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The Top 5 Best E-commerce Platforms for SMBs

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If you are looking for the best eCommerce platforms for your small-medium business, look no further than this article. Read the details here!

5 Best E-commerce Platforms for SMBs

eCommerce offers a wide range of opportunities and benefits, including reaching your target audience, increasing sales of products or services, expanding your operations, boosting your clientele, and improving your business’s bottom line.

A single online store allows you to reach your target audience and customers without worrying about moving locations. According to Tarek Riman, you can manage your eCommerce business from home.

In addition, eCommerce is an excellent business option for B2B and B2C companies, allowing them to improve their brand awareness in the market. Your eCommerce website is a powerful marketing tool because you can reach customers via social media, search engines, email, and pay-per-click ads.

At the same time, you need a sophisticated eCommerce platform that offers valuable SEO tools. Tarek Riman, a professional and experienced digital marketer, says social media networks provide you with a platform to build trust and engage customers through ratings and reviews.

However, choosing a robust eCommerce platform with numerous features is vital to promote your products and services. Today’s article will list the top five eCommerce platforms for small-medium businesses or enterprises. But before that, we will discuss some critical statistical information about eCommerce. Read on!

eCommerce Facts and Figures

According to Statista, eCommerce sales will reach a whopping $7.4 trillion by 2025. Compared to eCommerce sales of $4.9 trillion worldwide, it will grow by 50% in the next three years. So, Tarek Riman argues that there are no signs of internet platforms or online shopping slowing down even after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Research highlights a consumer makes an average of 19 transactions per year via the internet. However, Riman says this varies based on location. For instance, Oberlo highlights that a consumer in China makes an average of 22 online transactions. The same study highlights that 53% of consumers prefer online shopping due to free shipping.

Similarly, 41% of people buy products or services with coupons and discounts. 35% of people read reviews from other customers before purchasing a product. 33% of consumers focus on easy return policies, 30% prefer a quick online checkout process, and 28% emphasize next-day delivery.

Another research report shows that 38.4% of online consumers in the United States are under 35. People born between 1981 and 1996 account for the largest group of online consumers. On the other hand, only 14.4% of people in the U.S are above 60 years of age.

Statista, the most reputable consumer index website, estimates that 2.14 billion people use eCommerce platforms/websites to buy products and services. In contrast, about 1.66 billion people purchased products online.

According to Tarek Riman, these statistical data from credible sources show that eCommerce businesses grow efficiently and quickly. Color Whistle reports that WooCommerce hosts three million live business websites, each with powerful plugins to streamline business operations.

Acquire Convert shows that 1.75 million people use Shopify to set up online businesses and promote their products or services. Similarly, over 600,000 active online stores operate on WIX, and over 250,000 merchants use Magento.

Moreover, data shows that smartphone users account for 45% of all eCommerce sales in the U.S. So, Tarek Riman recommends optimizing your website for mobile users to increase sales and improve your business’s bottom line. Here are the top five eCommerce platforms for small-medium companies.

1.    Shopify

Shopify is one of the best eCommerce platforms for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and corporations. It offers a comprehensive website builder with free features and tools, allowing small business owners to sell online and in person.

At the same time, Shopify is an excellent platform for selling products through social commerce, drop shipping, and third-party marketplaces. The website builder enables you to design your eCommerce store using free or paid themes.

There is no need to learn and practice programming skills. The reason is that Shopify is all about the “drag and drop” feature. In addition, it can manage various business areas, not just eCommerce.

Tarek Riman, a professional entrepreneur, recommends Shopify due to its best-in-class suite of tools to establish a sophisticated business command center. For example, you can leverage “Shop Pay” for affordable transaction fees.

Shopify offers POS systems for in-person sales and “Shopify Fulfilment” for shipping products. The platform has a solid partnership with reputable companies like Express, DHL, UPS, USPS, and other shipping carriers.

Similarly, it provides eCommerce owners unlimited bandwidth and storage without affecting the overall prices. The purpose is to ensure your website drives more traffic, engage potential customers, and turns them into high-paying clients.

Shopify has a free marketing service, search engine optimization (SEO) tools, and abandoned cart recovery systems. It offers a mobile application allowing you to manage your online business from your smartphone.

Thus, you can use your smartphone to fulfill orders, add products, analyze real-time data, increase sales, and track inventory updates. The basic price of Shopify is $29.99 per month, but the advanced package is $299 per month.

You can take advantage of a three-day free trial. Shopify has numerous customer support options, including callback, email, community forum, and supportive content in nineteen languages. It also features integrated sales channels, including Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Google, Facebook, and Instagram.

2.    Wix

Wix is the second-best eCommerce platform, featuring a user-friendly site builder with numerous eCommerce-specific tools. Tarek Riman recommends opting for the paid plan to leverage advanced eCommerce capabilities, such as:

  • Order tracking
  • Online payments
  • Abandoned cart campaigns
  • Multichannel selling

A paid plan also enables you to access real-time data and analytics. So you can track your eCommerce KPIs. WIX offers over 500 templates to choose from to design your storefront.

It has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, allowing you to customize the appearance and aesthetics of your online store. In addition, it also supports subscription-based billing through third parties. WIX also supports dropshipping from other online channels.

The basic price is $23 per month. However, when you choose the business unlimited package, expect to pay $27 per month. The business VIP is $49 per month. Although you can start with the “business unlimited,” we suggest using the “business VIP” package to leverage cutting-edge tools.

The biggest problem with WIX is that it does not offer free trials. It supports integrated sales channels, including Instagram and Facebook. WIX has a mobile app with various features and tools, including inventory management.

3.    Squarespace

Squarespace is one of the best eCommerce platforms that enables you to build an eCommerce website for your small business. It offers an easy-to-use interface and does not require the technical experience. So, you can use the templates, drag-and-drop tools, and design features to set up your online store.

While Squarespace is a website builder, it provides numerous eCommerce features to streamline operations for online sellers and small businesses. In addition, Squarespace is best for service-based businesses, but you can also set up a produce-based eCommerce store. Some of the best features are:

  • Email marketing
  • Calendar integrations
  • Scheduling
  • Social media integrations
  • Embeddable maps
  • Design tools
  • SEO tools

It offers various packages, including “Personal for $16 per month, “Business for $26 per month,” “Commerce for $30 per month,” and “Advanced Commerce for $46 per month.”

The best thing about Squarespace is that it offers a 14-day free trial. So, you can take your time to try the platform and test the design/SEO features. The purpose is to determine whether Squarespace is reliable for your small business.

Customer support options are live chat, available Monday to Friday between 4 AM and 8 PM, and 24/7 email support. Moreover, integrated sales channels, including eBay, Etsy, Google Actions, Amazon, etc. Squarespace also has an excellent smartphone application with reliable features, such as:

  • Website design
  • Website Editing
  • Order management
  • Label scanning
  • Inventory management
  • Live chat

4.    WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the best WordPress platform for setting up a sophisticated online store and selling products or services. What makes WooCommerce unique from others is that it is a full-fledged website builder with reliable tools and systems to make sales.

WooCommerce is an open-source platform, meaning you can customize the site based on your needs. Likewise, you don’t need any designing or coding skills to set up an eCommerce store.

Like Shopify, WooCommerce offers more than 6,000 third-party integrations, allowing you to expand your store’s functionality and flexibility. It is a free business platform, but you will pay to leverage advanced features when you add plugins and integrations or access premium tools.

The average monthly price for hosting is $30 or $120 per year. You can register a domain for $15 per year and select a theme for $100 per year. You will pay $108 for shipping and $348 for communication and marketing. SSL certificate requires you to pay $65 per year, and SEO will cost $79 per year.

WooCommerce offers a free trial with a 30-day money-back guarantee; email and live chat are customer support options. Integrated sales channels include Etsy, Google Shopping, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Pinterest, etc. You can also use mobile applications to add products, manage orders, analyze payments, and view analytics.

5.    BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a perfect platform, offering a wide range of eCommerce features. Although BigCommerce is slightly overwhelming for small-medium businesses, it offers several plans to access technical resources, making it a reliable choice for companies looking to promote and sell their products quickly and efficiently.

It offers valuable solutions with customization features to small businesses and large corporations. Small-medium enterprises can access technical resources based on their budget to build and customize an online store. Some of the best features include:

  • International commerce
  • Multichannel selling
  • Marketing and SEO
  • Integration with third-party marketplaces
  • Numerous payment options
  • Free payment processing rates

It offers various packages, including “Standard for $29.95 per month,” “Plus for $79.95 per month,” and “Pro for $299.95 per month.” BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial length with 24/7 technical support via email, phone, and chat.

Integrated sales channels include Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, Etsy, Walmart, eBay, and Amazon. BigCommerce also has an excellent and easy-to-use smartphone application with sophisticated features like:

  • Analytics
  • Order updates
  • Inventory management
  • Product management
  • Customer search
  • Market research

Final Words

While you can choose any eCommerce platform to improve your small business and boost your company’s operations, we recommend hiring a professional service provider like “Riman Agency” to streamline the entire process and make the most of your online store.

Riman Agency has a team of qualified professionals with years of experience to use cutting-edge tools and create an eCommerce store for your small business with flexibility for customers, product promotion and marketing, affordable advertising and PPC campaigns, tools for faster response to market demands, product listing, pricing mechanisms, and much more. Contact us today for more information on our services.

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The Ideal Website Building Strategy for Your Business

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What is the best website-building strategy for your business? How to create a solid plan? Here is everything you need to know!

The Ideal Website Building Strategy for Your Business

How to create a website that works for your business and not the other way around.

The primary purpose of developing a website strategy is to combine your business objectives with site design. According to Tarek Riman, a professional digital marketer and experienced entrepreneur, website design aims to make it look pretty with a usable and accessible interface.

A business or company needs a solid website strategy to achieve its goals. At Riman Agency, our professional team defines this as an essential step for any online venture. Whether you want to replace an existing site or create a new one from scratch does not matter.

Riman Agency has carried out various website building and strategy development projects. According to Tarek Riman, a website strategy is a step-by-step process that requires thorough planning and preparation. Riman says a website strategy much include:

  • Proper definition and description of your goals
  • Detailed market study and audience identification
  • Apply branding techniques and adapt digital tools
  • Planning website launch, measuring results, and continuous improvement

Today’s article will give you a step-by-step approach to developing a sophisticated website strategy for your business and improving your company’s bottom line. So, follow the steps/tips/tricks below to streamline the entire process. Read on!

Define Your Objectives

What are your company goals? Most businesses are not all clear about what they want to accomplish. Likewise, you can’t start working on your business website until you get everything down in writing. Therefore, defining your objectives is crucial before working on your website.

  • What is your business model?
  • What type of products or services do you sell?
  • What prices have you set for your products/services?

On the other hand, what is the purpose of building a website if you don’t sell products or services? Is it about providing information to your target audience? Is it an information resource? Are you looking to build a loyal audience for blog posts?

When you answer these questions, you can define your business objectives and use the information to build your website accordingly. Here are a few good examples of objectives for a website strategy.

  • I want users to subscribe to an email list, so I can covert leads
  • I want to sell products or services via the website
  • I want to reach a broader audience and let them learn about my business
  • I want my target audience to find specific information reliably and quickly
  • I want customers to call a number or use other forms of contact
  • I want to improve my business’s online presence via a sophisticated site

Identify Your Target Audience

Who are your customers? Knowing your target audience is critical to providing it with the information and experience they are looking for online. If your site does not look like it will deliver what your target audience wants within the first few seconds, you will lose them. For example, they will go to another website and never return.

According to Tarek Riman, knowing your target audience defines how your site will look and function. Numerous demographic factors play a crucial role in influencing a website design. These include age, gender, profession, location, etc. Tarek Riman recommends considering the following questions:

  • Who is my business website for, or who is my target audience?
  • How do users expect to interact with my website?
  • Do people spend time on my existing website?
  • Do they quickly access information and move on?
  • Will my target audience respond better to text, images, or video?
  • Will they arrive from Google or other platforms?
  • How can I make customers keep coming back?
  • How can I convince my target audience to purchase products/services?
  • What does research into demographic data tell me?

Align it with Your Brand

Riman Agency is one of the most reputable web development companies. Our professional team has created hundreds of successful business websites. The primary reason is that our team aligns the website with a client’s brand.

For example, we put much thought into the colors, typefaces, iconography, logo, writing style, fonts, etc. When working on a business website strategy and planning, you must consider branding a primary factor.

For example, At Riman Agency, we convert CMYK color values to RGB to digitize branding. At the same time, we transform fonts into valid formats/web fonts or buy new licenses. Likewise, we create a responsive logo and sub variants for small spaces, screens, and social media.

At Riman Agency, our professional team follows a step-by-step process to create a web-style guide and document everything before building a business website. The purpose is to align your brand style and corporate values with your business website.

Focus on a Goal-Driven Design

Understanding your business goals and your target audience are crucial steps to building a website strategy. However, how do you convince your target audience to reach your goals?

According to Tarek Riman, if you don’t tell or convince your audience what you want them to do, you can’t expect them to do it. For example, if your goal is to increase the number of subscribers to the email list, you can add a prominent area to your website and offer a free downloadable item in exchange for emails.

Remember, this is your call-to-action or CTA because you tell visitors to take the following step/action. For instance, users can click this button to download the resource/file/material.

According to Tarek Riman, a successful website-building strategy guides its users to the prominent areas, allowing them to take the next step or click a CTA button. Your principal business objectives define your call-to-action or CTA. Your design, layout, and content must fit around this because it directs the visitors into performing a specific action.

Tarek Riman says CTAs are calls to a phone number, clicks to a button, purchases of an app, like on social media pages, etc. It depends on your business goals, meaning how you define your strategy.

Website Navigation

Working on an attractive and functional business website is not good if the essential information, knowledge, and data people are looking for are not on the forefront or are behind a maze of navigational menus.

Even if you create an attractive website, not focusing on the navigational menu can prevent you from achieving your goals. So, focusing on this critical factor is essential to streamlining the entire process.

If your company is a “personal brand, such as you are the face of your business and your visitors decide to become your clients because you are a famous person, make sure you don’t hide CTAs below a give paragraph life story.

According to Tarek Riman, let the visitors find your CTA. If they can do this without knowing whose website they are on or what the website is about, you have made it easy enough. So, congratulations, you have the best navigation to provide customers with the best user experience.

Moreover, if you hose blog posts, which can change a visitor’s life, ensure they reach those articles with a few clicks, or they will never see them. Remember, two clicks are crucial, and three clicks are too much for visitors.

Therefore, consider arranging your website content with lots of information or services into summarized or bite-sized chunks. You can do this by creating a homepage or landing page.

Thus, visitors or customers will skim over the information quickly, allowing them to decide what action to take or where to go next. For instance, if you offer two or three services, you can place them on the homepage using high-graphics content and let users click through to see more info or make a purchase.

In various website development projects that Riman Agency delivers, our professional team uses cutting-edge techniques to streamline the component-based design process. The purpose is to make the homepage of your website more navigational, allowing users to easily access the main parts/components.

Measure the Results

Your business website may look fantastic, but its functionality is critical. You have launched your business website and are excited to see the results. You want to get those extra subscriptions, drive traffic, convert more leads into sales, and increase revenues.

However, how do you know your website performs well? In that case, Tarek Riman, the founder of Riman Agency, recommends planning for measuring the results and creating a strategy for the changes you will make to fine-tune its success.

Moreover, if your new business website is a replacement for an outdated site, you might already have historical data and metrics. These metrics can tell which parts of your business website performed and what areas need improvement.

For example, tools like Google Analytics provide companies with a lot of information about popular pages, peak visit times, visitors’ demographics, and crucial traffic sources.

Therefore, Tarek Riman suggests configuring Google Analytics according to your goals and marketing strategies. The purpose is to get detailed information related to sales funnels.

On the other hand, if you have a new website for a new company or project, you must start recording and measuring metrics, working out patterns, and conducting testing. Remember, A/B testing, also known as split testing, is an integral part of measuring results.

You can conduct this test to measure the results and compare them to see how your website performed and how well it is doing now. Some businesses carry out split testing regularly, and based on the results; they make a change every month.

However, this depends on how your website has performed. So, the time interval you set for result measurements depends on your business goals. You can make changes to your website bi-monthly if it does not perform according to your expectations.

On the other hand, you can test the results bi-annually if it has performed well for the last five months but failed to produce positive results in the previous month. Therefore, this depends on the positivity and negativity of the results.

Final Words

Although launching a business website is exciting, it is daunting and time-consuming. You rely on guesswork if you have not developed a website-building strategy. So, this can lead to severe consequences and prevent you from improving your business’s bottom line.

An attractive and functional website is like a storefront that drives people to the store. However, if you have a poorly designed storefront, most customers will go away and visit another shop.

The same goes for your business website. If you don’t know how to do the job professionally, reliably, and cost-effectively, you can hire an experienced web development company like Riman Agency.

Riman Agency has designed this guide to help companies get into the right frame of mind. Today’s post will help you think deeply about what you need, what your target audience or customers do, and how you want to achieve your goals. Contact Riman Agency for more information or discuss your requirements with our professional team for a solid website-building strategy.

Connect with me if you want to develop your business site: t@rimanagency.com

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