E-commerce platform

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E-Commerce Platform

Introduction

An e-commerce platform is a software application that allows online businesses to manage their website, marketing, sales, and operations.E-commerce business implies any business exchange directed on the Internet. The most well-known case of e-commerce is online shopping, which is purchasing and selling of products through the web on any gadget. E-commerce can likewise involve different sorts of exercises, for example, online trading, dropshipping, online ticketing, and web banking.

E-commerce platforms are built using different languages for their front-end and back-end development. These languages are used for various purposes and handle different functions and aspects of an e-commerce platform. The majority of the existing e-commerce platforms are created with the help of commonly used programming languages such as Ruby on Rails, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), JavaScript, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor or earlier known as Personal Home Page), Python, Java, and .Net.

History

History of e-commerce goes back to 1991 when the Internet was opened to public use. Since that date, a large number of businesses are running on this e-commerce platform.

From the start, the term e-commerce implied the procedure of execution of business exchanges electronically with the assistance of the main advancements, for example, EDI(Electronic Data Interchange ) and EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) which gave an open door for clients to trade business data and do electronic transactions. The capacity to utilize these technologies showed up in the late 1970s and permitted business organizations and associations to send commercial documentation electronically.

Despite the fact that the Internet started to progress in popularity among the overall population in 1994, it took roughly four years to build up the security protocols, for instance, HTTP (HyperText Transfer protocol) and DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) which permitted quick access and a constant connection with the Internet. In 2000, a large number of business organizations in the United States and Western Europe represented their services on the World Wide Web. The meaning of the word e-commerce changed, and individuals started to define the term e-commerce as the way toward purchasing available merchandise and services over the Internet utilizing secure connections and electronic payment services.

Types of hosting environment

Open-source e-commerce platform

In this type of platform, every aspect of the code can be changed. Open-source e-commerce frameworks are free. One has control over the design and how the store works. The business owner can control themes, plugins, and hosting. A community builds these systems. There is great assist available from other developers. Examples of Open-source platform providers are BigCommerce, Ecwid, Volusion, 3dcart ,Big Cartel.

SaaS e-commerce platform

SaaS stands for Software-as-a-Service. It is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed to a user and accessed via the internet. SaaS eCommerce platforms then are cloud-based systems that are accessed on any web browser. One of the biggest advantages of SaaS platforms is that the software isn't installed on-premise or maintained by the user. Instead, the e-Commerce system runs on the provider's hosted servers. The 3^rd-party provider then is responsible for the security, performance, and maintenance of the application on the provider's servers. Examples of SaaS providers are Shopify, BigCommerce, and Volusion.

Headless e-commerce platform

Headless eCommerce development is essentially a situation where the front-end of a site is separated from the eCommerce platform and other systems. By separating the 'presentation layer' (the front-end) from the commerce layer (the back end), a retailer can gain more flexibility in serving rich content and brand experiences, as well as overall user experience. Examples of eCommerce platforms that support a headless approach are CommerceTools, ElasticPath, Moltin, Magento, BigCommerce, SAP CX Commerce Cloud, OroCommerce and Spryker

Hosting environment

Web hosting is a facility that allows individuals and companies to post their websites on the World Wide Web. These websites are hosted on computers known as servers.

Shared Hosting

It is a hosting where numerous sites are situated on a similar server. The quantity of sites relies upon the hosting provider and the arrangement. Higher the quantity of sites on a single server, lesser the expense of hosting. This is advantageous for amateurs who have limited funds and have begun recently. The disadvantage of this sort is owners have less control of the site. Since all sites on a mutual host put a demand on the server's resources, an individual can keep running into issues if one of them is hogging all the handling power through increased traffic or errors in code. This leaves every other person to seek the rest, leading to downtime (means site isn't reachable) or decreased loading speed. It is a phenomenon called the "bad neighbor effect," and one of the principal reasons shared hosting is the most problematic of the various sorts of web hosting. The monthly cost ranges from $5 - $10. Bluehost, Siteground, and InMotion provide this type of hosting.

Virtual Private Server

It is advanced than shared hosting as far as stability and reliability. Around 10 - 20 sites are restricted to every server, and this diminishes the interest on the server itself. Another advantage of the VPS permits customization of the environment. All sites on VPS share a single physical server, and it contains various and separate virtual machines. Because of isolated virtual machines, the issue of "bad neighbor effect" is overcome. In VPS, with more arrangement controls, it may cause the removal of crucial files or software. Another drawback is that the expense of VPS is more than lower-level arrangements. The monthly expense of a VPS is about $30-$200 on. VPS arrangements are offered by inMotion Hosting and Dreamhost.

Dedicated Hosting

As the name suggests, one has a server altogether committed for oneself. Further, it eliminates all the 'bad neighbor' issues essentially because there are none. Customizations concerning OS, amount, and kind of memory, other hardware is possible. On the extreme side of things, one could get an unmanaged administration where one would need to introduce the OS, every tool expected to run a web server, give security checking, malware removal, etc. On the other hand, an individual can procure a server administrator. However, that carries extra expenses with it. This sort of arrangement is costly, and costs are roughly $60-$350+. LiquidWeb, GreenGeeks and PickaWeb provide dedicated hosting services.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting comprises of a virtual server (instead of a physical server) running in a distributed computing condition. It is assembled, hosted, and conveyed utilizing a distributed computing stage utilizing the web, and can be accessed remotely. Cloud servers have all the resources they require to run and can work as free units. The greatest advantage of cloud facilitating is flexibility, and it gives resources on a need premise. This additionally benefits for securing the system against DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks. The owner of the site needs to pay just for the resources. The main drawback of cloud hosting is that the expense of cloud facilitating is self-assertive. On account of increased traffic, costs may go up. The expense of cloud facilitating changes according to the requirements. Some companies that give cloud hosting are Dreamhost, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, and Linode.

Essential features of an e-commerce platform

• The ability to use third-party plugins means adaptability, customization, and innovation. These options are significantly useful for specific possibilities, which may not be a part of a basic package.
• Getting exact business intelligence data from a wide assortment of system sources can be a challenge. Useful business intelligence enables one to examine the transaction extensively and take advantage of opportunities as they emerge.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) eCommerce arrangements can be dubious, SEO is a quick-moving region, sensitive to changes in web search algorithms, and hard to define reasonably.
• Although customers are still bound to search on mobile than purchase, mobile support for an eCommerce platform is as yet a critical factor for many retailers.
• The main reason to utilize an OMS (Order Management System) framework is to decrease order processing time. OMS can likewise be effectively coordinated with an online store to affect some necessary eCommerce measurements, such as order accuracy, on-time delivery, and stock visibility.
• In the present retail condition, all things considered, sales are spread out over numerous online and offline sales channels. Thus, the high significance attributed to managing products, listings, and requests in a multi-channel environment.
• An individual’s site may look the best on the planet, yet if it cannot be easily updated, at that point, the capacity to respond to client information as it presents itself will be severely restricted. Successful marketing is a powerful driver of increased revenue. From product and catalog management to pictures, recently viewed items, and tracking capacities, efficient product management will keep clients returning for more purchases.
• The most significant function is a high-quality site search. To improve conversion rates, at that point, high-quality site search capacity is vital. Regardless of whether one is selling black patent leather or a retro pattern scarf, how site search processes keywords and applies filters can hugely affect sales of the business owner.

Benefits of e-commerce platform

E-commerce platforms offer several benefits to a business. Such as promoting the sale of goods, the publicizing of a product, organization, or venture to increase sales or public awareness, enhanced search, pricing, organize the planning, production, marketing, and other tasks related to the creation and distribution of a product. Also, customers on e-commerce platforms have to create an account. Through it, business owners have easy access to customer data, which is a mutual benefit for both the business and its consumers. The company running through e-commerce platforms does not have any fixed schedules, and products can be sold internationally, which leads to more number of clients. There is a higher profit margin as compared to brick and mortar store.

References

1. https://www.doofinder.com/en/blog/what-is-e-commerce
2. https://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html
3. https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/open-source-ecommerce-platforms
4. https://www.nchannel.com/blog/saas-ecommerce-platforms/
5. https://paulnrogers.com/introduction-to-headless-ecommerce/
6. https://hostingfacts.com/different-types-of-web-hosting/

This article "E-commerce platform" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:E-commerce platform. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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