Wix eCommerce for Small Business

Wix started as a content-managed website builder, where web designers would capture your brand, corporate image and apply it to your website design. Fast forward to today, the Wix eCommerce platform is a reality, it has an app store, credit card issuers, product pages within themes, and the full shopping cart experience.

Small Business application

Wix is one of the easiest platforms to work for your online shop for any business owner to dig in and try. Setting up your store with product categories, product descriptions, digital products and have access to professional tools and services such as email marketing, reward cards, and be able to manage and track your sales. Wix Payments are also easily within reach once you have set up your online store. Selling online is straight forward and it is integrated with social media platforms to help your marketing efforts. Here are some key points to illustrate its capabilities:

• Costs start at £13/month

• 14-day money-back guarantee

• You can lower your monthly cost when you go to an annual fee

• Puts your brand front and center with the tools to support the image of your design

• Friendly for social media marketing

• Enhanced product images for 3D viewing

• Over 70+ eCommerce Theme templates to work with.

With low cost, easy editing, and friendly to market with, any small business would feel invited to give it a try.

Payment Options

All credit card processing is available however, digital wallet type payments are not available as of yet (Apple Pay or Amazon). All features on credit card processing such as secured credit cards and Bank App verification are enabled for your customers to transact with.

Tax and Duties

Wix has fully integrated with Alvalara which will dynamically keep you updated on tax and duties on any order that's being processed. You can then fully rely on this to ensure you are current and have the legitimacy of these charges at checkout.

Branded Checkout

The ability to ensure that your brand is a key focus all the way through the purchase experience, Wix gives you the ability to have your banner, footer, and be able to customize the checkout area by adding your policies, logo, and contact information. Other cloud platforms have this area only available to be customized by upper-end plans, Wix makes this available to everyone on any plan.

Shipping

You have the full capability to operate within the dashboard on how to assign a carrier to order for dispatching. Adding carriers to your store is as easy as creating an account with a carrier and applying their app to connect your store to the account. Once that's set up, it is a matter of processing orders as they come in.

Checkout Shipping options can be turned on for customers to select their shipping method and apply it to their shopping cart before processing the order with their credit card.

Shipping labels, tracking numbers, it is all there for you to execute and have the products shipped out to your customers.

Inventory Management

Some forethought by Wix has made this easy to manage - giving the small business owner the tools to ensure that their inventory is reflected correctly between their online store to their shelves.

Social media integration

Ranging from a Social Media Bar or linking your Wix store to popular social media platforms takes only a few steps. Social Media sites will be linked so that your content, media, notifications, and news can all be connected, giving you the tools to execute your digital marketing.

Sales analytics

Wix has been making progress on what is happening within your store. It monitors your monthly active users for their browsing patterns, their purchases, and what they may leave behind to re-market with.

Wix Security

Being a cloud platform, the SSL and all of its security features reside in the platform - there is nothing for you to do, and comes with your plan. This includes the connection to the credit card processor's platform, it is all encrypted and secure.

SEO Features

Wix has all the necessary SEO features that are expected from an eCommerce platform, like redirects, Meta Tags, content marketing through blogs and landing pages, sitemap creation, etc.

Wix Weaknesses

There is no Multilingual/Internationalization of your store within the same account/store. To have a multistore setup, you have to have multi-accounts to have this capability.

Once you have selected your Theme, you are stuck with it - it is not something you can do to swap out a theme within the same store. To change the Theme, start a new store, and configure it as you would like it to be, and transfer from one store to the other. It isn't practical, but it is achievable.

There are no multichannel integrations right now to sell on eBay, Amazon, or other marketplaces. You would have to link those channels to an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) platform to achieve this goal.

Conclusion

Wix eCommerce is a great fit for any small business ranging from a start-up to a mature small business wanting to go online. It is one of the best cost-optimized platforms where you can add exactly what you want, and pay for only what you want for your store. This is done through the App Store when it comes to additional features and capabilities, or via increasing your business plan with Wix. Wix Experts are available to assist you in setting up a store is not your strength and if you have any questions - feel free to reach out to us at wish@thegenielab.com.