Growth of Ecommerce businesses is skyrocketing, and it’s a matter of time before we see it dwarf all other kinds of businesses. But, if you’re thinking about going into Ecommerce, be mindful that these are not small endeavors. If you can’t handle the costs involved in supporting that kind of traffic, building that many products, or managing all those orders, you might want to think twice before getting involved. This doesn’t mean you can’t do it; this just means you want to be clear-headed about what you’re getting into. So how do you know if an eCommerce site is right for your business? What platform should you choose?
An e-commerce platform is an application that allows companies to have an online store. The software facilitates the entire process of running the online store. It consists of modules which are known as e-commerce applications. When it comes to the selection of best ecommerce platform, every company that wants to open a store or expand their current one faces many challenges and obstacles.
Customer experience is a top priority for any ecommerce business today. However, for large enterprises and big ecommerce companies, the complexities of the customer experience become more pronounced. Bigger businesses need to provide a seamless shopping experience across channels, product lines, and geographies.
This Ecommerce articles focusses on the best ecommerce platforms that are easy to use, secure and feature-rich. These ecommerce platforms have been ranked based on our highly accurate market data. These best ecommerce platforms for large business offer great shopping experience for the customers.
Our Review And Testing Methodology
If you want real data, you have to run a lot of tests and have a systematic method of reviewing platforms for online stores. I only included the most popular platforms. I didnt include smaller, niche companies like Big Cartel.
Here is a brief explanation of how we got our results:
Objectively Choosing Sites From Each Platform
- We used BuiltWith to find the 10 most popular ecommerce platforms
- We created a filter to find active ecommerce sites running on each platform that spent at least $500 per month. This is a critical key difference between the original study. In the original study, we didn’t do this, and it created an unfair comparison. You can set up WooCommerce for super cheap compared to Shopify. If you are paying monthly for Shopify, you are more likely to be trying to market the site. So the previous study included under marketed (dead sites).
- We pulled a giant spreadsheet for all the websites on each platform (ex. our Magento list had 5K+ sites)
- Used RAND function in Google Sheets to assign a random number to each row
- Collected data on the first 100 websites on each platform (100 sites x 10 platforms = 1000 sites)
Collecting Data On the 1,000 Sites We Studied:
Used a team of 4 researchers (myself included) to collect data for each website
- Load time from Pingdom
- Mobile PageSpeed, Mobile UX and Mobile Friendliness From Google using URL Profiler
- Ranking Data From Ahrefs
Converting Raw Scores Into Meaningful Ratings
In our research, we measured overall scores in an average of value, features, performance, ease of use, design & themes, and integrations.
- Performance scores are based on storefront page load time, Google speed, SEO features, and ranking.
- Features are based on must-have and nice to have marketing features. Features were rated higher if they were included free, and lower if they were paid add ons.
- Ease of use is based on beginner friendliness, support available, partners/community involvement, app/plugins and their ratings, certified partners/community base, and developer friendliness.
- Integration looks at the ability to sell across multiple channels (ex. Amazon), compatibility with various business models (dropshipping) and other marketing automation integration. This is all about scalability as your online business grows.
- Design and theme scores are based on availability & number of free themes, mobile design rating, Google mobile UX score, mobile friendliness, and cost of premium themes.
Sylius
Present your store with a unique look and touch by leveraging the open-source platform Sylius. It is completely based on a PHP framework named Symfony. It includes high code quality, solid principles, and testing practices to make it easy for developers and user-friendly for your customers.
The platform offers built-in APIs so you can build mobile applications effortlessly, including Android and iOS, along with progressive web applications. Hence, you can sell your products on any device your targeted customers use. Integrate your site with different tools needed to thrive in your business, such as CRM, ERP, inventory, emails, and so on.
Sylius can be easily deployed on various hosting platforms, including Cloudways, Nexcess, etc.
Sellfy
Sellfy offers a straightforward yet powerful platform to create your online store for selling physical goods, subscriptions, or digital products. If you are someone who hates complexity and still wants effective results, Sellfy is for you!
You can sell your products on YouTube, Instagram, or Soundcloud through your website by including a “Buy Now” button or sharing a simple link.
You can boost your sales using email marketing, upselling features, and discount codes with no extra integrations. Customize your store the way you want by adding your logo, creating layouts, and changing colors to compliment your brand. The multilingual platform offers optimization for mobile users so that they can access your store via mobile and desktop.
Sellfy accepts payments from over 200 countries and uses safe payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe. Get a powerful insight through analytics to track best performing products, view traffic channels, and top business locations.
Saleor
Deploy your online store easily using Saleor and leverage top-class performance and flexibility to manage and run your business. It allows seamless integration of your store with different systems such as CRM, CMS, fulfillment APIs, etc. through its innovative GraphQL API.
It gives you complete front-end freedom to use PWA storefront or JavaScript SDK along with the options to choose a new platform or language of your choice. Manage your product bundles, groups, and configurations the way you want. It offers support for multiple currencies, languages, and translations.
Track your business growth by harnessing data and analyze it to shape your business in the long run. Future-proof your brand by creating a robust and secure store using modern tools. It also offers seamless Magento migration and uses clean codes to add new and exciting features to benefit your store.
3dcart
Get a competitive edge by leveraging the robust and secure eCommerce platform of 3dcart. It offers an all-in-one solution for creating a robust store with suitable tools for inventory management, designing, tracking sales, and more. Connect your store with Amazon, eBay, Facebook, etc. to maximize your customers and draw benefits.
Grow your business with in-built email marketing and measure customer insights through reliable analytical tools. Interestingly, it offers tools for cart abandonment recovery that can engage your visitors automatically and encourage them to make a return. The platform also optimizes your site for SEO to drive more traffic and get noticed.
3dcart possesses a Visa PCI certification along with powerful security attributes to secure all the transactions. It supports more than 200 payment providers, including PayPal, Stripe, etc. You can also integrate your store seamlessly with FedEx, UPS, Royal Mail, USPS, etc. to offer secure shipping.
Wix eCommerce
Wix eCommerce is considered one of the top-rated e-commerce platforms in the industry. This e-commerce platform brings out the most professional look for an online store website with over 500 templates and 100 design features available. It also provides more tools beyond its editor interface, such as Wix App Market, Win Invoices, and a Member Login App function.
Wix eCommerce allows stores to accept payment in over 40 currencies through leading providers such as PayPal, Wix Payments, and credit/debit cards. It also helps business owners set up their shipment options and select global carriers such as FedEx, USPS, etc.
Since its inception, Wix has powered more than 700,000 stores — with 200,000 of them established in 2020 alone.
Volusion
Volusion is one of the longest-running e-commerce software today. This all-in-one platform brings the built-in SEO options to go along with its easy-to-understand dashboard and intuitive selling features that help businesses leg up with their ranking from the start. It also offers a wide range of creative setups through its free and priced themes.
Aside from these, Volusion streamlines the payment process through partnering with WePay and Chase. Volusion Payments which businesses save money from their credit card counterparts for about 2.4% per transaction.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce extends an e-commerce store’s functionalities by having the most shipments, region-specific payments, and promotional options available. It also expands businesses’ presence through product listings on Google Shopping, social media, and MailChimp. Aside from that, this e-commerce platform also reports and tracks the marketing efforts via Google Analytics. Doing this, however, requires businesses to have more server resources.
These functions make up for why 28% of online retailers choose WooCommerce, which has been usually perceived as an open-source WordPress plugin.
Weebly
Image by Hannes Edinger from Pixabay
If you’re looking for a 100% beginner-friendly and budget-friendly solution, Weebly is the one.
You get to:
- sell for free (and upgrade later to one of its eCommerce plans)
- set up your small-scale eCommerce website with no tech skills
Key Benefits
- you get to build your online store on a budget: it doesn’t get any cheaper than Weebly
- you can get your website up and running in no time: Weebly’s the most beginner-friendly eCommerce solution you’ll find
Main Drawbacks
- you’re not free to customize your checkout page (a crucial page on your eCommerce website)
- it doesn’t provide you with multichannel selling features
You’d Choose to Build Your Website with Weebly If…
- you have a really small inventory, so you don’t really need any advanced selling features
Square Online Store
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
What makes it the perfect candidate for the title of “the best platform for small business in 2020”?
- it’s affordable
- it’s easy to use, for any beginner trying to launch his/her first online store on his own
- it taps into AI to help you make the best choices when building your site
Key Benefits
- you get to build your website and start selling with… zero costs: Square Online Store does offer you a free plan
- the AI tech that it uses makes it so much easier (and faster) for you to build your store (i.e. you save valuable time when loading your products since it points out what categories they fit into)
- it’s the “best value for money” type of eCommerce option for small-sized businesses
Main Drawbacks
- you’re not 100% free to customize your website
- you’ll find its selling features to be quite… basic if you’re planning to grow your small business
You’d Choose to Build Your Website with Square Online Store If…
- you want to be able to combine your offline sales with your online selling strategy
- you’re on a shoestring budget and you have zero tech skills, so you’re looking for a really affordable and easy to use eCommerce platform to build your small online store… fast
Shopify
New to eCommerce and you’re looking for a turnkey solution to launch your business fast?
Shopify could be the best choice for you:
- it’s easy to use and code-free
- it ships with 50+ different store themes (the Shopify themes are some of the best-looking ones in the marketplace)
- you have lots and lots of apps to choose from to incorporate precisely the functionality that you need into your store
The whole process of building your eCommerce website with Shopify could get summed up to 3 simple steps:
- you select the store theme
- you add on your content
- you import your products’ CSVs
There! You’re now ready to launch your Shopify store.
Key Benefits
- you get a huge app market and the most advanced sales-specific features on the market
- you get multichannel selling options (Amazon and eBay integrations here included)
- you can sync your inventories if you’re already selling on another platform: centralize your inventory management
- you get a robust inventory system (i.e. you get alerted when one of your products is out of stock)
- you get built-in dropshipping tools, essential when you run a small business on a budget and you don’t have storage for your products yet
Main Drawbacks
- it’s not exactly the most budget-friendly eCommerce platform for a small retailer
- expect to be charged transaction fees on your sales, unless you use its in-house payment gateway: Shopify Payments
Your Platform Sets the Tone for Your Store
You’re going to invest a lot of time in your platform–getting all your inventory online, with pictures, tags, descriptions, and so on–so switching from one platform to another is not going to be easy. We talked to people who did, and they all recommended avoiding a switch if at all possible.
So how do you know, before you start, which ecommerce platform is the best one for your particular store long term?
I think it can be helpful to visualize the physical space you’d have to lease for your online store. Is it a small shop, a space in a strip mall, or a box store that can receive deliveries on a loading dock?
Wix and SquareSpace are website builders that allow you to add an online store. They’re perfect for boutiques, small-scale online retailers, solopreneurs, and others that need to distinguish their products and services from the competition.
You’re going to have the freedom to create a much more unique site with these than you can with a pure ecommerce platform, like BigCommerce. With Wix and SquareSpace you can really escape the strip mall feel and build an entire site that fits your vision.
In fact, one user who really loved BigCommerce told us that Wix outclassed it in terms of design tools. He said, “I would use Wix to promote an idea, promote a concept, promote a brand, where visual presentation and the flexibility to update that visual presentation are important.”
With the website builders, total beginners can put together an online store that stands out and evolve their design as the market changes. “Wix dominates that,” said the BigCommerce user. “You can do some fantastic stuff.”
But you have to judge these things based on scale, according to the folks we interviewed. Shopify and BigCommerce are pure ecommerce platforms. Out of the box, they are set up to provide the basics a shop owner needs to conduct ecommerce at a high-volume
The same BigCommerce user we spoke with told us that Wix is fine so long as “you’re not managing a complex inventory system tied into a point-of-sale system with a lot of other complex issues for managing your products.” After that point, it starts to break down.
This is what we heard from SquareSpace users, too, who loved the look and feel of their site, but did not feel confident it could scale like the ecommerce platforms. “If you have a store with 500 to 1,000 different items, Squarespace isn’t for you,” one user said. “It’s way too many items. That’s better for a Shopify or something like that.”
The website builders also have a limited number of payment gateways and POS systems. A single brick and mortar with a single POS will be fine with Wix, but you’ll need to get some custom coding in order to support multiple inventory locations. Shopify and BigCommerce have this capability baked into their most affordable plans.
It’s like choosing between a boutique and a box store location. Deliveries are harder to make to the cute shop downtown than the massive warehouse by the highway.
One BigCommerce user explained the tradeoff perfectly. “It’s actually pretty easy to sell 10,000 products instead of 10,” he said, “but as far as offering more features, more end-user interactivity, that was the most difficult to do.”
We spoke with some Shopify and BigCommerce gurus, who knew how to work custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript elements into their pages.
Some of these folks built sites for less experienced ecommerce users, so while it’s possible to create a unique online experience with these tools, you really have to know what you’re doing. Wix and SquareSpace make this aspect a little easier, though there’s much more of a ceiling for major growth.
Running your online store on WordPress with Bluehost is like purchasing an open commercial lot. Beginners can install WooCommerce with a couple of clicks, stick to the templates, and create a simple store very quickly. Advanced users will be able to extend the open-source platform in virtually any direction they choose.
I think it’s a good alternative to the website builders because it’s much more extensible. The number of WordPress plugins for ecommerce is a lot greater than what Wix and SquareSpace offer.
Conclusion
eCommerce is one of the most lucrative online retail business ventures. With all the fame and popularity, this industry attracts all sizes of businesses including those who are modern time startups. If you have a service or product to sell in an area, you can explore an ecommerce system to offer it to potential customers through the internet. Unlike traditional store-based retail, you remain remotely while offering your items on an ecommerce website.
But with more and more ecommerce platforms popping up each year, finding the best one might be tiresome. Staying ahead of competition is essential to a small or middling business and choosing the right ecommerce platform helps achieve that objective.