Online shopping has seen rapid growth among consumers in recent years. The abundance of products and services, the ability to compare prices quickly, and its convenience have turned online shopping into a new consumer habit. Consequently, businesses from various industries have accelerated their online operations. Today, many companies of different scales prefer to use off-the-shelf e-commerce packages, while others choose to benefit from customized software. In this article, we’ll discuss e-commerce packages available to businesses and their advantages.
What Are Ready E-Commerce Packages?
E-commerce packages are software infrastructures developed by software companies to enable online sales. Businesses that opt for e-commerce packages for their operations do not want to allocate a budget for custom software or wish to take advantage of the benefits of using off-the-shelf e-commerce packages.
Businesses using e-commerce packages can customize their website designs for desktop and mobile use after choosing the most suitable format according to their needs. Although each e-commerce package may vary, off-the-shelf e-commerce packages offer different options for domain, design, server hosting, updates, and other requirements.
Advantages of Using E-Commerce Packages
Today, off-the-shelf e-commerce packages, which are preferred by many businesses, can provide services related to membership, inventory tracking, orders, shipping, blogs, and content management.
Although these features may vary depending on the chosen e-commerce package, the general advantages of using off-the-shelf e-commerce packages for businesses can be listed as follows:
- Ready-made e-commerce packages are more advantageous than custom software in terms of price.
- Advanced e-commerce packages usually have systems that are constantly developing and renewed by centering the user experience.
- Ready-made e-commerce packages facilitate many processes, such as stock and order tracking, delivery and shipping, multiple product entry, advertising, blogging, and content management, that businesses must carry out in their online operations.
- To realize online operations quickly, mobile and desktop-compatible website design can be completed.
- With ready-made e-commerce packages, payment options such as card or payment at the door and/or payment by wire transfer / EFT method can be easily integrated into online payment options. As we will explain later, advanced e-commerce solutions offer direct integration with Payment Orchestration Platforms. In this way, for example, online stores that integrate Craftgate can manage multiple payment methods and banks from a single center, overcoming the native limitations of the e-commerce package.
- Ready-made e-commerce packages are usually easy to install and use. This way, you can easily make any changes you want to make to your website. In addition, many ready-made e-commerce solutions also provide their users with written and video guides to facilitate panel usage.
Most Popular E-Commerce Packages
There are numerous off-the-shelf e-commerce packages available to businesses today. These solutions can be from international software companies like Shopify, WooCommerce, Drupal Commerce, and OpenCart. These solutions can be used either for free or at a cost. For example, WooCommerce, Drupal Commerce, and OpenCart are open-source software and can be used for free. Other software solutions offer different package options at different prices.
What to Consider When Choosing A Ready E-Commerce Package
As mentioned, changing consumer habits and the development of technology have transformed e-commerce into a vital part of our lives, leading to increased competition in the market. To stand out among competitors and encourage users to buy your products or services, you need to plan your business carefully.
When creating your online store, factors such as determining payment and shipping providers, planning advertising processes, setting up pop-up notifications, creating gift vouchers, obtaining marketing permissions, and more must be considered. Therefore, your chosen e-commerce package should be suitable for planning these processes effectively.
When determining the most suitable off-the-shelf e-commerce solution for e-commerce processes, make sure to consider whether it offers the following features:
- User-friendly web design options
- An easy-to-use admin panel
- On-page and off-page SEO optimization tools
- Inventory and order tracking capabilities
- Membership options
- Unlimited category and product addition features
- Gift voucher and coupon modules
- SSL certification
- Newsletter support
- Order and stock tracking module
- Integration of virtual POS systems
- Filtering and sorting module
- Cookie usage, user agreements, disclosure, and consent text designs with checkbox displays
How do you receive payments via Ready E-Commerce Packages?
As previously mentioned, the growing role of online shopping in our lives has also influenced consumers’ payment preferences. Customers expect to make payments using different methods, both online and in-store. Therefore, regarding e-commerce processes, you should offer customers various payment options alongside credit card payments. Additionally, consider offering loyalty programs, installment options for different credit card families, and more.
To do this, your chosen e-commerce infrastructure must provide the opportunity to use these payment methods. If you use a ready-made e-commerce package for your online store, you can receive online payments using the payment methods supported by the software. All you need to do is agree with a bank or relevant payment provider. Then, you can enter the necessary information from these banks or payment providers into your user panel via the software infrastructure.
However, the payment capabilities of e-commerce packages vary. Today, modern e-commerce infrastructures allow you to access a global payment ecosystem by integrating with Payment Orchestration Platforms rather than connecting to payment service providers one by one.
Off-the-shelf e-commerce packages usually provide users with the opportunity to work with a limited number of banks or payment providers. Therefore, those who use these solutions may be restricted to using a limited number of payment methods when receiving online payments.
Nevertheless, you can overcome these limitations by using Craftgate’s Payment Orchestration Platform. Even if your e-commerce package does not natively support a specific bank or payment institution, you can work with them through Craftgate.
By integrating the Craftgate module into infrastructures such as Shopify, Prestashop, WooCommerce, Drupal Commerce, or OpenCart, you gain a central hub where you can manage all your PSPs, effectively bypassing the package's limitations.
To explore the details of e-commerce packages that allow you to activate the Craftgate Payment Orchestration, you can visit here. If you would like more information, feel free to contact us at info@craftgate.io.
