The benefits of having a website are plenty according with the usage freedom it provides. A business or company can’t take the luxury of being outside the digital universe coverage that allows information exchange of products, services, models and details on their company.

So, if after reviewing and analyzing the benefits of a website boosting your business or company workflow you keep asking :

What do i need to know?

First allow us to congratulate you on for thinking on your business future, for that we write this article that will allow you know more about what to expect and what uses you can get from a website.

Websites have evolved incredibly in the last years, its usage and features has a big variety of options.

We can classify the websites by the function they perform

  • Informative and dissemination
  • Collaborative
  • Electronic Commerce
  • Business platform

this will set the requirements for the platform that allows to perform on that purpose.

Informative and dissemination

This kind of sites is one of the most common websites. Used widely by organizations, business, along with personal sites.

These websites are mainly to inform about features of a product or service, it allows the establishment of direct communication with members, clients and general public looking for an specific subject.

Who are using these websites,

  • Individuals
  • Specialized professionals
  • Small business
  • SMB/SME
  • Foundations
  • Civil or Religion Organizations and Associations

These sites are generally develop by one developer or even a small design team, using templates or by custom design. Its functionality is pretty simple and straight forward:

  • Explain the purpose of the business, foundation or project
  • Publish the products or services that are been offered
  • Also, stablish a contact interface between the internet users and the mentioned organization.

This sites are significantly boosted by the use of social media.

Collaborative

Among the informative and dissemination websites are those that incorporate some rather simple features for online collaboration, such as:

  • Collaborative text editing
  • Support or discourse forums

These sites requires specific software tools to provide those solutions. One of the most representative examples worldwide is the collaborative development encyclopedia Wikipedia, which uses a software known as wiki, specifically named mediawiki to grow.

Regularly these collaborative resources are added to a main website and we can find them on sites like,

  • Software projects
  • Online communities
    • Health
    • Bakery
    • Video games
    • Mechanic
  • SMB/SME
  • Foundations

Electronic Commerce – e-Commerce

We reach one of the platforms that have experienced a huge growth in the last years, the electronic commerce along with online stores. The international market in now available because of the globalization, and the e-commerce has become a powerful tool on the development of business strategies.

On this digital and goods distribution era, an online store is one of the most convenient system to handle product distribution, virtual, material or even services to places where a normal storefront wouldn’t reach, which is really effective on the communication ease for this environment.

That’s why several business dedicated to product distribution or services choose to have an online store, along with an actual storefront, office or distribution warehouse.

Inside this category we can find that more and more people and organizations are accepting this option to extend the reach of their commercial operations.

Who are using e-commerce?

As we mention before today more and more interested areas are introducing the use of e-commerce and online payments, which simplify the products and services acquisition flow by the clients.

Some of the areas heavily used are:

  • Hotel & Spa industry
  • Airlines
  • Bus companies
  • Specialized professionals
  • Digital music and video stores
  • SMB/SME
  • Foundations

What do i need to take into account?

A very important subject to take into account is the targeted demographic to which the product or service is focused on.

As this will be of mayor importance when choosing the payment platform to use.

The importance of the online payment platforms resides on the ease with the clients or general public can complete the purchases and transfer the resources from their residence location to the mentioned online store.

Among the most common payment platforms we can mention:

  • Credit and debit cards
  • MercadoPago
  • PayPal
  • Bitcoint
  • Openpay

On a national level (México) the most used payment platform for online stores is MercadoPago, since it counts with the option to make cash payments on the OXXO franchise stores, which has a mayor presence on the main cities of the Republic, as it also includes support for other options like credit and debit cards and bank deposits.

The use of all payment platforms generate commissions whether is for each operation or monthly fees, for that reason we suggest you take those fees into account when you build your e-commerce solution.

Some of the popular e-commerce platforms are,

  • WooCommerce
  • Prestashop
  • Shopify
  • Magento

Each one has their strong and weak spots, there is no specific solution for all the needs, therefore you need to stablish which are your needs for your e-commerce solution and assign the platform that work the best for you.

Business platforms

We have reached an specific area designed for SMB, SME, and big organizations with production and administration area established.

We would like to note that thanks to Free Software and Open Source projects we can have public access to these technology, such as Odoo ERP.

These platforms can manage,

  • Clients
  • Warehouses
  • Purchases
  • Accounting
  • Sellings
  • Providers
  • HR
  • etc.

There are some platform solutions but Odoo ERP as Microsoft Dynamics 365 are the main ERP platforms (Enterprise Resouce Planing) on the market.

These platforms have web interfaces that allow to efficient the administration of a SMB/SME from the web browser, being online or restricted to indoors.

These platforms are composed of several modules that can be used independently by an specific enterprise to manage an specific area.

Conclusion

As you can see, the mechanism behind every website differs with the purpose, also as you see there are multiple options, answers and needs on each solution for each user or business.

In that thought, the best strategy to build your new website is having a clear purpose and target audience to which the site is focused on to deliver products and services.

On Software, IT & Networks Ltd, we are here to listen your needs and find the best answer for you.