Ecommerce solutions have grown significantly over the last decade and have helped businesses of all ideals flourish. As a result, vendors are constantly creating new ecommerce solutions for small business owners to use. Because of this, more and more business owners are turning to e-commerce platforms to help them grow their own business online. The question is, which platform should you choose?
Determining the best ecommerce software for online store is often influenced by the platform’s pricing and features. Many people are turning to website builders such as BigCommerce, Shopify, Wix and LemonStand in the hopes of setting up shop on the Internet using a simple and affordable ecommerce platform.
If you’re looking for contents of Best eCommerce Software for Online Stores, then you’re at the right place. Online Shopping has become a trend in modern times due to comfort and facilities it provides. People these days are more obsessed towards online shopping than ever before. You can find anything from digital gadgets to car accessories and so on.
Determining the best ecommerce software for online store is often influenced by the platform’s pricing and features. Many people are turning to website builders such as BigCommerce, Shopify, Wix and LemonStand in the hopes of setting up shop on the Internet using a simple and affordable ecommerce platform.
What is a platform?
A platform is a business model that creates value by facilitating exchanges between independent groups, which usually brings together customers and producers. Platforms create communities and markets that allow users to interact and transact through network effects. The shift to digital and advanced technology in commerce has changed the way we do business, create both resources and opportunities for business doers.
Those who want to seize this opportunity can’t ignore the application of digital and technology in selling products. Given that, online stores are sustainably replacing brick and mortar stores.
Brands strive to succeed with their first online stores, but the results don’t come in expectation. One of the worst mistakes they made is to partner up with the wrong eCommerce platform.
Fundamentally, an eCommerce platform is the backbone of an online retailer. An eCommerce platform is a software in which businesses launch, host, and manage their online stores. The platform provides features that allow merchants to build a branded online storefront to locate and sell their products and services.
An online business, like all other businesses, needs additional software to manage backend functions such as accounting, order management, inventory management, and customer service.
It’s possible to piece together many different software solutions to create a complete platform, but the process is quite complicated and causes your website frequent maintenance and inefficient functions.
Fortunately, a new breed of business software can solve this problem by integrating all essential commerce and business functionalities into a single platform.
When it comes to the eCommerce platform, there is a critical term you need to understand, “platform design.” The platform design isn’t just about considering technical factors. It’s about understanding and creating features for the whole business operation.
It creates value for both users and stores as well as build a network around them. Remember that an eCommerce platform is a business model, not just a piece of technology.
A platform has four core functions:
- Audience building
- Matchmaking
- Providing core tools and services
- Setting rules and standards
Shopify (Web, iOS, Android)
Shopify has been around for more than 15 years—with more than two million stores built using the platform—and it’s hard to find a better option for most small businesses looking to get an online store up and running quickly.
Sign up for a credit card-free 14-day trial, and within a few minutes, you can have a first build of your store ready to go. The onboarding wizard walks you through adding your products, customizing the look of your store, connecting your own domain, and getting set up to take those all-important payments.
Even if you’ve never built a website before, you’re unlikely to get lost in Shopify’s intuitive web app. Adding a product, for example, is as simple as clicking Products in the sidebar and then the Add Products button. Fill in the name, price, quantity you have on hand, and any other relevant details, change its status to Active, and it’s straight in your online store and ready to be sold.
While Shopify ticks most boxes right out of the gate, its extensibility and app store are what really make it such a powerful option. Take the theme situation: Shopify has 10 free themes and more than 50 paid themes starting from $140. To browse them, go to Themes, and then, under Theme Library, click Visit Theme Store. Not a bad selection, right?
But because Shopify is so popular, you can also find more than 1,300 themes available on ThemeForest or get a professional designer who is already experienced with the platform to make you a custom one.
It’s the same with almost any feature you could want. If it’s not built in to Shopify, you can find an extension, plug-in, or service that does it in the app store. Just go to apps.shopify.com, find the app you need, and click Add App. Head back to your Shopify dashboard and click Apps in the sidebar to manage all the ones you’ve installed.
It should be no surprise that Shopify integrates with Zapier, so if you want to automatically add new customers to your email marketing list, track orders with a project management tool, or connect Shopify to any of the other apps you use, you can do it easily.
Shopify Price: Free for 14 days; from $29/month and 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for Basic Shopify plan with unlimited products
Square (Web, iOS, Android)
If you want the option to sell in-person, like at a farmer’s market or craft fair, as well as through your online store, Square is the best choice. Your online and offline orders are all organized under a single dashboard, so there’s no jumping between apps, trying to track down customer details using random spreadsheets, or having to enter things manually after the fact.
Square bought the website builder app Weebly in 2018, so when you set up your store, that’s what’s running under the hood. If you occasionally see a URL direct to weebly.com, it’s nothing to worry about. (Note: we noticed fewer Weebly URLs popping up in the most recent review.)
Square has some of the best onboarding around. When you sign up, you have to fill in a quick questionnaire about your business and its needs. You’ve got the option to set up a single booking page, a full online store, or simple checkout links, depending on what you’re looking for. The default theme will also be tweaked to match the business category you chose.
In terms of storefront customization, Square is a little more limited than some of the other options. Instead of picking a theme that does most of the work, with Square you have to make your own design using the (admittedly excellent) site builder—or you can hire a designer from $99 to do it for you.
From the Square Dashboard, click Online then click Website > Edit Site to get started. In the sidebar on the left, you can select the different page elements, or you can just click on them directly. For more options, click the three little dots. You can change the colors, fonts, and layout of everything individually and, of course, upload your own images. It works well, but it is a bit constrained.
You can create “items,” what Square calls products or services for sale, through both the regular Square Dashboard and the Square Online Dashboard, and they’ll be synced to a common Item Library. This means that you can sell the same products both online and off, or have some things you just list in one location. Just go to Items > Item Library, and click Create an Item.
When you want to make an in-person sale, open up the menu and select Virtual Terminal, which acts just like a digital cash register. If you have a Square credit card reader (available for free), you can swipe your customers’ cards for a 2.6% + $0.10 fee from Square, and their details will automatically upload to your account. Otherwise, you can type in your customers’ credit card information for a 3.5% + $0.15 fee per charge. Online, Square’s charges are similar. On the free plan, you’re charged 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
Square also integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to thousands of other apps to do things like post your in-person transactions to a Slack channel for the rest of the team to see or record the details using Airtable.
Square Price: Free with 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for unlimited products and a Square branded site; from $12/month billed annually with 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction to use a custom domain and remove ads.
Wix – The Best eCommerce Platform
Wix Pros
+ No transaction fees
+ 500+ free eCommerce templates
+ Unlimited products and accounts
+ USPS shipping discounts
+ In-house payment platform
+ 24/7 support (phone/ticket)
+ Free domain for 1st year
+ 14-day money-back guarantee
Wix Cons
– No live chat
– Very limited features in the cheapest plan
Wix’s main direction is giving its customers a straightforward way of building a website or an online store. In fact, their platform powers over 700,000 businesses worldwide. Wix also provides hosting for your online store and their plans are quite cost-effective starting from $23/month with an annual subscription.
You get to choose from 500+ free mobile-optimized eCommerce themes and create your store in 90+ languages for a global reach. Starting from the cheapest plan, you can add unlimited physical products and accounts. However, subscription selling comes with a higher tier plan (starting from $27/month).
Wix’s eCommerce platform’s main features are abandoned cart recovery, customizable checkout page, instant purchase buttons, add to cart from a gallery, wishlists, loyalty programs, discount codes, and customer accounts. Furthermore, you get $300 worth of online ad credit and some useful online marketing tools. Wix also supports multi-channel sales through Facebook, Instagram, and eBay.
However, you can only access some features with higher-level plans, so make sure to double-check if the essential store elements you’re looking for are coming with the plan you choose.
Payment Options
Wix offers payment integrations with 40+ providers, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square. They also have an in-house developed payment platform, Wix Payments, which you can use to accept credit/debit card payments and integrate with other payment providers. Starting from the Unlimited plan, you also get a multi-currency converter feature that lets you accept foreign currency and sell your products worldwide.
Wix also comes with an automated sales tax calculator, which is pretty handy. However, this feature has transaction count restrictions based on the plan you choose.
Online Store Management and Reports
Wix has a straightforward website and an online store builder. Furthermore, you can do all the store management, refunding, and tracking from Wix’s dashboard. Wix also has a mobile app, where you can add products, fulfill orders, track your inventory, get notifications, and more.
Wix supports both direct and drop shipping, which you can also manage through the dashboard. You can set up shipping rules, add custom shipping rates, and print shipping labels. A great perk is Wix’s partnership with USPS, which gives you discounted rates on shipping costs.
The analytics side is also packed with useful reports. You get access to Google analytics, customizable reports, top products’ reports, and business insights. The availability of different statistics depends again on the subscription plan you choose.
Customer Support
Wix has 24/7 customer support through a ticketing system and a callback function. Unfortunately, they don’t offer support over live chat, which is questionable by today’s standards. They do have an extensive knowledge base where you should find answers to most of your questions.
Also, when you first sign up with Wix, their Launch Experts help you get your store online quickly. That’s a great feature, especially if you’re new to online stores.
Pricing
Wix’s eCommerce viable plans start from $23/month with yearly payments. You also get a free domain for one year when going with the annual payments.
Wix doesn’t charge for transactions when integrating with third-party payment processors or Wix Payments. The standard credit card processing fees still apply to the latter.
Business Basic: $23/month with annual payments
- Free eCommerce templates
- Unlimited accounts and products
- 20 GB of storage
- Integration with Google Analytics
Business Unlimited: $27/month with annual payments
- Everything in the Business Basic plan
- 35 GB of storage
- Subscription selling
- Automated sales tax (100 transactions/month)
- Advanced shipping options
- Currency converter
- Facebook, Instagram, and eBay integrations
Business VIP: $49/month with annual payments
- Everything in the Business Unlimited plan
- 50 GB of storage
- Automated sales tax (500 transactions/month)
- Priority support
- Customized reports
- Loyalty program
Wix’s cheapest plan is rather basic. You miss many great features that can help your online store grow or make managing your shop more efficient. However, the upside is that the next tier plan isn’t that expensive, with only a $4 difference in the monthly expenses. We recommend going with the Business Unlimited plan for those reasons above.
Unfortunately, Wix doesn’t have a free trial other than building a free website without eCommerce capabilities. Still, you get a 14-day money-back guarantee to test it out.PS! After you sign up, check the pricing page occasionally as we have noticed that Wix has been offering a 50% discount on some business days.
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. Its available tools make it possible for any niche or industry to be successful.
The interface allows you to customize your online shop without having to know how to code by using any of the customizable templates to design your store, sell and market your products. It’s aimed at those without so much web dev skills, but it also allows tech-savvy people to tweak the HTML and CSS.
I love BigCommerce themes; you will see advanced and buyer-centric templates in the store, however only very few are free. Two to be exact with variations on both making a total of seven free themes.
On the fly side, there’s a broad community of designers and developers. The partner directory helps you find experts for an extra hand.
As for pricing, the lowest plan costs 29.95/month. Some goodies like checkout codes, gift cards, unlimited bandwidth, and professional reporting come along. However, you don’t get a custom SSL or abandoned cart saver, but it’s still really good for simple stores not getting sales worth more than 50k per year. As the plan goes higher, so does the sales limit.
Pros
- Flexible and scalable
- Excels with multi-channel selling
- Strong SEO Performance
- Fantastic Theme Designs
- Comprehensive abandoned cart feature
Cons
- Inconsistent speeds in consecutive studies
- Gets expensive for high volume stores
- Cart abandonment isn’t on entry plan
- No 1-click Selling/Upsells
Why are eCommerce platforms important to brands?
Imagine a house without a solid foundation; it’s terrible like an online store without a good platform. An eCommerce platform doesn’t just support, but it enables the growth of an online store.
Put simply, eCommerce platforms are crucial to the business success of any online retail enterprise.
Back in the 20th century, people mostly came in brick and mortar locations to facilitate exchanges. Now, after many years, thanks to connected technology and the Internet revolution, platforms are created to facilitate the exchanges of value from decentralized networks of individuals.
Accordingly, the platform has grown exponentially, and the ability to enable value exchanges has reached an unprecedented level. Regardless of being hosted on-premise or in the cloud, eCommerce platforms guarantee the scalability and security protection of your data, offer a wide range of operational benefits and business tools, including:
- A product management suite
- Merchandising
- Search capabilities
- Pricing
- Promotions
- Personalize sales and services to your prefers
Using eCommerce platforms, you can customize your product information to fit your online business needs best. It’s beneficial for both store owners and customers.
Conclusion
E-commerce is a rapidly growing industry and it shows no signs of its progress slowing down. However, many merchants are being left behind in the race against their rivals simply because they don’t have a good platform to host their business. It is difficult for them to build a great website or launch a successful online store unless they have the right tools at hand.
The selection of the best ecommerce software for online store will always be much debatable. On one hand, many ecommerce enthusiasts claim that WooCommerce is the most popular and suitable choice for building a store.