The eCommerce market has witnessed tremendous growth over the past few years as more and more consumers are preferring online shopping. This has unlocked plenty of new opportunities for thousands of entrepreneurs today. To make the most of this growth, small businesses wish to start their online stores to reach more customers.
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When building an eCommerce platform has become dead simple either with WordPress plugins or readymade solutions from multiple providers, every aspiring entrepreneurÔÇÖs dream of building their eCommerce platform has come one step closer to reality. However, one question that has always risen among entrepreneurs – which of the two approaches is better for building an eCommerce platform?
LetÔÇÖs have an overview of the two to have a better understanding when choosing between them.
eCommerce Plugins
eCommerce plugins are software add-ons that are installed on CMS platforms to enhance its capabilities. As WordPress came into existence as a blogging platform, the eCommerce plugins make it a capable platform to run an eCommerce website within a limited budget and time. Some popular eCommerce plugins for WordPress include – WooCommerce, BigCommerce and many more.
Licensed-Based eCommerce Software
This is a software that helps business owners build and launch eCommerce websites to sell products, manage inventory, and accept & process payments. The software is equipped with all the essential features required to build an eCommerce marketplace. In addition to this, the software is customizable enough to add any specific functionality as per the business requirements.
Purchasing a licensed-based software is a one-time investment and no further recurring charges after that.
Comparing eCommerce Plugins with License-Based Software
Read along to know about the points of comparison between the two approaches.
Security
While eCommerce plugins are well-known for extending the functionality of eCommerce platforms, they do not pay much attention to security. For instance, WordPress has been in the industry for the past many years and therefore, has become the target for hackers all over the world.
Moreover, the platform is open-source making it more vulnerable to malware attacks. As a result, hackers and malicious worms continue to attack the websites using these plugins, disrupting the regular rhythm of the business. Large-scale enterprises cannot afford a security breach on their website, which eventually damages the companyÔÇÖs reputation and leads to the website being removed from GoogleÔÇÖs index.
Standalone solutions have a proper development team in place to patch up your system at the earliest should anything go wrong. They are capable to handle any cyber attack and are quite reliable for security. If security is your major concern, you may want to switch to a standalone solution for your eCommerce website.
Learn About the Security Features of our Standalone Software in Detail
Website Performance
eCommerce Plugins can affect website speed as they often require additional CSS and JavaScript files to be loaded on the page. That means the website has to load more assets each time a user visits the page. Moreover, they offer minimum to almost no control over the performance of the platform.
If you keep adding more features to the website, those assets also keep adding up which will eventually impact the website’s performance. One cannot optimize the performance of the system to meet modern standards for speed, UX, and responsiveness. This is another reason to go with standalone solutions when building an eCommerce platform.
eCommerce standalone solutions are built specifically for building eCommerce platforms and hence, come pre-integrated with all the basic and advanced features required in an eCommerce platform.
Compatibility
Though there are a number of useful APIs in the plugins, it sometimes can be problematic to use multiple APIs simultaneously due to compatibility issues. Many APIs also restrict the use of other features in the platform. A skilled developer is required to resolve this issue.
For a readymade standalone solution, all the necessary features are already present in the software and integration of any new feature is easily possible as the software is highly customizable to accommodate any specific requirements.
Core Features
No eCommerce platform is complete unless it consists of features aiding in online buying like product listing, shipping APIs, product search, payment gateways, and many more. Most plugins come with basic functionalities, however, separate plugins need to be installed for all advanced features. On the other hand, standalone solutions include most of the basic and advanced features as a part and parcel of their core package. Since they are built to support eCommerce platforms, this reduces the time and compatibility issues that may arise in websites built using plugins.
Scalability
In view of certain issues like improper server management, cheap infrastructure, lack of decent caching, and incorrect data management, eCommerce plugins cannot be considered if one is planning to scale the business down the line. These plugins are not capable of dealing with thousands of users accessing the platform simultaneously.
Along with this, they also make the website heavy and slow. However, standalone software are built keeping the scalability feature in mind and offer the maximum possibility to scale the platform according to the growing needs of the business.
Ownership Cost
There is a huge difference in cost when it comes to building platforms using eCommerce plugins. The price of the platform increases exponentially with the regular renewal and continued support which forces one to shell out big bucks eventually making it infeasible for the business. Moreover, the forced updates and upgrades in the plugins also add up to the cost of running the platform.
On the contrary, standalone solutions include most of the features and are free of any recurring costs.
Over to You
Choosing between eCommerce plugins and standalone solutions can have significant consequences on your business that can be felt in the long run. These plugins can be customized to boost the performance of the platform, however, one might face compatibility and security issues from time to time.
Standalone solutions have built-in functionalities that are ready at your disposal. They offer a lot of customization options that can suit your eCommerce platform in a better way. One such standalone software is Yo!Kart which is fully customizable and without any recurring fees.
Yo!Kart – A License-Based eCommerce Software
With an array of in-built modules including product management, marketing features, conversion-focused features, reporting & analytics, and much more the software becomes an ideal platform to connect buyers and sellers. The software comes pre-integrated with multiple payment gateways and shipping APIs to streamline the online buying and selling process.
In addition to that, Yo!Kart is capable to support multiple revenue streams helping business owners to accomplish their ROI goals. Providing smooth and uninterrupted transactions between the buyers and sellers, Yo!Kart has proved to be a comprehensive solution to launch a feature-rich eCommerce platform.
