There are a number of eCommerce products to choose from that range from hosted (ebay, Amazon), to free open sourced (OSCommerce, Magento), to licensed (AspDotNetStoreFront, Interprise Suite eCommerce). Each has its strengths and weaknesses and finding the right fit depends greatly on the types of products you are selling and the size of your budget. There are 3 key strategic considerations when choosing a platform: Inventory management, SEO,  and Cost.

1) Inventory Management and Point of Sale:

Managing inventory is tough. Managing the same inventory in two places is ridiculous. If you have an existing inventory management system in place, you should look for an eCommerce solution that can synchronize or integrate with your existing software.

If you have a brick and mortar operation but are only putting a small subset of products on the Web, consider the future. It will be a lot easier to work from an inventory management / Point of Sale solution and push products to the Web than to build an on-line inventory and try to link that with your Point of Sale later. Look for a package that integrates Inventory Management, PoS and eCommerce at a minimum.

2) SEO Friendliness:

Let’s face it, SEO is no longer a competitive advantage on the Internet; it is a necessity. You will spend time and money initially and in the long run to attract customers to your site. You should be very careful when choosing an eCommerce platform that it formats HTML and URLs in an SEO friendly manner. Most current eCommerce platforms will do this, but some are better than others. Part 3 is dedicated to SEO considerations.

3) Cost Factors:

Typically, the key strategic decision in choosing a platform is if you can get it to do what you need within your allotted budget.  The following are areas that will cost you time and money when implementing your eCommerce solution:

• Software Licenses
• Web Hosting
• Site configuration and Product Setup
• Graphics Design and Layout
• Custom Feature Development
• Payment Gateway Integration

The trick is to pick the software that will minimize your costs in these areas while providing the maximum alignment with your product marketing strategy.

Software Licenses

If your needs are simple, you can probably get away with available open-source (free!) software. As your needs become more complex, there is often a trade off between license fees and custom development. A open source site may cost $10K in customization to get it to do what a $1K licensed shopping cart may do out of the box.

eCommerce Web Hosting

There are many providers who offer eCommerce software as a service (SaaS), where you can essentially rent an eCommerce site and payment system. This may be a way of offsetting expensive license fees, or a cost effective way of testing a product in the eCommerce sphere. Otherwise you will have to host your eCommerce site somewhere.

Site Configuration and Product Setup

Number of Products

Adding one item to your store is easy. Adding 1000 might not be. You will want to look at the ways you can upload inventory information into the software including images, product descriptions, key words and any other configuration the software allows. Some packages will offer import wizards, others will require some SQL skills, which may mean the difference between some one-on-one time with Excel or hiring a consultant.

Types of Products

This will be a deciding factor for some packages: they simply may not support the types of product you want to sell. Most current packages support downloads and hard goods. Services can be somewhat tricky depending on what information the customer is required to provide. Some platforms support kit items (think Dell’s computer configuration), some don’t. Some make it easy to create product attributes (matrix items) (size and color as an example) where some require you to create separate items for every SKU.

Product Information

How do you intend to communicate your product value proposition? Can it be done simply with words and pictures, or does it require animation or more sophisticated media? Most eCommerce software packages support multiple images, which in many cases is enough to communicate the necessary features of a product, but you may have some special requirements like Flash integration or product feature grids.

Graphics Design and Layout

This is one area where you have good control over your costs. If you have a small budget, sites like Template Monster provide templates for OSCommerce, Magento, Zend Cart, and C.R.E. Loaded. If you have a larger budget and are positioning your brand in a premium space you should consider spending money here for a custom eCommerce web design.

Some packages are easier to skin than others. Some also allow for multiple skins that can be easily changed, scheduled, or triggered by category.

Custom Feature Development

If you have specific requirements that are met by existing features, then you can often get the features built by custom software design shops. Again, this often a cost trade off with licenses, but some packages are more development friendly than others. If you are determined to develop some features, try to pick software that has a strong development community and a track record for easy customization.

Payment Gateway Integration

Whether you are planning to use third party gateways like Google Checkout and Paypal, or you want to integrate with your existing merchant accounts it is important to understand what support is available for receiving payments. Payment gateway customization can be expensive, but at the end of the day, this is the point at which you make your money on-line so it has to work. I’ll go into more detail on this in Part 4.

Budgeting and choosing what’s right for you

Now that you know what you’re after, take a look at the software platforms that are out there. Don’t fear the expensive ones because they can often save you an immense amount of time, and therefore cost, to set up and configure your store. Find the best fit for your budget that aligns with your objectives and start turning your eCommerce vision into a revenue stream!