Ecommerce software is a powerful and useful tool that can help you start, manage, and grow your online business. With such a huge range of features available, there are many options for ecommerce software solutions. This article will help you to understand the options for ecommerce software platforms in more detail, so that you can find the best one to meet your needs.
The ecommerce industry is booming and it doesn’t seem to slow down. With an estimated 2.3 billion people expected to make purchases on the internet by 2021, now is a good time to think about how you’ll cash in on this fast-paced industry. With so many companies buying into make use of ecommerce platforms, the positive reception to companies switching to dynamic and user-friendly content management systems has helped made ecommerce software more accessible.
The best new ecommerce software for 2021, you’ll find the best e commerce software to help your online store sell more. Our best ecommerce platform options will help you sell anywhere, use multiple payment methods, and offer your customers a seamless experience.
E-commerce is a growing trend. Every year, more and more people decide to start their businesses online. Of course, not everyone has the skills and expertise to create their own websites or build custom e-commerce software from scratch. Instead of dealing with all the hosting, programming and design work, many site owners simply use turnkey solutions instead.
Key Parameters To Help You Choose The Right eCommerce Software For Your Business
All eCommerce software mentioned in this blog are popular and offer nifty eCommerce tools. However, they do vary on some parameters and each of them has its own strong points. Discussed hereunder are factors that can be a part of the research process to arrive at the decision of selecting the right eCommerce software for one’s needs.
- Front-End Features: Intuitive user journey
The look and feel of your e-store come under the front-end features. These are the features that determine the UI and UX of your website. The customer experience will impact the buyer’s journey and decide the sales conversion of the e-store. Features like navigation, search results, and many more come under this category. Squarespace and Magento offer the best design and theme options.
- Back-end features: Seamless business operations
Scalability, security, integrations, store management features, marketing and reporting are some of the essential back-end features of an eCommerce store. These help market, manage and plan the business.
One of the most important factors that determine the back-end usability of an eCommerce software is the technology stack the software is built on. Woocommerce offers the best eCommerce functionalities while Tribe has most features out of the box.
- Pricing: Affordability
Pricing can be a hindrance that can result in hesitation from the business to set up their very own eCommerce store. A software price is an expenditure even before the business has started. This is the reason why businesses need software that is free. They can launch their own e-store to test the waters, without spending on the software itself. Once the business is up and running, they can spend on customizations if they find it necessary. Tribe is the most affordable option among eCommerce software. It’s free to start, with no hidden costs, and is backed by affordable services.
- Technical support: To assist a smooth eCommerce transition
The idea of turnkey eCommerce software is to let you start your e-Store without the need to code a website from scratch. This enables anyone and everyone to start their own e-store, regardless of their technical acumen.
That is why technical support is a critical component in the eCommerce software package.
Among free solutions, Tribe offers 3-month tech support and has an Agile team for any kind of customization or enhancements.
- Customizability – An integral Feature of an eCommerce Store Software
The customizability of the online website is key to offering a tailored shopping experience. A buyer-focused online business with niche and business model-specific functionalities can drive eCommerce success.
– Front-end customizability changes the design elements, look, and feel of the e-store via themes.
– Back-end customizability adds functionalities to the e-store
Different e-stores need to have distinct functionalities that cater to that specific industry and product category. Also, businesses can be flexible to adopt a suitable business model.
There are more reasons why only a customizable eCommerce solution can provide the right answers to an e-business’ needs. It allows a business to be creative with their online store and offer a unique experience to the buyer.
The open-source web framework Laravel is ideally suited for customizable solutions. Bagisto and Tribe, based on Laravel, are flexible eCommerce software.
EngageBay
EngageBay is a platform that offers customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation tools, a help desk, and live chat, all in one. It’s ideal to help with managing contacts, proposals and deals, sales, and scheduling appointments. You can also use it to build landing pages, forms, and email sequences.
Before, during, and after the sale, you need tools to help you manage your customer service. The help desk and live chat software help you do just that.
It integrates with many popular apps, including:
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- WooCommerce
- DocuSign
- ReCaptcha
- Stripe
- Zapier
- And more…
Users can get the whole stack, or purchase only what they need. They’ve got a free plan for up to 15 users with no credit card required.
- The all-in-one pricing is $14.99/user/month.
- The Marketing tools are priced at $12.99/user/month.
- The CRM & Sales Bay tools are priced at 12.99/user/month.
- The Service Bay, or help desk plan, is free.
You can save 10% by signing up for an annual plan, and 20% with a biennial plan.
ProTexting
ProTexting is a SMS and MMS messaging platform that works in over 200 countries, with all languages supported. All major US carriers are supported, including AT&T, Verizon, TMobile, and U.S. Cellular. The platform operates in compliance with all mobile marketing rules and regulations.
Beyond text and multimedia messaging, Protexting also works with social media messaging. Multiple integrations are available, including:
- Shopify
- Constant Contact
- MailChimp
- Amazon Seller Central
- Zapier
- Custom integrations are available via API access
Pricing starts at $49/month for 1,000 credits and one keyword. If your business exceeds the limits of the Corporate plan at $499/month for 11,000 credits and 8 keywords, you can request a custom plan. There are no contracts or setup fees. Discounts are available for annual plans.
All plans include:
- Free unlimited signups
- Instant access to a text code
- Free unlimited incoming messages
- The option to change your keywords at any time
- MMS
- Unlimited email and phone support
Omnisend
When it’s time to get serious about email marketing for ecommerce, many online sellers will find that generalized email marketing tools won’t work for them. After all, why settle for fewer features when there are email marketing platforms built specifically for ecommerce needs?
This is where Omnisend comes in. Packed with ecommerce-focused workflow and email templates, features that allow you to pull merchandise directly from your online store, and custom discount codes you set up in a matter of clicks, Omnisend offers a platform that responds directly to the specific needs of anyone selling online. From customizable marketing automation templates to a visual drag-and-drop email builder, Omnisend makes email marketing easy for ecommerce merchants.
Omnisend offers a free plan for basic email marketing, and automation comes included with their Standard Plan (starting at $16 per month). They also offer free SMS credits to try out SMS marketing with their Pro Plan ($99 per month). You can test any of their paid plans with a free 14-day trial.
Campaign Monitor
Offering seven levels of pricing ranging from $9/month-$899/month, Campaign Monitor offers a lot of price points for customers, but no free plan. The ouch point? This email campaign automation SaaS is MUCH pricier than competitors like MailChimp. There are fewer templates to use than most competitors, too, but the design quality is higher. Sticking with the theme of great design, the UX is amazing, and the drag-and-drop editor is beautifully simple. Importing data is a snap, and you can target and segment your list in beautifully complex ways. The tool includes a landing page creator, but it can be clunky to use. Support options are also limited. If you’ve got the cash and list size to opt for the unlimited plan, it might be worth your while. Otherwise, there are better tools available for less.
Feeds4
Feeds4.com is created to aggregate and distribute content for affiliate marketing. They provide assistance to merchants in distributing promotional content all over the web and facilitate importing of promotional content from merchants through convenient API, publisher platform, and code examples. Feeds4 offers Coupon Datafeed Plans starting at $99 per month.
Active Campaign
Although the user interface could be better and the sheer amount of data on your dashboard will probably intimidate you, Active Campaign has a great reputation for updating and changing based on user comments. A free trial is available and paid plans range from $9-$415/month based on the number of contacts on your list and user accounts you need. You can run a single campaign or base all of your email marketing out of Active Campaign, and trust their hefty analytics to help you make the most of the resulting data. One caveat if you’re thinking about this option: if you want to see how your email campaign looks on different devices and browsers, you’ll have to pay. Prices for these platform tests range from $5 for 5 tests to $60 for 100 tests.
Bulk.ly
In the world of simple social, Bulk.ly dominates by allowing you to upload a spreadsheet of social media posts and sending them to your Buffer account. You can shuffle post order, add relevant hashtags, categorize, and drip schedule your social media from a single CSV file. The tool makes content curation hassle-free but is still in beta, so you’ll need to request an invite if you want to use this tool. If you want to test the app, a 7-day free trial is available.
Buffer
Content is still king, despite yearly predictions that its reign will end. Tracking your social media audience’s interest in topics, planning your social media calendar, and boosting engagement are easy with the Buffer app. The browser extension makes it almost too easy, and the analytics dashboard offers interesting insights into your audience’s behavior. Individual plans range from $0-$10 but don’t include the analytics tools, RSS feed, or the social calendar. Team and agency plans range from $99-$399. Prices are annual. The free plan does not integrate with Pinterest, and all premium plans have a limit of 2000 posts per month, regardless of the number of users (up to 25 team members can be added to 150 total social accounts on the most expensive plan).
Sharetribe – By far the easiest free website builder
About Sharetribe : Sharetribe platform is the easiest way to create a marketplace website in the spirit of Airbnb, Etsy or Fiverr. Allow your community to sell or rent goods and services to each other. You can create the marketplace in a few minutes, easily customize it to fit your specific niche, and monetize the marketplace by allowing people to pay to each other through the platform and take a commission on each transaction.
Sharetribe eCommerce Features : Customer Accounts, Email Marketing, Multi-Store Management, Order Management, SEO Management
nopCommerce – Open-source & Free eCommerce solution
About nopCommerce : nopCommerce is an ASP.NET based open source shopping cart, allowing anyone to set up an online store quickly and with minimal expenses as the solution is free. One key feature of nopCommerce is its pluggable architecture which allows additional functionality to be dynamically added to the application at run-time. This pluggable modularized architecture makes it easy to create and manage your web stores.
nopCommerce eCommerce Features : Catalog Management, Channel Management, Customer Accounts, Email Marketing, Inventory Management, Loyalty Program, Multi-Store Management, Order Management, Product Configurator, Promotions Management, Returns Management, SEO Management, Shopping Cart
Cratejoy – The All-in-One Ecommerce Platform for Subscription Box Businesses
About Cratejoy : Cratejoy is the only all-in-one subscription box solution to help you launch, grow and scale your company. We provide the leading subscription box platform that allows you to launch and grow your business faster and more efficiently – no coding or plug-ins required. We support over 2,500 companies on our platform and over 1 million subscribers on the Cratejoy Marketplace. Founded in 2014, Cratejoy is headquartered in Austin, TX.
Cratejoy eCommerce Features : Channel Management, Customer Accounts, Email Marketing, Inventory Management, Order Management, Product Configurator, Promotions Management, Returns Management, Shopping Cart
Wix (Web, iOS, Android)
Most eCommerce platforms make it possible for you to add an about page, contact page, or even a basic blog to your site, but it’s normally more of an add-on than an out-and-out feature. If you’re looking to build a full website where an online store is a part of things, but not the whole package, then Wix is your best option. It’s a powerful site builder—but it doesn’t skimp on the eCommerce features like order tracking, automated sales tax, and abandoned cart recovery.
When you first sign up, you tell Wix what kind of site you’re looking to build, and it makes a few suggestions. Then you get the option to choose from one of more than 500 templates and make your own site, or answer a few more questions and let Wix’s “Artificial Design Intelligence” or ADI do it for you.
The ADI option is surprisingly quick and effective. Click Start Now, and, after answering a few questions about what you plan to sell and what sort of look you like, selecting the features and pages you want to add to your site, and adding your details, you’ll have a site ready to go in a few short moments. You can even import content from an existing site or Google My Business listing. And, of course, you can dive in and customize things further once Wix’s robo-designers are done.
With so much going on, Wix’s onboarding to-do list is long but comprehensive. In addition to adding things like shipping rates and your shop’s opening hours (if you have physical premises), you’re guided through setting up a professional email address, building an email list, advertising on Google and Facebook, setting up a payment gateway, and a lot more. At times, it might veer a little close to hand-holding, but too much guidance is better than too little.
Wix is one of the most popular site builders around, so there’s also a healthy third-party app and extension marketplace. If you want to integrate your store with accounting services like QuickBooks or shipping coordinators like Shippo, there’s a simple one-click install app. Or you can use Zapier and connect Wix to thousands of other apps like Trello and Google Tasks.
One last note: While Wix is our favorite site-builder for eCommerce websites, it’s not so much better than Squarespace, Weebly, or any other option that you should switch platforms. If you already have a website through another site-builder, try its eCommerce features first.
Wix Price: Free for 14 days; from $30/month Business Basic Plan; transaction fees depend on payment gateway with Wix Payments charging 2.9% + $0.30.
What’s the best ecommerce website builder for you?
Whether you’re a musician selling mixtapes or a budding fashion designer, Shopify is an all-in-one ecommerce website builder to help you get online and sell your products. You can start by choosing over 100 ecommerce website templates in the Shopify Theme Store. Each is fully customizable, and you can use our site builder to shape your template by choosing a domain name, adding your logo, brand colors, fonts, and more.
You can also support your online store with over 3,000 apps in the Shopify App Store to help with marketing, sales, customer service, and more.
With secure web hosting, a streamlined admin dashboard, and unlimited bandwidth, you can set up your ecommerce business quickly and easily. Plus, you have full control over your site’s appearance with the ability to edit your themes HTML and CSS.
Conclusion
If you are someone who is constantly striving to expand your e-commerce business and wants to know about best ecommerce software platforms in 2021, then you’ve landed on the right site. Our e-commerce store comparison will help you compare different ecommerce store software available and choose the best one for your business or your clients.
Whether you are just starting out or have a large e-commerce business you will want to know the best e-commerce software. There are so many options out there that it can be overwhelming trying to decide which is right for you. The market is flooded with poor quality and overpriced software, which can make it challenging to find the system that fits your needs.