What’s the best ecommerce platform for your business

When starting your online business, one of the biggest decisions you’ll make is choosing an ecommerce platform that will ensure scalable, long-term growth.

Ecommerce platforms are how business owners of all shapes and sizes carve out a place for themselves in the new digital landscape. Selling online has become such a cost-effective, efficient, and popular way to earn your fortune in the digital landscape, that everyone wants a piece of the pie. 

Today, it’s not enough to simply choose the best online store builder. Savvy entrepreneurs look for the best ecommerce platform: an ecosystem of tools that seamlessly integrate, giving you complete control over every aspect of your business and the ability to scale as you grow.

Hence, let’s dive into the details of ecommerce platforms.

What is an ecommerce platform?

An ecommerce platform is a software application that allows online businesses to manage their website, marketing, sales and operations. In other words it is a way to build and create an online experience that allows you to make sales and fulfill orders no matter where your customers are or where they like to shop.

Most people think that an ecommerce platform is just a tool that helps them to list up the products, sell them and accept online payments. Whereas, it’s not just that but it’s much more than that. It’s a complete business center from where you control everything from inventory to marketing.

What types of ecommerce platforms are there?

To make your online store accessible to the public, you have to have a hosting solution. Hosting stores your information on a server, which allows internet users to visit your site and view all of the content. Every website is hosted somewhere, meaning it has dedicated server space from a provider. Some ecommerce platforms have hosting built in, while others require you use self-hosting or open-source hosting.

1. Hosted

Some of the ecommerce platforms offer hosting. Which means you don’t have to worry about third- party hosting and the additional fees. For instance, Shopify includes hosting in all of it’s plans. Building a website on a hosted ecommerce platform gives you more freedom to focus on running your business and not worry for the downtime or to fix bugs.

2. Self-hosted

Self-hosted, or non-hosted, ecommerce platforms require merchants to use their own server space or pay to rent space from a hosting provider. This makes ongoing website management complex, as you’re responsible for updates, maintenance, and bug fixes.

This requires a lot of internal resources that you could otherwise allocate elsewhere.

Moreover, self-hosted platforms are typically open source, and you use a third party to host your website data. Third-party sourcing options charge fees for their services, and these costs quickly add up. Many times, these hosting services use tiered pricing structures, so those on the lowest plans don’t get much in the way of customer support. This can leave you hanging at really important times, like traffic boosts after unexpected press coverage.

What types of ecommerce are there?

There are four types of ecommerce: B2C (business-to-consumer), B2B (business-to-business), C2B (consumer-to-business), and C2C (consumer-to-consumer).

1. B2C. This refers to online selling from a business to an individual consumer. You might also hear people refer to B2C ecommerce as DTC, or direct-to-consumer.
2. B2B. When one business sells to another business online, it’s B2B ecommerce. These transactions include wholesale buying, when the purchasing business intends to resell at a profit, as well as for business use—things like office supplies and equipment.
3. C2B. Consumers also have selling power, as seen when they sell to businesses. Typically, these transactions are less traditional. A consumer might sell their influence in the form of a featured social post, or they might offer a five-star review in exchange for money.
4. C2C. Consumers can also sell to one another, a trend that has emerged with the popularity of the sharing economy. Platforms like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and eBay offer a place to facilitate C2C ecommerce.

Ultimately, the type of ecommerce business you run will help you dictate which is the best ecommerce site for that business.

List of best ecommerce platform

Here are some best ecommerce platforms.

1. Shopify

Shopify is one of the biggest and most popular ecommerce platforms amongst businesses of all sizes. It is one of the best ecommerce website builders for small businesses. Shopify has all the tools you’ll need.

Moreover, Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce platform, meaning it’s designed purely to help you build an online store. Shop Pay handles payment processing, Shopify POS administers in-person sales, and Shopify Fulfillment can help you get products into customers’ hands. These are just a few of many amazing tools and apps.

With all of these powerful features, you can set up your business with little technical know-how and budget and scale to an international online brand without changing platforms along the way. 

• Price: Basic Shopify: $29.99/month; Shopify: $79/month; Advanced Shopify: $299/month; 10% discount on annual plans and 20% on biennial plans when paid upfront
• Free trial length: 14 days
• Customer support options: callback phone support; email support; support provided in 19 languages; community forum; support content
• Integrated sales channels: Facebook, Instagram, Google, Walmart Marketplace, eBay, and Amazon
• Mobile app features: suite of mobile tools to fully manage your online business
• POS: yes

2. Wix

Wix is an amazing drag and drop website builder. It offers customizable templates, web hosting, and domain name registration. You can build a basic website for free, but you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan to use Wix’s ecommerce features. 

Furthermore, Wix is most often used by entrepreneurs and other small business creatives. The platform prides itself on being a solution for both beginners and experts who seek creative freedom in their website work.

• Price: Business Basic: $23/month; Business Unlimited: $27/month; Business VIP: $49/month
• Free trial length: no free trial
• Customer support options: callback service available 24/7
• Integrated sales channels: Facebook and Instagram require third-party app Ecwid
• Mobile app features: the ability to manage your website, though lacks key business tools like inventory management; requires separate app to use mobile POS
• POS: yes

3. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is the best overall ecommerce platform. Its robust product search engine makes it ideal for larger retail brands. It’s also a good choice for people who want to start an ecommerce store, or who have a brick and mortar store and want to expand their operations to include online orders.

Additionally, the available tools make it possible for any niche or industry to be successful. Like Shopify and Wix, BigCommerce offers web hosting and lots of customization options. However, you can’t register your domain name through BigCommerce, so you will need to purchase and register elsewhere and port it over.

Even if you don’t know much code, it’s interference is easy to use and allows you to customize your online shop. Valuable features include international selling, SEO tools, and multichannel selling on social and third-party marketplaces. However, with these powerful features also comes complexity.

• Price: Standard: $29.95/month; Plus: $79.95/month or $71.95/month when paid annually; Pro: $299.95/month or $269.96/month when paid annually; Enterprise custom pricing
• Free trial length: 15 days
• Customer support options: 24/7 technical support via phone, email, or chat
• Integrated sales channels: Google Shopping, Facebook, price comparison engines, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, and Instagram
• Mobile app features: view analytics, update orders, manage inventory and products, and search for customers; some features are Android-only
• POS: yes

4. Magento

Magento stands out as one of the most popular ecommerce platforms for established and successful retailers. Some of the biggest companies in the world already use this tool to make sure that they can connect with their customers online. Moreover, Magneto also supports external sales channels like Amazon too. It is perfect for delivering next-level sales experience, with a free-to-download software.

In addition, Magento is a non-hosted ecommerce platform made for developers who want a powerful, flexible system they can customize. And while this offers many benefits for brands that want a completely tailored platform, it also presents a lot of hurdles in the form of complexity and cost. You need advanced coding and development skills to build out and manage the entire infrastructure yourself.

• Price: custom pricing only
• Free trial length: no free trial
• Customer support options: phone support and online help center/technical support resources available
• Integrated sales channels: Amazon
• Mobile app features: n/a
• POS: third-party extensions available

5. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is especially familiar to those who know WordPress, WooCommerce is essentially an add-on to the popular blogging platform. WordPress is traditionally for content-driven websites, not ecommerce, so WooCommerce is WordPress’s answer to those who want to sell online. Also, there are extensions available for integrating payment gateways, social media, email marketing, 1-click selling, and shipping.

Moreover, it can be easy to install but doesn’t have good scalability. It slows down if you have a large amount of products on your site. WooCommerce allows you to create a fully customizable website for your business. It’s an open source ecommerce plugin that allows you to add ecommerce functionality to your website. This plugin is very popular among small businesses that are already using WordPress in some capacity.

Using WooCommerce allows you to add ecommerce functionalities. You make it easy for people to see your products and purchase them. It’s a very user-friendly plugin you can use to quickly develop a website.

• Price: average monthly fee is up to $30; WooCommerce estimates costs to be $120/year for hosting; $15/year for domain name registration; up to $100/year for your site theme; up to $108/year for shipping; 2.9% plus $0.30 per sale; up to $348/year for marketing and communications; and up to $79/year for SEO; up to $65/year for SSL certificate
• Free trial length: none, but offers a 30 day money-back guarantee
• Customer support options: only available via live chat or email; no support offered for third-party apps and plugins
• Integrated sales channels: Google Shopping, Etsy, eBay, Facebook, Amazon, Pinterest, and Walmart; integrations are disjointed
• Mobile app features: add products, manage orders, and view analytics
• POS: native POS available

6. PrestaShop

PrestaShop is an open-source and cloud-hosted ecommerce platform that gives the best overall value. With the free downloadable version, you’ll have to pay for web hosting, SSL certificate, and other modules to complete your store. Also, if you don’t have the heavy technical skills in HTML, CSS, and/or PHP, you’ll have to pay a developer.

Also, there’s no built-in customer support and integrations can be hit or miss, so PrestaShop users do a lot of troubleshooting themselves with the help of the community.

Business tools and features include inventory tracking, online shopping cart, international selling, and analytics reporting. You also have lots of control over the privacy and security settings on your Prestashop site.

• Price: free
• Free trial length: n/a
• Customer support options: technical support available through paid support plans; support provided via phone Monday to Friday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. (GMT+2); help center, technical documentation, and community forum available online
• Integrated sales channels: Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Facebook
• Mobile app features: n/a
• POS: available as add-on modules

7. Squarespace

Squarespace is an excellent ecommerce platform for companies that want a lot of creative control. This cloud-hosted website builder is similar in style to Wix, although it comes with a few advanced features, such as excellent integration with social media channels.

Furthermore, Squarespace requires time and patience to set up if you want to sell online, not to mention there are only two payment integrations. If you have the budget, you may even outsource it. Also, it has decent inventory tracking tools available. 

If you’re searching for a way to build an eye-catching online business or portfolio, then SquareSpace is a good choice for you. There are a lot of sleek and modern templates to choose from, and you can change your style whenever you choose. 

• Price: Personal: $16/month or $12/month when paid annually; Business: $26/month or $18/month when paid annually; Basic Commerce: $30/month or $26/month when paid annually; Advanced Commerce: $46/month or $40/month when paid annually; Enterprise pricing also available
• Free trial length: 14 days, and you can opt for a one-time seven-day trial extension
• Customer support options: email available 24/7; live chat available Monday through Friday, 4 a.m.–8 p.m. ET
• Integrated sales channels: Shopping Feed extension to sell on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Google Actions
• Mobile app features: website editing, scan shipping labels, order management, inventory management, and customer communication
• POS: available via mobile app

8. Big Cartel

Big Cartel is an ecommerce solution designed for smaller merchants who do not need a sophisticated platform. The platform is very easy to use but has a limited feature set. Big Cartel may not fill your needs if you have a large product catalog. 

Furthermore, Big Cartel is a creative-based website builder. This site builder hosts businesses with unique and creative products. It’s great for businesses that have products like hand-made jewelry, prints of art, or a unique fashion line. Big Cartel is most suitable for businesses that are creative and offer unique products.

Additionally, Big Cartel limits merchants to five images for each product. Payment and integration options are also limited, so this platform makes it much harder to scale as a multichannel business.

• Price: 5 products: free; 50 products: $9.99/month; 250 products: $19.99/month; 500 products: $29.99/month
• Free trial length: none
• Customer support options: email available every day 8 a.m.–6 p.m. ET
• Integrated sales channels: n/a
• Mobile app features: store analytics, add/edit products, track order shipping, manage discounts, and print packing slips 
• Point-of-sale: requires third-party integration

Top considerations for ecommerce platforms

• Price/Budget: While there’s a lot more to an ecommerce solution than it’s price, as a small business owner, you’ll be reluctant to take on any additional cost. Most small store owners want ecommerce tools that are packed full of useful tools, but also come with a relatively low price tag. The good news is that most of the open-source platforms and hosted systems on the market today come with free versions that you can try before you buy.
• Back end tools: What kind of support do you need when it comes to running your online shop? The best platform could feature anything from access to WordPress plugins, support for CSS and SKUs, or even app management systems for mobile devices. Ensure you can access everything from content management tools to inventory management in your back end.
• Scalability: Just because you’re running a small business now, doesn’t mean that it’s going to stay small forever. As your company grows, you may need support for unlimited products, new payment options, and even digital product selling. Make sure that your platform can scale well, with a small learning curve.
• Speed and performance: Business owners will have a hard time convincing anyone to buy their products if their pages don’t load quickly. No matter how many products you’re hosting on your website, make sure that you can maintain the performance of your site with good hosting, no matter how many plugins, add-ons and other features you’re using.
• Ease of use: A drag and drop builder for editing your ecommerce solution and plenty of back-end documentation can help to encourage better ease of use. Keep in mind that open source eCommerce platforms are often harder to use than their hosted counterparts.
• User experience: The experience that you have when building your storefront needs to be good. However, you also need to consider the experience your customers are going to get too. For instance, can you offer a range of payment gateways? Is your shopping cart easy to use? How easy is it to navigate your online store?
• Marketing tools: Can your ecommerce platform help you to attract new customers and keep your existing ones? Some tools will come with access to things like abandoned cart recovery, SEO tools, and email marketing systems. Everything from content management to marketing tools can improve your bottom line.
• Customization: Open source platforms are more customizable than their hosted counterparts. However, you can still change the appearance of your online shop in most cases by using real-time editors and themes. See what customization options are available.

How to choose the right ecommerce platform for you?

There is no best choice for everyone. All of the above mentioned ecommerce platforms are just amazing but which one is best or right for you depends upon your needs and requirements.

Many merchants choose the easiest and most affordable online store builder, which often leads them to Shopify. You need to think about where your business is headed and anticipate your future needs and find a platform that can anticipate those needs as well. 

Look for a platform that consistently invests in its technology and stays ahead of the curve when it comes to commerce. Your website builder can become so much more than just a platform where you do business.