When you are looking for the best ecommerce platform for your international business, there are several factors to consider. The sheer number of options could make it difficult for some people to find the right one. That said, this guide provides a detailed comparison of four popular ecommerce platforms so you can easily find what you are looking for.
Every beginner entrepreneur wants to know how they can get their business online as quickly and cost effectively as possible. The answer begins with choosing the right ecommerce platform for your business. The platform you choose will depend on your needs and your country of operation. In this article, we discuss some top options for ecommerce platforms to use if you are based outside the US.
Ecommerce is a booming business, and we have seen huge growth in recent years. With huge sales comes huge competition and attention from the biggest names in online business including Shopify and WordPress. These two platforms are arguably the most powerful players in the industry, but there is also Magento, WooCommerce, Bigcommerce and many more ecommerce platform companies contributing to this growing sector.
Choosing the right platform for your business is a bit tricky and we can help you find that perfect fit. We have reviewed different payment gateways, many platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce as well as international freight companies. Our comparison table will help you in selecting the best Ecommerce Platform for your business.
Choose the top eCommerce platform wisely to go global with your business
Many businesses choose the most affordable and easiest online store but you need to consider your unique business needs and goals. The best global ecommerce platform for you might be different from the best ecommerce platform because you should find a platform that can anticipate your needs as well.
Selling beyond your geography gives the much-needed exposure and growth opportunity to your business but you need a top ecommerce platform that supports your global needs. Look for a platform that consistently invests in technology, upgrades, features, tools, and stay ahead of the competition. StoreHippo allows you to make the best of global opportunity with the best internal ecommerce solution. Apart from being a feature-rich platform, StoreHippo offers a smooth learning curve to make your global business easy and help you handle your multi-currency and multilingual ecommerce needs successfully. If you also want to evaluate the best ecommerce platform for your business, schedule a 14-day free online trial store today.
1. StoreHippo
StoreHippo comes with a host of global features to support your online international business needs. The platform offers inbuilt solutions for your global business needs along with the gamut of tools to start, manage, and expand your business. The inbuilt multilingual ecommerce features allow you to support multi-currency invoicing and checkouts. You can also customize your ecommerce website in 100+ languages and also auto-translate the website based on the location and IP address.
The native solution offered by StoreHippo lets you implement the global features in your multiple storefronts, and translate products and categories into multiple languages and customized themes. You can even customize your store messages like warning, errors, deals in the language of your choice. Apart from the global features, the top ecommerce platform also offers multi-currency payment options so that your customers can pay in the currency of their choice. The inbuilt tax engine allows you to calculate various taxes based on the rules and regulations of multiple countries.
The go global features offered by StoreHippo also let you create multi currency invoices for your global customers. The integration with 60+ international payment gateways help you to accept payments in multiple countries. The integrated shipping solution also helps you to add any shipping partner and set up shipping costs based on location, weight etc. in the currency of your choice.
2. Magento
Magento is an extremely helpful ecommerce platform that comes with international features. It allows you to implement multiple languages and currencies on your Magento store to run your global ecommerce business. However, you need to add specific extensions for each language. And to build a full-fledged multilingual ecommerce solution, you will be dependent on multiple extensions.
You can set up multiple currencies on your online store with Magento. Along with that, IP currency setup and currency rate update options are also available with Magento. But it takes a lot of coding and fine-tuning to set up an international online store with multiple currencies. The software also requires changing the product information in different languages manually. If you wish to automate this process, you will have to pay for the additional extensions.
Magento provides options to integrate international payment gateways with your multilingual ecommerce store but you need to buy extensions or help from experienced developers to get custom extensions for your Magento store. The same thing goes with international shipping services.
Well, adding too many extensions can lead to a slow-speed ecommerce website. Along with that, Magento users need to upgrade the software in a few years and migrate to a new version/platform. So, you need to again build your international store, find and add suitable extensions for the new setup.
3. Shopify
Shopify is a turnkey app-based ecommerce platform to run online international business. The native multilingual solution offered by StoreHippo is relatively new and offers limited control to change the languages.
With Shopify, you need to add multiple apps to implement multiple languages on your online store. There are some apps that translate the language automatically while others depend on manual translations. However, you will need around 5-6 apps to make a full-fledged international online store with multilingual ecommerce features.
The multi currency payment options are also available with Shopify. However, you need to make considerable changes in your platform through code customizations to implement in apps or POS. Shopify marketing tools are also app based. You need a separate app for multi currency invoicing as well. So, you will need to have a lot of apps if you want to build a global online store. It also increases the subscription cost when you use multiple apps and a top ecommerce platform with inbuilt global features is always a better idea.
4. WooCommerce
WooCommerce also offers an ecommerce platform with global features. It is a plugin-based platform through which you can add multiple languages and currencies. The free and paid plugins offered by WooCommerce allows you to build a multilingual ecommerce store.
WooCommerce has its own payment system but it is only available for the merchants in the USA location who accept the payments in USD. If you are in any other country, you need to buy an additional extension to add international payment gateways for your online store. For shipping management of your global store, you need to set up WooCommerce shipping extension with your online store.
Despite various free plugins, one of the major drawbacks of WooCommerce is that the free plugins are designed for limited functionalities. If you are looking for a full-fledged international online store, you need a top ecommerce platform that supports multiple languages, currencies, and other important global features. It is clear that you need a host of paid plugins to build a feature-rich international online store which makes the overall WooCommerce setup quite pricey.
5. BigCommerce
BigCommerce offers various global features to support your international ecommerce store. However, it does not offer an inbuilt solution to create a multilingual ecommerce store. You need to create multiple stores ad customize them by adding languages of your choice in every store
BigCommerce offers features to add multiple currencies to your online store and customize the store as per local norms of the country. It also allows you to integrate your online store with international payment gateways, tax management software, and global shipping providers. However, some features of BigCommerce including some storefront, checkouts, and themes do not support multi-currency. Also, the multilingual ecommerce feature requires a lot of code customization to build a full-fledged global online store. This is why BigCommerce is considered a developer-oriented platform and you will need a good developer to run an internal store on this platform.
6. Ecwid
In 2009 Ruslan Fazlyev, an ecommerce veteran (co-founder of X-Cart), launched Ecwid to allow small business owners to sell their products and services online. Since then, over 1 million merchants have chosen Ecwid for their ecommerce website.
Ecwid is a bit different to other ecommerce website builders; you can think of it as an extension that can be added to any website in order to make it a fully-featured online store. So Ecwid may be pretty convenient if you already have a website without ecommerce capabilities and you wish to sell online.
One thing that makes Ecwid stand out is that you can start for free. Their Forever Free Plan will let you create a small online store featuring 10 products for exactly $0 a month.
What we like about Ecwid
Don’t let Ecwid’s simple concept fool you into thinking it’s a limited platform; it’s actually packed with endless ecommerce features (e.g. abandoned cart saver or point of sale systems).
It can be used to create ecommerce websites on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Joomla, Blogger and many more. With the higher plan, you’ll be able to create an iOS or Android shopping app too.
What Ecwid should improve
Even though Ecwid comes with responsive designs, completely customizing your store could require a bit of elbow grease, as you may need to dive into the CSS or purchase additional apps. Ecwid’s SEO has improved in recent times, however, they still have a few glitches that they should fix (e.g. product URLs are not clean).
You will need to already have a website if you are planning on using Ecwid, so if you are just starting out, other solutions would be more suitable.
7. Wix
There is no doubt that this Israeli based ecommerce website builder is the most successful on the market; 150 million users choose Wix to create a website. The speed at which Wix develops new features is breathtaking, maybe only Shopify can compete here.
Even if Wix took longer to create a usable ecommerce module (at first, it was minimal), they ended up designing a solid solution with tons of useful features. On top of that, they have a unique approach to helping small businesses in the form of integrated apps for Hotels, Restaurants, to book appointments and organize events.
What we like about Wix
Wix has always had more templates than anyone, and even though they aren’t fully responsive, you’ll be able to customize them to look good on any device. After Weebly and Jimdo, Wix is probably the easiest-to-use ecommerce builder.
It doesn’t charge extra transaction fees and their (lower) plans are more affordable than those of their direct competitors like Weebly or Squarespace. Wix’s ecommerce features have improved so much in recent years that they are now considered a good ecommerce platform for smaller online stores.
What Wix should improve
Sadly, when it comes to loading speed, Wix trails behind its competitors. You will only be allowed 1 sub-navigation level and this can make it difficult to accommodate larger online stores. It also lacks flexibility with its confirmation emails as there’s very little room for customization.
Why Use an Ecommerce Platform?
Whether you’re expanding a brick-and-mortar store, looking to find an enterprise-level solution, or even starting a business from scratch, your ecommerce software has a huge impact on the profitability and stability of your business.
The only alternatives to an ecommerce platform are:
- Building one from scratch, which is out of the question for most businesses — and only justifiable for multimillion (or multi billion) dollar companies.
- Using a plugin, which isn’t ideal if you’re looking to build and grow a legitimate business — even a small one.
Conclusion
Believe it or not, the greatest things in life are free. Whenever a new e-commerce platform goes public, it brings great excitement to both consumers and marketers. Who doesn’t want to earn money by doing little work; absolutely nothing? Nowadays there are several e-commerce platforms which support virtually all payment options. Besides, several of them might also charge you less than their competitors and provide more additional services as well.
E-commerce is a blessing when it comes to running your business. There are a wide number of benefits associated with the framework. But with all the benefits and popularity, it’s also filled with corporate giants who are all trying to get their piece of the action, by tricking you into believing that there product is better then the rest.