Ecommerce has matured significantly over the past few years. With this maturity, several platforms and tools are available for small businesses to choose from when it comes to ecommerce solutions. The businesses can choose a right platform that aligns with their business goals and objectives. This will enable them to take the maximum benefit of ecommerce platform while saving time and cost.
Ecommerce is not as easy as it might seem to many people. It is not just about having a website and selling your items through the internet. A successful ecommerce business takes a lot of hard work and dedication. It’s important for small businesses to find the best ecommerce platform because this will help them with their business growth.
The best ecommerce platform for small business will offer everything you need to manage and grow your online store. This includes everything from choosing a great theme, designing your product pages, selling on marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon, managing inventory (even printing shipping labels), accepting payments and more.
Looking for the best ecommerce platform for small business? Not sure which is the best ecommerce platform for your business? Whether you’re starting your first online store or E-commerce website, there’s a lot to take in and plenty of options to consider. Best Shopify Alternatives in 2021 Best BigCommerce Alternatives in 2021 Wix Ecommerce Review Pros & Cons of Wix Ecommerce Volusion Review: Why Volusion Is a Decent Ecommerce Platform Squarespace vs Shopify
Choosing The Best Ecommerce Platform for Small Business
Choosing the right ecommerce platform is a lot like choosing a physical address for your brick-and-mortar store. There are a lot of different points to consider, from the site’s reputation, to the kind of support you can expect when bringing your business to life.
For some companies, the right platform will be the one that allows them to build something truly creative for their ecommerce store. For instance, you might want an open source website builder with a user-friendly back-end where you can experiment with inventory management, abandoned cart recovery, and different kinds of web hosting.
On the other hand, if you’re a beginner in the world of eCommerce business management, then you might want to switch the open source commerce platform out for a hosted solution. These user-friendly tools are often less problematic for newbies, as they come with various tools built-in, such as free themes, drag-and-drop customization, and support for unlimited products. To help you sort through some of the top performers that we’ll list below, here are some essential points to consider.
BigCommerce (Web, iOS, Android)
BigCommerce is, unsurprisingly given the name, an enterprise eCommerce solution used by multinational companies like Ben & Jerry’s. BigCommerce Essentials offers a similarly powerful platform for small businesses looking to sell online, at significantly more affordable prices.
With that said, BigCommerce Essentials is still aimed at businesses that are already selling a lot, either in units or dollars (less than $50,000 a year is considered “just starting out” when you sign up). This means that, unlike most other options, as part of the onboarding process, you’re prompted to set up sales taxes and automated shipping; both things that smaller stores that are just getting started can kind of improvise on until they’re up and running properly. If you only sell 10 T-shirts a month, you’re not going to suddenly be on the hook for a multi-thousand dollar tax liability.
Similarly, while BigCommerce integrates with online payment processors like Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, and Amazon, you can also configure your store to take payment by bank transfer, check, or money order.
It’s also super simple to list your products on other marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Facebook, so customers don’t have to buy directly from your store. Just head to Channel Manager in the sidebar and connect the option you want. BigCommerce will automatically import any products you’ve got set up and keep any changes you make up to date across all your channels.
This focus on bigger small business isn’t without its downsides, however. While BigCommerce has 12 free themes built in, the majority of the ones available in the theme marketplace (in the sidebar, click Storefront > Theme Marketplace) cost between $150 and $300. They look great, and the drag-and-drop site builder is powerful enough that you can customize themes as you please, but you need to be in a position to justify the investment.
The $29.95/month Standard tier is capped at $50,000/year in sales, while the $79.95/month Plus tier is capped at $180,000/year. You don’t necessarily need to be shifting that level of inventory for BigCommerce to be the right choice for you, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
BigCommerce also integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to the other apps in your tech stack to automate tasks like sending all of your customers to your CRM.
WooCommerce (Free)
WooCommerce Pros
+ Simple WordPress interface
+ Free themes
+ In-house payment platform
+ Support forum
+ 30-day money-back guarantee
WooCommerce Cons
– Limited freedom
WooCommerce is an open-source plugin for WordPress-based websites. WooCommerce itself is entirely free to get started, but you must have website hosting and WordPress already in place. You can also enhance your online store with paid extensions, integrations, and themes for your storefront.
Like WordPress, WooCommerce has several free themes that you can use to build your online store. Another option is to purchase premium themes to set your store apart from free theme users.
You can set up various payment options from major credit cards to integrations with Stripe, PayPal, etc. You can also sign up with WooCommerce Payment with no setup charges or monthly fees. This allows you to accept credit or debit cards with a charge of 2.9% + 30¢ for each transaction with the US-issued cards. An additional 1% fee applies for any other cards issued outside the US.
All of the inventory management, tax calculation, and shipping rates management takes place in the WordPress interface. You can integrate your WooCommerce store with Google Analytics to keep track of data.
There’s an extensive support forum for WooCommerce that can be your first go-to source for information. Since the platform is mostly free, you are expected to handle things on your own or hire an outside programmer.
As a bonus, you have a 30-day money-back guarantee with every purchase from the WooCommerce app store.
Squarespace
Squarespace is another one of those platforms that offers drag-and-drop. Founded in 2003, they have sleek templates and design capabilities.
If you don’t need a lot of features, try them out. It’s also great for print on demand ecommerce business.
The prices are quite low. To start selling, you need to at least be on the Business website plan that’s $18/month when billed annually. Note that you’ll have to pay 3% on transaction fees.
You can escape that with any one of the ecommerce plans at $26 and $40. The top plan allows you to get abandoned cart auto recovery, sell subscriptions and gift cards, and give flexible discounts.
The package comes with all the basic features you’d expect from an ecommerce platform all arranged on the side menu.
The website design part is not that easy though. Their drag and drop editor is not as great as Weebly’s. You might have to try your hands on it a few times before you get the hang of it. When you have gotten past the website design phase, you’ll enjoy the access to marketing, inventory, social selling, SEO, and analytics features.
Squarespace integrates ShipStation and allows you to install Printul and ShipBob from the app section. Real-time calculation of shipping rates from major providers (UPS, FedEx, USPS) is also available.
The biggest downsides are payment processors and third-party applications. They only support Stripe and Paypal. As for the apps, they only integrate with very few third-party tools.
Pros
- Easy To Set Up
- Great For Simple Stores
- Stunning Designs
- Solid SEO tools
- Integrates with ShipStation and ShipBob
Cons
- No dropshipping
- No marketing automation integration
- No Amazon integration
- Could be faster for the price
- No app store for more features and functionalities
Magento Open Source (Free)
Magento Pros
+ Development freedom
+ Widely used
+ Clean marketplace
+ Support forum
Magento Cons
– Requires an intermediate experience
– Expensive paid version
Magento’s open-source platform is designed for small businesses and developers. It’s a great online store builder if you’re looking for a platform with the most freedom. However, if you don’t have experience with Magento, you need to hire someone who does.
Magento is fully mobile-optimized, but with the open-source platform, you need to build the store up yourself. This also means that you have a lot of freedom for rich content for products and other features. You can also get additional eCommerce extensions through Magento Marketplace.
The platform is integrated with PCI Compliant Payment Solutions. You are responsible for setting up the payment gateways or getting an extension from the marketplace.
Managing a Magento Open Source store also requires some extensive expertise. The platform has integrated checkout, payment, and shipping modules, but again, you need to set them up yourself. So, no fancy drag and drop tools, default dashboards, or simple input modules in this platform.
There also isn’t any direct technical support with the open-source Magento version. However, there are guides, walkthroughs, and forums dedicated to any questions related to Magento’s platform. There are also developers for hire who specialize in Magento’s online stores.
Magento is also available in a paid version, but the cost can rack up to thousands of dollars.
PrestaShop (Free)
PrestaShop Pros
+ Strong community
+ Available in 75 languages
+ In-house fraud detection
+ Support forum
PrestaShop Cons
– Hidden free themes
PrestaShop is an open-source eCommerce platform with a strong community. It gets regular updates and bug fixes, and upgraded versions now and then. It’s also available in 75 languages, which is quite impressive.
PrestaShop offers a mobile-optimized platform, and you can choose between various themes. In their official marketplace, the storefront themes start at $69.99. But, you can find community-developed free themes from the forums rather quickly. These free themes don’t appear in the official marketplace.
You can install payment gateways through different integrations. There are also some free integration possibilities such as PayPal, Skrill, or Blockonomics Bitcoin Payments addon. PrestaShop’s platform also comes with in-house developed fraud detection, which you can add free of charge.
PrestaShop’s dashboard is where you can add modules to build your online store and customize it. From their marketplace, you can also get free modules for live chat plugins, shipping options, marketing tools, reporting, and many more. There are 50+ free modules you can choose from and add to your online shop.
Technical support is community-based with some of PrestaShop’s step-by-step guides. There’s also a public forum with a strong community to support you.
Shopify At A Glance
Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce website builder that helps people build their very own online store.
It really is as easy as that – you don’t need mad tech skills, you don’t need a bottomless budget, and you don’t need to hire anyone to make your dream a reality. This makes Shopify a quick and affordable way of creating your online store.
You could start building today, if you wanted to!
Who Can Use Shopify?
Anyone can use Shopify, whether you’re a first-time seller, or a multi-million dollar business like Harry’s Razors (yep, Harry’s Razors is just one of Shopify’s satisfied customers). All you need is an idea, something to sell, and an internet connection, and you could have an online store live in no time.
With over 1,200 apps, specialized features such as inventory tracking and shipping tools, and a range of price plans, Shopify is a powerful platform to choose. It can be used by any sized store, and is extremely scalable.
Conclusion
When it comes to setting up an online business, you can use many different platforms and solutions. Every platform has its benefits and shortcomings, so you will have to choose the one according to your needs. But if you are not careful, you may end up wasting a lot of money on nothing!
Building an ecommerce store is no mean feat. It requires time, patience, testing and retesting to establish your presence in the marketplace. Ecommerce stores have been a boon to both small and big business enterprises. Today, you can opt for any number of platforms that would help you create a professional online storefront. A lot of tools are at your disposal from payment gateways to mobile apps to easy-to-use Shopify templates.