Without ecommerce, there are no online boutiques. Since the advent of ecommerce transactions at the turn of the millennium, the number of technologies that entrepreneurs can use is immense. There are hundreds of service providers that can register your domain, host your website, and process payments when customers make purchases at your boutique. On this platform, we focus on reviewing end-to-end ecommerce affordable solutions that you can use to manage your online store. Even if you are starting a brick-and-mortar boutique – you will still need to maintain an expansive online presence that showcases your store to the general public. Nearly 95% of retail boutiques maintain concurrent ecommerce operations in order to further drive sales.
Shopify
The most prominent provider of ecommerce solutions for boutique businesses is Shopify. This business provides a state-of-the-art software suite that seamlessly allows you to create a beautiful website and upload inventories of products that you will offer to the general public. The startup costs associated with using a Shopify platform are very low. The monthly fees for maintaining a Shopify account range from $29 to $79. It should be noted that you can use a sub domain or your own domain name when establishing your online store. If you have acquired a domain name that you want to use then you can complete an integration for this purpose.
Shopify offers its partners a number of highly creative and stylized themes that can be used to create a unique online storefront for your boutique. All themes offered by the business are mobile responsive, which allows for better search engine optimization.
This platform is great if you are going to implement a dropshipping business model into your operations. There are numerous integrations that will allow you to seamlessly add inventories to your store which can be fulfilled by third-party providers. There are a number of major corporations that provide integrations with this ecommerce platform.
Additionally, this platform supports multi-channel operations via their point-of-sale system. This system allows for streamlined management for brick-and-mortar retail locations. Shopify also offers first-in-class customer service in the event that technical assistance is needed. The large scale nature of this business makes them a strong partner.
This platform also supports multiple payment processors that you can offer your customers a broad range of payment options during the checkout process.
One of the most important features of this platform is that numerous methods of marketing are seamlessly integrated. This includes search engine optimization, discount codes, store credits, and limited-run promotions that you can use to further drive traffic to your store and boost sales.
Finally, this service provider provides an in-depth range of security features so that customers feel confident when ordering products from your boutique.
Squarespace
Squarespace offers an immense number of tools that you can use to power your boutique’s ecommerce operations. This platform offers a number of templates that you can customize that fit the look, feel, and branding that you want to apply to your business. This platform is highly rated among users for its ease of use and affordability. Their plans start as low as $16 per month (for a personal plan).
One of the reasons why people like using this platform is that they offer a number of SEO tools that can help drive organic traffic to your website. This includes built in functionality that incorporates the most appropriate ways to promote your website while also having functionality that integrates popular analytics suites (such as Google Analytics). The blogging function of Squarespace is also an immense benefit as you will be able to create new content that will seamlessly assist with your search engine optimization campaigns.
As it further relates to marketing, Squarespace has a unique set of email marketing tools that you can use to further engagement between your boutique and your customers. These tools allow for custom layouts while also providing analytics based functionality so that you can track which users came to your platform and made purchases as a result of your email marketing campaigns. The costs of using these tools are modest, which can help you increase your ROI.
One of the common issues as it relates to customer service is that there is no phone support available. However, they do provide comprehensive help via email and live chat functionality.
Additionally, this platform can integrate dropshipping. Although Shopify is more comprehensive as it relates to dropshipping integrations, this platform does work with large scale organizations that provide products on a drop shipped basis.
WooCommerce
Similar to Shopify is WooCommerce. This is a plug-in specific for WordPress driven websites that want to engage in ecommerce transaction. It should be noted that this program is less comprehensive than Shopify as it integrates with your existing website. It does not have nearly the same number of features that are offered by the Shopify platform and they do not offer the same level of marketing support. However, if you are developing your boutique website as through WordPress and do not need many of the tools that are offered by competing ecommerce solution providers then a plug-in such as WooCommerce may be a good fit for your operations. It should be noted that WooCommerce is free to install, and upgrades are reasonably priced.
One of the reasons why many entrepreneur choose Shopify over WooCommerce is that that the former offers over 3,200 applications that you can use to better manage your operations. WooCommerce operates as an open source platform. They do have tens of thousands of plug-ins, but it can be difficult to determine which plug-ins will benefit your business as the selection is vast.
As it related to marketing, SEO is a major component of WooCommerce’s benefits. This is due to the fact that it is designed for the WordPress platform, which makes its users’ content highly visible among numerous search engines. If you are selling a limited number of goods (especially proprietary boutique products) then using this more straightforward application may be for you.
It should be noted that you will be required to manage your own SSL certificates and related payment processing security when using WooCommerce. On this front, Shopify is the better option as these features are automatically integrated into their suite.