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Today we will try to figure out which CMS is best for creating an affiliate e-commerce store, what problems you may encounter, how to overcome all the torment of choosing a system on which your online store will exist, and you will start making money.
What is an affiliate e-commerce store?
Affiliate e-commerce store is the most common online store. The only difference is that you attract partners to advertise your products through the organization of an affiliate program. When a sale occurs in your online store through an affiliate link, the affiliate is paid a reward.
Similar schemes of interaction between online store owners and partners are implemented on a variety of online platforms in USA, Europe, the EU countries and in the bourgeoisie.
In UK, for example, Admitad is the most famous platform, which is gladly used to organize affiliate programs in the field of e-commerce.
New resources appear on the market from time to time. So, the Alanbase SaaS platform can also be easily used to promote a partner e-commerce store, as it has all the necessary functionality for this.
How everything is arranged is understandable. Where should you start?
From the choice of CMS on which your online store will work. And also with the search for an answer to the question: is there a better CMS for e-commerce?
What are the criteria for choosing a CMS for an affiliate e-commerce store?
The e-commerce CMS market is so rich and varied that it is hard to avoid the pain of choosing the right system.
Some potential owners of online stores solve this issue much easier. They choose between paid and free e-commerce management systems.
There is a certain logic in this approach, but you should still keep in mind that even the most reliable, stable and widespread system, like WordPress, may require certain additions or integrations if they are not in the basic version. Then you still have to pay money to the developers.
Another selection criterion is the boxed version or SaaS platform on which the CMS for e-commerce is deployed.
In this scenario, other nuances should be taken into account. With the boxed version, in some cases there may be problems with the update. Especially if specific modifications were made by third-party developers.
When placing on an online platform (again, in some cases!) You may encounter such an unpleasant thing as an account ban. In fact, your online store, as it were, does not belong to you.
Therefore, choosing a CMS affiliate e-commerce store should be approached with all seriousness.
What is really worth paying attention to when choosing a CMS for e-commerce?
How long a particular system has been on the market. This suggests that the engine is in demand among users, and also that the developers continue to improve their brainchild.
For your own e-commerce needs. For example, a store that expects to have a maximum of 100 product cards will have slightly different requirements than a store with 1000+ SKUs.
For adaptive layout. Today, almost 90% of users “shop” from smartphones, so how well an affiliate e-commerce store works in the mobile version is critical.
For additional modules that are needed for e-commerce. They are either in the system by default (paid or free), or developers will have to pay extra for them.
How easy it will be to integrate a particular system with an affiliate program, and what functionality the developers have provided for this.
Popular CMS for e-commerce
PrestaShop
Present on the market since 2007. Allows you to deploy a store both “in the cloud” and on your own hosting.
Pros: PrestaShop is free, easy to install and easy to use.
Disadvantages: there are limitations in scaling projects, and the system itself does not have an official support service.
OpenCart
Reliable free system that allows you to design partner e-commerce stores of high complexity.
Pros: OpenCart system is completely free.
Disadvantages: the expansion of functionality occurs due to additional modules. The store administrator needs to select, download and install them on their own.
Drupal
Strictly speaking, this free and open source system is designed for designing complex websites. It can hardly be said that it is specially made for e-commerce. You can create a partner e-commerce store on Drupal if you wish, but there are more specialized solutions for this task.
WordPress
Loved by many, a simple system with which you can make an e-commerce site without any programming skills. Plus, in this system, you can make an internal affiliate program.
Advantages: the system has a very wide distribution and a huge community of users. Many payment systems, affiliate programs can provide the user with free modules of their own design to solve specific problems with very simple settings.
Disadvantages: Initially, the system was not designed for e-commerce, so any extensions of the functionality will require the installation of new plugins, which may adversely affect the loading speed of the store.
Shopify
The leader among e-commerce website builders in the overseas market. Works and develops since 2004.
Advantages: a system created specifically for e-commerce.
Disadvantages: the system is paid. Shopify is focused on the overseas market. There is no documentation in English and many integrations familiar to UK business.
Summary
It is difficult to unequivocally answer the question of which system to choose for e-commerce, especially when you plan to launch an affiliate program to promote your products.
You still have to decide. Much will depend on personal preferences, on the experience of operating a particular e-commerce constructor or system, on the scale of your affiliate program and the scale of the online store itself.
And the best system for your e-commerce will be the one that allows you to earn money by investing the minimum amount of effort, time and money in maintaining the online store engine in working condition, does not require constant involvement of third-party developers for expensive dopils when solving local problems.
Our recommendation is to write down all the requirements that you have for an e-commerce platform, and then look for a system that best meets these requirements.
As experience shows, it is almost impossible to do without minimal modifications to any system, but it is quite possible to minimize them.
