Ecommerce University > Ecommerce Design > Ecommerce SaaS: The Perks of Hosted Retail
Ecommerce SaaS: The Perks of Hosted Retail

If you’ve used software for a while, you remember the good old days of downloading programs and installing them on your desktop. True, these types of programs still exist (and in some cases, are still very necessary). But ecommerce SaaS has become a part of a growing movement to host data inside the cloud—and it’ll continue to grow as the capabilities and storage space of the cloud get bigger.

As an online storeowner, you’re part of a simpler world of business than entrepreneurs a decade ago. You don’t need on-premise storage and software. You don’t need to install time-consuming software updates. All you need to do is kick back and enjoy what SaaS eCommerce platforms can do for you.

So how exactly does software-as-a-service ecommerce benefit you as an online merchant? Check out some of the positives below.

Access your store anytime from anywhere.
Business is mobile these days. If you don’t have the ability to access your work on the fly, you’re at a serious disadvantage. Ecommerce SaaS is the key to the castle. Hosted in the cloud, it gives you the ability to access your online store from any computer as long as you have a password. The limitations of desktop applications are no more.
It’s easier to have multiple admins manage your store.
As a result of anywhere, anytime access, it’s easier to manage more than one administrator for your store. If you have a partner or team under you, they can manage their part of the online sales process directly, with a unique ID, password and level of permission.
You don’t have to pay for servers and other hardware.
Before SaaS eCommerce platforms, you couldn’t really get around either owning a server or paying lots of money to use someone else’s. It’s much more convenient to work in today’s cloud, where it’s become much less expensive to store data.

Buying and maintaining servers is an expensive ordeal. And you pay for more than just the hardware itself…

You don’t have to hire another employee to manage said servers.
Yes, software-as-a-service ecommerce (on some level) has put that extra IT guy you’d need to manage your servers out of a job. (Don’t worry: he works for us now.) That’s a big chunk of change that online merchants save.
Get updates as they become available.
With 3dcart and other software vendors, you get access to updates as soon as they’re made available—and you don’t have to be the one to make them. In the end, it’s much more convenient to go the SaaS ecommerce route as you build your online store.

by Gonzalo Gil Google