adapt, use, and navigate on the WooCommerce dashboard.

Functional system

WooCommerce supports a variety of features, from basic to advanced. However, this platform has some limitations on features specific to the grocery industry because interfering with developing these functions will easily cause instability for the website system.

Integration capabilities

Thanks to the advantages of the open source platform, WooCommerce has flexible customization capabilities and supports integration with many 3rd party utilities.

In payment, businesses can use amount plugins such as Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Square to their ecommerce website system with high security and safety. In addition, companies can integrate with many shipping providers such as Fedex, Ups, USPS, and DHL Express. The WooCommerce platform also allows businesses to integrate with management software such as Odoo, Square POS, WP ERP, and Marketing software such as Google Listings, Google Ads, and Facebook Pixel to support businesses in effective business management. More fruitful.

Ability of extension

Contrary to the integration capabilities, the extensibility of WooCommerce is not appreciated. Because the system is easily overloaded with plugin themes, and the number of products does not exceed 2000 SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit). Therefore, businesses wishing to expand their website system need to consider when using this platform in the long run.

→ Rating: 3/4

WooCommerce is the right platform for grocery businesses that use WordPress and are looking to develop an ecommerce system. But when using WooCommerce, companies should consider the limitations of integration, extensibility, and customizability of specific features.

Magento

Magento is a popular open source commerce platform in ecommerce, with nearly 200,000 websites in use. Currently, Magento has 2 versions: Magento Open Source (free) and Magento Commerce (paid).

Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery Magento
Ecommerce platform Magento

Website interface

Although Magento does not own a rich theme store like other ecommerce platforms, businesses can look to the developer community, market (Envato), or design their own. Having many options when designing the interface helps Magento websites to have their uniqueness, avoid overlapping the interface with many different websites and bring a higher shopping experience.

Previously, the admin interface on Magento 1 was often considered difficult to use and took a long time to adapt. As a result, Magento publishers developed Magento 2 with a more intuitive and easy-to-navigate dashboard to overcome this problem.

Functional system

The Magento platform has a highly diverse system of features from basic and advanced to industry-specific to help grocery businesses quickly build and develop a sustainable system.

A basic functional system, including catalog management, product management, customer management, report analysis, etc., helps meet the basic needs of a convenient online grocery store business.

In particular, Magento also has many advanced functions for ecommerce, such as multi-language support, multi-currency, multi-store, PWA, MSI, ElasticSearch, etc. Shopping happens faster.

Magento does not have built-in features only for the grocery industry regarding specific features. Still, businesses can quickly build a system of particular features such as category classification, quick search, and delivery time selection thanks to flexible customization on open source code.

Integration capabilities

Thanks to the advantages of the open source platform, the Magento website can be easily integrated with any 3rd party utilities, from payment, shipping, and business administration.

Regarding payment, Magento easily connects with today’s popular payment methods such as card payments (domestic cards, VISA, Mastercard), e-wallets (MOMO, Zalopay), and payment gateways (OnePay, VNPay, etc.) PayPal) or COD, which helps to diversify payment methods.

Magento can integrate with shipping providers such as Fast Delivery, Economy Delivery, Viettel Post, and order tracking applications.

Magento can be integrated into back-office management software (ERP, CRM, POS) such as SAP, Salesforce, and Oracle to help operate all resources and processes seamlessly in the enterprise.

In addition, Magento also supports integration with business analysis tools such as Power BI, Tableau, and Looker and analysis and reporting utilities such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Facebook Pixels to exploit all data from the system. As a result, Magento plans to improve its business strategy.

Ability of extension

Magento allows businesses to expand from one website to many different websites on the same system to meet the needs of business development. In addition, with the available support for language and currency conversion from Magento, businesses can build a grocery ecommerce system with content suitable for a diverse audience of customers around the globe.

In addition, open source customization enables Magento developers to build functional solutions specific to the grocery industry. This advantage makes Magento expand the system of capabilities according to each business size, from small businesses to large-scale corporations.

→ Rating: 4/4

Because Magento possesses many outstanding advantages, from website interface and functional system to the ability to integrate and expand, Magento is suitable for a variety of grocery business models from B2B, B2C to B2B2C, a multiform of enterprise-scale such as startup, SME, enterprise (large corporation). However, the time to deploy ecommerce on Magento is usually long – from 6 months to 1 year, with high construction costs of about 50,000 – 100,000 USD/project. At the same time, businesses also need to have a professional team or cooperate with experienced units to develop an effective grocery ecommerce system. Therefore, Magento is popularly used in the community of large-scale businesses that need many functions to increase user experience.

Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery
Top 5 ecommerce platforms for egrocery

Choosing the right platform is the first and most significant step when building a grocery ecommerce website. Selecting the right ecommerce platform will help businesses save budget and time in building a website while increasing competitive advantage and sustainable growth. On the contrary, choosing the wrong forum will cost businesses a lot of time and budget to deploy and switch platforms. Therefore, companies need to consider the goals and problems in the current model to choose the most suitable platform.

With experience in successfully implementing complex grocery ecommerce systems like An Nam Gourmet, SECOMM understands grocery businesses’ obstacles.

Contact SECOMM now for a free consultation on detailed ecommerce system development solutions!

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