How to create an online store fitting Enterprise-level business requirements

Due to worldwide technological growth and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the eCommerce market is highly developing. The rise can be clearly illustrated by statistics: online stores witnessed around 96% surge in web traffic in the period of Q4 2019 ㅡ Q4 2020 and it has been promised by major eCommerce experts it would continue to increase. For instance, it is expected to reach eCommerce sales of $5 trillion at the end of 2022 and $7 trillion by 2025.

In this article, we share how to create a successful enterprise eCommerce shop for mature companies step-by-step considering modern tools and essential market trends. It is not as hard as it seems. However, it is important to foresee many unobvious nuances of starting an eCommerce store as they could have a major impact when scaling your sales.

3 main steps of building an enterprise eCommerce solution

We highlight three main steps that cover all general aspects of developing most enterprise eCommerce solutions before and after launch:

• choosing an enterprise-level eCommerce platform;
• online store development;
• configuration of eCommerce promotional tools.

Let's consider each step in detail.

Choose an eCommerce platform for your enterprise-level store

In a nutshell, a software program called an eCommerce platform enables internet entrepreneurs to centrally handle their websites, marketing, sales, and operational activities. Finding the finest eCommerce software to enable scalable and long-term growth is one of the most important decisions you'll make to launch your store online.

Different sorts of eCommerce software exist, each with a unique assortment of built-in functions and add-ons. Make a prioritized list of criteria, including a list of both critical and less essential capabilities and features, to choose the option that will work best for your company. Moreover, before that, it is better to examine the open source and SaaS options.

Differences between open-source and SaaS eCommerce solutions

Most eCommerce specialists identify two types of software: open-source and SaaS. Each of these solutions has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, so it's crucial to fully comprehend these before deciding which is more suitable for your Enterprise-level company.

SaaS eCommerce software.

SaaS (software-as-a-service) is a subscription-based solution that is created and maintained by a third-party provider so that users may essentially "rent" the software without having to deal with the extra complexity of customizing and deploying a solution.

The main disadvantage of SaaS platforms compared to open source ones primarily is highly limited control over the software. Apart from that, a SaaS solution may have these drawbacks:

• lack of customization as source code cannot be changed. That is why you will be limited by the built-in functionality and business logic of a SaaS solution. As a result, it is impossible to individually set up your store based on your business requirements that are accepted by your company;
• no privacy of your data as you have to share it with a chosen service provider. Data cloning, data theft, and other major consequences can result from exposing your data. For instance, on September 2020 Shopify had a security breach, which resulted in exposing significant data of more than 200 stores and 5000 customers. Therefore, data privacy is an essential part when choosing an eCommerce platform for your Enterprise-level business;
• paying additional fees when scaling is quite widespread within SaaS eCommerce solutions. To have Enterprise-level features you may be required to pay around $2000 per month + additional charges from each transaction.

SaaS eCommerce takes some hassle off when managing an online store for small companies which are unable to hire their own IT team or to allocate some budget for outsourcing to an experienced web agency. Let's look at what pros it provides that are essential for some online entrepreneurs:

• fast launch of the shop for brands is assisted by SaaS systems. SaaS platforms frequently include intuitive user interfaces and pre-built themes that make it easy to get started quickly;
• no maintenance issues exist because the service provider is responsible for all support, and the customer may completely focus on his business;
• consistent technical support that is usually supported 24/7 with an ability to solve issues, as well as to advise about online store setting.

Last but not least, let's break down the total cost of building and running an eCommerce store on SaaS into categories:

• rates for monthly subscriptions range from $2000 to $10,000+ per month for Enterprise-level businesses;
• agency costs, if applicable;
• programs or add-ons;
• integrations with other systems if needed.

As you may see the number of expenses to create and run an online store on SaaS are few for small online stores, but it exponentially increases to at least thousands and even tens of thousands monthly for enterprise businesses due to additional expenses from agencies and the SaaS solution itself.

SaaS ideally helps SMBs with standard requirements to quickly start sales. Having in mind only a monthly fee helps businesses to focus on how to sell more products or services with existing resources.

However, if you reach a limit with a SaaS eCommerce software you might need to migrate to a more flexible and open-source solution and start over the process of creating an online store overpaying for the mistake of choosing an unsuitable platform.

Therefore, SaaS can be an ideal solution for a business that:

• sells small product quantity;
• has a small and local customer base;
• does not purport to scale and to enter other regions' or international markets;
• does not have specific business processes;
• does not have funds for calling in a developer or a solution partner to set up an online store;
• does not require a high brand identity;
• does not have a request for full control over sales and customer service data;
• is ready to share a stake of your revenue with a SaaS provider.

Based on the information above SaaS solutions are valuable and more convenient for micro- and small businesses with limited budgets.

Open-source eCommerce platform.

The second choice, known as an open-source platform, allows users complete access to the source code, allowing anyone to alter and adapt it to suit their requirements. Open-source is a wonderful choice for companies that desire total control over their eCommerce environment and is most popular among development- and IT-heavy enterprises. It can be also explained by these advantages of open-source eCommerce software:

• unlimited customization provides flexibility and allows you to make major changes to your solution. Any business requirements can be met, which means that an online store can be run based on your business processes and standards;
• full privacy of data is enabled for every online store owner since a software issuer does not have an access to any data set. Therefore, the risk of data theft, data cloning, and any other consequences is significantly low;
• ability to create a scalable website enables online store owners to add and manage an unlimited number of SKUs with any content, as well as customers. For every online store, Enterprise-level companies may rent a dedicated server or place a web shop on Private cloud hosting. It does not require sharing your hosting resources and data with other websites' owners, and allows reaching maximum productivity even when having a boost in sales and a large catalog of products;
• most platforms are free to download, which does not require paying monthly fees for renting (there are some open-source platforms or separated plans with subscriptions), transactional charges. Therefore, all built-in features are available without additional fees;

Being able to manage and tailor your online business to whatever you choose is one of the biggest benefits of open-source eCommerce. However, this kind of model has several limitations of open-source software use that you should be aware of:

• technical skills or attracting developers are required to customize and deploy your eCommerce website;
• eCommerce store support is fully in hands of a business. So online store owners and their teams, as well as solution partners, should keep an eye on updating to newer releases of a platform, dealing with databases, looking after updates of third-party extensions, and so on.

Finally, it is worth mentioning what is included in the cost of building an eCommerce store on an open-source platform. Here is a list of expenses you may need to consider:

• (possibly) license costs;
• hosting provider fees;
• costs for a web developer or web agency;
• purchasing extensions and themes.

It may seem a lot but not all these expenses are applicable for each eCommerce project. The price of setting up an online business will vary depending on the size of the store and the platform you choose.

Crucial features that should be in an Enterprise eCommerce platform

The value of each eCommerce platform is measured by what features and capabilities it has. Here is the list of features that a modern and scalable platform should have:

• mobile-friendly and responsive front-end that enables users to enter a website and make an order from any device;
• advanced SEO configurations: SEO-friendly URLs, sitemap settings, microdata for SEO, localizable URLs, breadcrumbs, URL canonicalization, etc;
• sophisticated marketing features: email marketing automatization, issuing gift cards, discounts and coupons to increase loyalty, as well as creating a blog that brings leads and improves overall SEO;
• high-level product management with customizable attributes and specifications, as well as product tags;
• security and compliance with many legal entities for secured payments;
• configurable checkout with the support of multiple languages, RTL, and multi-currency that help to scale up the store;
• multi-store support with management from a single dashboard;
• multi-vendor feature, which enables merchants to gain profits without stocking or completing a service;
• customer management and service that helps to effectively communicate with customers and support them using communication services, access control list (ACL), and specific rules and permissions for different categories of users;
• pricing features that enable merchants to set various rates for various consumer segments, conceal the costs of extremely desirable things, and make people to contact a sales person by enabling "call for price";
• neat inventory management helps business owners to determine actual stock and quantity available. Each product's backorder and pre-order status can be simply managed. The administration of stock according to product attributes (such as color and size), multiple warehouses, and partial deliveries are all supported;
• high productivity: the ability to place on a separated server with effective Load balancing that allows withstanding a huge load.

All these and other features are available out of the box on nopCommerce.

Apart from a built-in functionality, a modern eCommerce platform is supposed to have developed integrations with third-party services, as well as pluggable architecture to develop custom functionality. It enables developers to support omnichannel marketing, which helps to keep in touch with your customers on any selling platform.

Furthermore, providing Web API plugins may create headless eCommerce architecture that enables eCommerce store owners to integrate most of the services and applications to an eCommerce platform without interfering with the source code. It helps to get the best performance from various platforms.

What eCommerce platform is the best for enterprise business

Now you know about open-source and SaaS eCommerce store builders, as well as their pros and cons. According to the comparison between these types of platforms, open-source eCommerce software is an ideal solution for enterprise-level businesses.

Moreover, significant eCommerce features and functionalities are explained, so you can create your own criteria list to precisely choose an eCommerce software and compose a detailed technical inquiry.

Since the capabilities of open-source eCommerce platforms vary, it is essential to consider the best solutions that are available on the market.

Top open-source eCommerce platforms.

You have a lot of options if you're leaning toward open source. Here are a few of the top open-source platforms operating on the market right now:

• nopCommerce - a robust eCommerce solution that can be tailored to any business size or type. You won't need to hunt for a new platform as your company expands because nopCommerce can power both massive customized stores and simple basic ones. Multi-store and multi-vendor features, stock management, a headless eCommerce, and an infinite amount of products to upload are all available features;
• PrestaShop - a free open-source platform that you may customize to suit your company's needs by purchasing add-ons and plugins. The PHP programming language and the MySQL database management system are both supported by PrestaShop;
• WooCommerce - a free, open-source PHP plugin that may be used to add backend eCommerce features to a frontend WordPress website. If you want to quickly monetize an existing WordPress site, WooCommerce might be a suitable option. However, scaling WooCommerce may be challenging because it is expensive and time-consuming to add more payment, catalog management, and marketing functions;
• Magento (now Adobe Commerce) - a solid option for small to medium-sized organizations looking to build quick and inexpensive sites. There are three separate versions of Magento: Adobe Commerce (formerly known as Magento Enterprise Edition), Magento Open Source, and Magento Commerce Cloud. Free to download, Magento Open Source lacks key features you might desire in the future, such as B2B capabilities like price lists or an intuitive page builder;
• OpenCart - an open-source solution for managing online stores. It interfaces with more than 20 payment gateways and eight shipping options, using a MySQL database and HTML elements. OpenCart is available for free download and usage, but you can pay extra for premium themes, plugins, and support.

Making a final choice

It's a key decision to choose an open-source eCommerce platform. To avoid having to undertake a risky move later, you should pick the best all-in-one platform now that will also grow with you.

One of the best ways is to look at the positioning of an eCommerce platform, like nopCommerce, since some of its features and integrations, as well as customization capabilities, can be built for certain markets, niches, or business models, such as:

• automotive;
• fashion;
• B2B;
• food and beverage;
• international sales;
• health and beauty;
• industrial and scientific;
• furniture.

Moreover, consider if an eCommerce platform has popular and advanced payment, shipping, and tax gateways with a high number of necessary configurations that enable merchants to set any charges and conditions, as well as return and refund policies. Your team or an external solution partner can help you to integrate and set these up. They can be usually found on a marketplace of extensions.

Taking all these into account, It has been examined that nopCommerce, an open-source eCommerce platform, is more reliable and suitable for enterprise-level businesses due to its high scalability, functionality-rich backend, availability for many integrations, and flexibility of data management.

Start an enterprise online store development

As you pick software, on which you build your eCommerce website, it is time to start customizing, designing, and filling your store with products and content.

It might be different for various entrepreneurs, due to their individual development and financial background. In this article, we consider the most common ways of setting up an online store.

Customize features and business logic of the eCommerce website, if necessary

Depending on the industry your business is in, certain eCommerce functionalities are required for daily operations, as well as for future growth. So it is important to have a list of all necessary features with detailed explanations of what data it works with and the desired result it is supposed to produce.

A chosen eCommerce software may lack the required features or, on the contrary, there is a need to disable certain functionalities. In this case, your personal solution should be developed. All technical specifications can be implemented in two ways:

• hire your eCommerce development team:
  • Pros ─ you have more control over the project, required changes are implemented instantly, and it drives scalability of your eCommerce store;
  • Cons ─ it is usually the most expensive solution that brings profits in a quite long time. It also requires resources to find, instruct, and motivate specialists;
• hire a solution partner:
  • Pros ─ development is done by a group of professionals, expenses are more optimized, and there is no need to constantly maintain a team on site;
  • Cons ─ it takes a little bit more time to deliver requirements to a solution partner, and there is less control over development.

Work on the design of your storefront

After finalizing the backend of your eCommerce store, it is vital to customize the look of the website. Like business logic and feature customization, the design of your storefront can be created and implemented in two ways:

• with an external design partner 一 like hiring a usual solution partner, it requires an additional budget that helps to develop individual storefronts;
• pick, install and configure a prepared theme 一 more budgetary way of creating a front-end solution.

Choose a template that represents your business and connects to customers.

Many eCommerce platforms have some prepared and customizable themes that enable store owners to simply create an individual look and feel of a website. Choosing a template can be based on how it represents your main product or service. Also, it is significant to look at reviews of themes.

Pick a theme that best matches your needs, and then adjust it to fit your company brand:

• customize fonts and text sizes;
• add high-quality visuals and branded assets;
• configure your color scheme;
• embed social media accounts and branded content;
• experiment with different page layouts and product listing types.

Most of them are grouped or included in compilations on the eCommerce website builder website. The theme should be complemented by your offerings and brand imagery. Try to visualize a chosen theme with your products or services. Test it on different devices or by changing the dimensions of your browser's app.

Adding products and filling pages with content

As the back-end and front-end of your enterprise eCommerce store are built based on your requirements, you may start filling it with products and services, as well as other content (blog, About Us page, etc.). It is essential to set up a product page not only in terms of design but SEO.

This process can be completed depending on what background you have. If you already have an online store there will be a need to migrate and optimize existing content. Otherwise, you will need to collect information about products and services and compose texts about your company and how it runs. Then, you may need to set up a process to update product and service information automatically.

Automate adding products and services with an optimized page.

To optimize time updating each product, use business information systems, like PIM, ERP, WMS, etc. By integrating these platforms into eCommerce software, enterprise companies can provide actual information to their customers, as well as optimize time and resources.

Discuss this aspect with a solution partner or your own developer team to pick necessary systems and technically integrate them. Due to pluggable architecture and Web APIs, nopCommerce can be easily integrated with any business system.

To make your product descriptions convertible with optimized micro markup, the product page can be configured with a SEO-friendly URL and heading optimization, which is also available on nopCommerce. Integrate instruments for analysis, such as Google Analytics or Power BI, to track all types of traffic and conversions, and estimate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Configure eCommerce promotion tools

Next, you may set up marketing instruments to bring and constantly grow traffic to an eCommerce store. Here we present essential tools that should be set up for e-mail marketing automation, PPC (pay-per-click) ads, social media marketing, and in-store promotion.

Set up e-mail marketing automation

You probably consider email marketing, for delivering the latest news and offers to your customers. With nopCommerce, all types of e-mails can be configured and sent from an admin panel, if built-in, or using an extension of an e-mail marketing technology provider.

However, you may also use an email marketing integration, like Sendinblue, that can help to easily create a newsletter and compose segments. Moreover, marketing specialists can fully evaluate the effectiveness of each campaign to increase the ROI of your newsletters. Sendinblue helps to fully gain all benefits of email marketing that are shown below.

You can read the article that compares two main email marketing automation tools: Sendinblue and Mailchimp.

Integrate social media and marketplace platforms

You may transfer product information from a created catalog into a shopping section of your social media page and even into some of the famous marketplaces, like Amazon, eBay, etc. via extensions.

Furthermore, most modern eCommerce platforms, like nopCommerce, have share buttons pinned to each product page. They can be configured and used in your affiliate and referral marketing campaigns.

Launch Facebook and Google Ads campaigns

You may consider using paid advertising as it may raise your brand awareness and bring customers quite quickly. Therefore, it is vital to plug in an integration that may utilize catalog information for building ads and tracking all KPIs.

One of the biggest Google Ads and Shopping providers is CleverAds. It can help through the whole process of a PPC campaign that is represented below.

Raising loyalty of an eCommerce store

Finally, on-site instruments that raise the loyalty of an eCommerce store can be configured. Four main tools can help eCommerce businesses with that:

• coupons;
• reward points;
• loyalty cards;
• recurring payments.

All these eCommerce marketing features are available out of the box with advanced configuration in some software for building an online store, including nopCommerce.

Examples of successful nopCommerce stores

Here are three examples of neat and profitable websites that are made with the help of our Solution partners.

TACO Metals

TACO Metals, which was founded in 1959, and its TACO Marine branch rose to the top of the marine manufacturing field. To create a system that could accommodate dealers, distributors, and end customers in a single system, it was necessary to employ a customer relationship management with eCommerce features.

The new website's tailored functionality satisfied all of the users' requirements. Once the website was created, TACO Metals saw:

• a boost in revenue of 30%;
• 40% decrease in time-to-market;
• a cut in operational expenditures by 36%.

Caster Technology

Caster Technology made the decision to establish an online presence in addition to its chain of brick-and-mortar stores. Pushing their 2 million SKUs stored in an ERP system to the new store was a difficulty. It wasn't simple to fill up the descriptions for every product. Additionally, because this was a multi-store solution, there had to be a mechanism for the same product to be described in each location differently.

As a result, 2 million SKUs were automatically and manually pushed to the nopCommerce store. On a single platform, 12 stores were developed; the further goal has been to reach 50.

Mars Air

Mars Air was prepared to go forward in the digital sphere to expand its business after 55 years in the HVAC sector. Mars Air chose to speak with GoldenComm, a nopCommerce Solution partner, to discover a solution for their company's requirements.

Stabilizing the website was the first thing that had to be done. A complete website makeover was also necessary due to a new business strategy. Mars Air was also eager to learn more about visitor identities. Mars Air intended to use its website as a lead generation tool for their sales personnel by providing useful content.

Because of its solid performance and plethora of features, nopCommerce was chosen as the eCommerce platform for this undertaking. The platform can manage the quantity of SKUs that Mars Air has with ease. Additionally, nopCommerce was the ideal platform for future development due of its customizability.

The new website, in the opinion of Steve Rosol, president and chief executive officer of Mars Air Systems, was more comprehensive, informative, and simple to use.

GoldenComm's marketing services and the redesigned website helped Mars Air accomplish the following goals:

• phone call leads climbed by 120% over the previous year;
• requests for quotes increased by 19%;
• internet traffic increased by 18%;
• the average session increased by 17%.

Wrapping Up

Considering the advantages of the modern eCommerce market, it is obvious to say that enterprise businesses easily benefit from launching an online store: from gaining more sales and new customers to creating new products and ideas.

After choosing an appropriate open-source eCommerce platform for your business, a store owner can almost instantly create an exceptional customer experience and increase their clientele.

Although creating an eCommerce store can at first seem like a high wall to climb, with careful planning and a clear understanding of your company's requirements alongside an experienced solution partner you will be able to build a powerful eCommerce system.

In a nutshell, developing your ideal eCommerce solution should be around:

• listing and implementing all the crucial features and integrations with the configuration;
• building a brand-matching and responsive storefront design;
• automation, and interconnecting most business processes to optimize your resources and build an exceptional customer experience.

As you can notice from this article, nopCommerce is a great eCommerce platform for enterprise businesses. It has all the necessary components and functionality to build customized and advanced solutions.

After comparing these parameters with expensive platforms, you may notice that popular free solutions do not concede to high-value ones in terms of capabilities.

For instance, nopCommerce is a powerful competitor to expensive eCommerce platforms, as it is free and includes all necessary features and capabilities to build an Enterprise-level online store.