We compiled a list of the basic, most powerful ecommerce platforms for you to use. Shopify is a market leader and an easy way to start. Using WordpRess provides flexibility. See what’s best for you.
Magento
Did you know that this eCommerce platform is owned by Ebay? What does that mean? Well, it means that integration with the big marketplace is seamless! However, this relation doesn’t mean that you will have to list your items on Ebay if you want to sell them on your own Magento platform. That’s just an option, making it easy to integrate your Ebay store into your own site.
If you’ve ever worked with WordPress, then this is a similar type of platform. There are a lot of plugins that allow you to extend the functionality of the platform. That makes it very flexible. Whenever there is a need for a specific feature, a developer can create it and people can start using it. This has proven to be a very popular and effective strategy.
If you have some programming experience, then you will know what web services are. Well, Magento supports SOAP, REST, and a few of the other major web service standards. This is a feature that isn’t supported natively by other CMSs, which makes Magento stand out from the crowd. Web services are a great way of fetching specific data or providing your customers with a new feature, without even having to install a plugin or hire a developer to do it for you.
Security is a priority to the platform. This is why Magento EE provides advanced security for its users. The Secure Payment Bridge will ensure that your clients do not become victims of fraud if someone tries to hack your online store. You can find more information about it in the documentation
WooCommerce
This is, perhaps, the most popular tool used to create an online store today. WooCommerce is actually a plugin for WordPress. Even though it is a plugin, it too can be extended by other plugins. This is at the core of the success of WooCommerce. You don’t need to be tied to only having so many features for your online store. You can use ready extensions, or hire a developer to create one for you.
But why not create a separate platform instead? WordPress is a very popular CMS. Every 5th website created now is powered by the platform. Even with its current greatness, WooCommerce wouldn’t have this much success mainly because it would have a lot of trouble gaining the popularity of WordPress.
The powerful plugin will help you handle payment, shipping, track orders, set discounts (even via coupons), create variations of products and much more. Extensions can add new payment methods, allow the printing of shipping labels and whatnot other features.
WooCommerce is entirely free, as is WordPress, and is one of the most economic ways of creating an online store – you just need a domain name and hosting.
3dcart
There is a big chance that you haven’t heard of this platform before. But that doesn’t mean that it is low quality. They offer a free 15 day trial which you can take. It will show you just how powerful this tool is.
But why would you want to use an external platform (one that can’t be uploaded to your own hosting)? The simple answer is – you don’t have to care about anything. Something goes wrong with your website? Well, then the tech guys at the company will fix it for you. In this case, you don’t have to worry about coding, or anything computer-related at all.
For the cheapest subscription you will get a cart which has integrated Google Analytics, social media sharing, and abandoned cart support. The latter is a feature which has earned companies millions of dollars in customers who have later returned to their store.
But the best thing about 3dcart is that there are no transaction fees. Unlike some other similar platforms, you won’t be charged a percentage of your product’s value. Whatever you sell it for – keep it for yourself.
BigCommerce
This is a platform that is known for being the fierce rival of Shopify. And they are giving the latter a pretty tough fight. BigCommerce are actually a very big platform, hosting thousands of online retailers. They offer a 15 day no credit card trial and they have some really inspiring designs.
BigCommerce claims to have some of the best SEO tools in the industry, allowing its clients to rank higher in the search engines, resulting in more sales. Besides SEO, they also offer social media marketing, email marketing, and multi-channel marketing services. Those are all features which come to the aid of an online seller.
Just by looking at the “Showcase” of BigCommerce, you can see that there are some very well designed and overall successful online stores. You can literally find an online store of any kind – from dog products, to organic hard candy.
To underline the power of this platform, they are also offering enterprise solutions. Some big companies, like Gibson and Ubisoft, are their clients. Even though only a small per cent of their clients are enterprises, they do account for a large part of the revenue of the site.
But if you are just an “average” online seller, you are interested in one of their tree packages. You have as much as 65 different payment methods at your disposal. Take a look at the 2015 list of best web builders and store creators to see bigcommerce’s position.
Shopify
Shopify is the biggest and most popular eCommerce platform on the Internet. They have launched a massive Facebook campaign, which has resulted in a lot of new customers. But enough about that, let’s see what’s in it for you if you decide to be their customer.
First of all, this is a platform that can allow you to “merge” your online and offline stores. In other words, if you have a store at a physical location, you can use Shopify’s software to sell in that store. Once you decide to open an online store, all of the information will be at one place. You won’t have to keep separate accounting books and you can easily compare the two points of your business.
Selling in Facebook is easy and it has become one of the main income streams for a lot of big online stores. If you are a design-freak, then you’ll be pleased to find out that there are many (high quality) designs available at your disposal.
But doesn’t this make Shopify sound a bit complicated? If you think that setting up a store at the platform is going to be hard, you have several options. The first is to contact support and read tutorials. The second is to hire a professional, “certified” by Shopify, to help you set up the website or with any other task related to it. There is a marketplace for such people.
Wix
Wix is much more than a platform that you can use to create an online store. With it you can also create any other type of website – from blogs to creative portfolios.
In the past, Wix used to be a website builder which allowed you to create Flash sites. However, that technology proved it isn’t the best option for websites and Wix decided to go HTML5. That has been their best decision yet. Now, they have over 60 million clients.
With Wix, as already mentioned, you can create many different sites. This means that you can have an online store and a blog at the same time. The blog is often used as a gateway for new search engine and social media traffic.
As for the store features, you won’t be left disappointed. As with the other platforms, the orders are handled automatically. You just have to see the list, check the ones that are shipped and collect your payment.
There are several different payment methods available at Wix. They also offer a free account (for life) which you can use to evaluate the platform. When considering a subscription, keep in mind that the prices are low compared to competitors of this platform.
Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the best builders at the moment. It is elegant and all of the websites created with it have a cool minimalist look. As a modern builder, Squarespace allows you to create responsive websites, that are compatible with with all kinds of devices and screen sizes.
The back-end interface of the Squarespace store is very pleasant to use. Everything is simplified, making it easy for the store owner. Adding and managing your existing products might have never been so easy!
Apart from the selling back-end, there are also lots of tools and analytics that allow you to track your sales, traffic, and other marketing stats. With very powerful SEO tools, you can easily climb to the top of the search engines with a little effort. The hosting and cloud options are perfect for any new and growing online store. There are no downtimes, guaranteeing that there is constant access to your online store. This is one of the pros that make Squarespace a very popular eCOmmerce choice.
Weebly
With a fully integrated shopping cart and secure checkout, Weebly is one of the pretenders for the best online eCommerce platforms. While it is very similar to Wix, because you can create many types of websites with it, it is also very different. People’s opinions say that it is easier to use than its counterpart and that its eCommerce platform is better.
Weebly are definitely in touch with the latest technology, providing you with a mobile shopping cart and checkout features. It doesn’t matter whether your online store will sell physical or digital products, because Weebly can handle both. Everything comes down to a checkbox. You can offer your clients various shipping methods that are custom tailored to fit both your and their needs.
Weebly is also a platform that gives you full control over taxes and other add-on prices. That allows you to control even the smallest of details in your business plan. It also gives you the opportunity of selling worldwide, without having to worry about anything – taxes will automatically be charged.
The inventory tracking is also a very good feature of Weebly. This is a stepping stone for further scaling of an online store, and the developers have paid a good amount of attention to it.
