WHERE TO SELL? PICKING THE RIGHT PLATFORM FOR YOUR ECOMMERCE BUSINESS

Having a winning business concept is not going to be enough these days. After all, visibility is just as important in eCommerce as it is in real-world business.

Now, sites like Wix and Shopify are great places where you can set your shop up. However, which of the sites out there are actually the best for your business. To answer that, there are a few factors that you have to remember. If you’re just wondering which platform is better, Wix or Shopify, then we highly recommend reading this guide by SupplyGem.

• Pricing and Customer Services

Hosting is never for free. After all, the online marketplaces have to keep everything as functional as possible so transactions made between you and your customers are going to run as smoothly as possible.

Now, each marketplace has its own pricing for services. Some would be expensive than others as they offer more. Regardless of what platform you choose, always remember that the quality of services you will get should be directly proportionate to the amount you paid for it

For instance, subscription fees at Amazon could go up to $39.99 per month depending on the plan. The tradeoff, however, is assistance in making your digital stall visible to the market through cross-referrals as well as technical services to keep transactions hassle-free. The point is that the services should be worth every penny you pay.

• Payment Options

Aside from the amount you have to pay for the marketplace, you should also consider how customers are going to pay for your products. Some marketplaces don’t allow for 3rd party payments like through PayPal or Payoneer which can be frustrating for customers.

In this aspect, what you should be looking for is convenience. As such, make sure that that platform allows for customers to pay you through their payment processor of choice. This should give your customers the choice on how to pay you while reducing the chances of them canceling the sale by bailing out on their digital carts.

• Mobile-Friendliness

A third of the population of Internet users today doesn’t access the web through a desktop. In fact, most eCommercetransactions are done through the use of a mobile device.

With that in mind, the platform of your choice should immediately adjust its navigation systems to meet the needs of a smaller screen. You can even do this on a desktop by reducing the window size when on that site. And check if the layout and navigation system automatically adjusts to the smaller screen.

Aside from automatic size adjustments, the site should be compatible with touch-based interfaces. After all, the last thing you want your customers to do is to send out the wrong order just because the site recognized an input different from what their finger pressed on.

• Data Security

No person out there would want to transact with a site where their information can be used against them. Security is actually a major concern in eCommerce sites these days as the nature of transactions require for people to put in valuable information just to make sure that their orders are delivered properly.

Since the risk is unavoidable, the best way to deal with it is through mitigation. A good online marketplace does this through layers upon layers of security to ensure that legit sellers are interacting with equally legit buyers. Also, extra failsafe must be implemented in case something goes wrong in the middle of a sale.

A good indicator that a site has sufficient data protection is if it supports HTTPS and SSL security protocols. These programs protect data being entered into these sites by encrypting them, rendering them unusable to attackers.

• Scalability

Your eCommerce business’ needs will change as it grows. As such, the platform of your choice will only ask you to pay for services that you need right now and not what you no longer have use for.

This is what is called scaling where the online platform changes the set of services it offers to you to meet the needs of your business. For instance, if your online business is about to expand on its product line. The platform will offer increases in storage capacity and other related services.

The point is that the platform should always offer services tailor-made to your business’ needs. Also, these scale-able services should be offered at prices that are affordable.

Is Your Website Hacked? How To Find Out

Website hacking is often times a stealthy affair. There are many websites in the world today that are compromised but the owners do not know about it. it is estimated that 18.5 million, or 1% of all websites are hacked at any given moment. This is so because of the increased usage of stealthy technology to take over websites by hackers. If your website is hacked and you have no idea, you can suffer for a long time without knowing what the problem is. Website attackers tend to try to extend the period of an attack as long as possible so that they can continue to benefit from your work without your knowledge. In order to know whether your website is hacked or not, you need to check a few things. Let us look at some issues that you need to look at to know about the safety of your website.

How to check your site for possible hacking activity

 When it comes to checking your site for vulnerabilities, there are a number of things that you must put in your checklist. Some of the things that you should ensure you have covered include:

• Scanning the website with an antivirus program
• Manually checking the files on the website

The first step is quite easy as you can download a good scanning program from the web. Scanning through your site can help you identify the viruses, links, XSS scripts and other issues that might be prevalent in the site. Various security tools provided by companies like Google and WordPress are a good place to start. Manually checking the files on your website is also a good idea. You should, however, leave this work to a professional if you have no experience in code. According to HostInspection, checking the website files manually should be done regularly

How to clean your site

After going through a thorough checking process, the next step is to do the cleaning. Cleaning is necessary to remove active threats or those that have the potential to be security threats. When preparing to do the cleaning, you should ensure that all your files are backed up. The cleaning process can sometimes result in the loss of data especially if some files are corrupted. Website cleaning involves removing all suspicious codes, links, and files. If you can manually identify these security flaws, you can remove them manually and replace them with a clean copy.

Cleaning should also involve the use of tools that are specifically designed to make deletions and modifications. After you have successfully cleaned your website, you should take a further step of changing all your secure login information. All the previous passwords used to access the site, cPanel, WordPress platform and other areas of the site should be changed. Doing this is important as it helps prevent further attacks from the same sources. You should also ensure that there are no scheduled jobs from the server after the cleanup process. Cron jobs often end up reinfecting a newly cleaned website.

Keeping the website safe from future threats

The security of your website also involves protection from future attacks. There are quite a number of things you can do to this end. The first thing to do is to keep a closer eye on your website. You should schedule a regular monitoring process where you analyze the various aspects of the site for their safety. We can use programs like Google Analytics to see the kind of traffic you are receiving from the web. You should also keep a record of the kind of traffic sources and SPAM that might come with certain traffic. Any changes in regard to the type of traffic you receive, the sources of the traffic and the user interaction should help you identify when there is an attack.

Another issue you must consider is using a proactive security approach. Today, over 90% of companies are prioritizing proactive security. Most website owners tend to react only when an attack has happened. This is not the way to go in the modern day. You should always be ahead of the hackers in terms of providing security. Using strong passwords, keeping unnecessary parties from accessing the administrative platforms and keeping all junk out of your site are some simple proactive steps to take. Using the right kind of security tools and avoiding unsafe themes can also help boost security. In overall, being at the forefront of managing the security aspect will help you keep your site safe at all times