Ecommerce platforms are a crucial part of the ecommerce business. When it comes to ecommerce retailers all around the world, no matter how big, or small, they all want the best platform. Which is somewhat understandable, considering that success of an ecommerce business depends on its ability to operate incredible software. In this article we will be talking about best ecommerce platforms for small businesses as well as for self-hosted platforms.
The Best Platforms for Ecommerce are very helpful in developing an eCommerce website and make your business successful. To experience a successful journey of your business, you must have to choose the right eCommerce development company that is suitable for your project requirements and budget.
You’ll never know how important a good ecommerce platform is until you’ve used one. Arguably, the best platforms for ecommerce are one of the most important tools a brick-and-mortar store can use to facilitate and expedite the buying process. Your website is your storefront. It’s where you convert visitors into customers. The buying process is two-fold: browsing and purchase. You want it to be as enjoyable as possible and even fun!
If you’re looking to start your own online store or migrate your existing one, it’s important to find an ecommerce platform that offers you the best features for your business and industry. To do this, you can browse this list of the best ecommerce platforms for startups and small businesses
Methodology
We looked at dozens of e-commerce platforms and compared pricing, features and ease of use to determine the best options. We also considered whether the platform has inventory management and multichannel selling capabilities when narrowing these choices down.
- Pricing. Running your e-commerce store shouldn’t cost you more than what you make, so we excluded platforms with exorbitant fees or prohibitive monthly pricing. Similarly, we made sure to pick platforms with great value.
- Features and functionality. Standard features help sellers get their stores up and running quickly, while some platforms provide additional options like POS and advanced reporting.
- Ease of use. It shouldn’t take a developer to make small changes to how your site looks and runs. Each of our picks has drag-and-drop functionality, so you don’t need to know any coding to update your site.
- Inventory management. When a customer places an order, your inventory should drop proportionately without you needing to adjust anything manually. And, when you add inventory, you should be able to do it all from one screen.
- Multichannel selling. You don’t necessarily need a platform that allows you to sell on Amazon and eBay simultaneously. The ability to sell through social media, all without having to update inventory manually, is a considerable benefit worth noting.
Magento (powered by SiteGround)
Best self-hosted ecommerce software for large businesses
4out of 5Overall Rating
4 out of 5 starsEase Of Use
2.5 out of 5 starsSales Features
4 out of 5 starsWebsite Features
4.2 out of 5 starsHelp and Support
5 out of 5 starsValue For Money
3.5 out of 5 starsTry Magento powered by SiteGroundRead SiteGround Review
| Magento (powered by SiteGround) Pros | Magento (powered by SiteGround) Cons |
|---|---|
| Ideal for medium to large- sized businesses | Very technical, not beginner friendly |
| Back-end inventory has excellent built-in features e.g. multiple product variants and bulk product import | Expensive extensions for multichannel e.g. $499 to sell on eBay |
Magento Gallery
Click the image below to expand
Magento is a self-hosted ecommerce software that’s best for larger businesses.
Designer Paul Smith uses Magento to power its impressive online store. It features stylish images, banners, and menus, making for a great customer experience.You’ll find plenty to choose from with Magento’s Extensions Marketplace. It’s not very user-friendly, though, so we recommend using its handy search filters.
Magento is one of the most well-known ecommerce solutions on the market. It powers over 240,000 stores, so it must be doing something right!
If you know a bit of code (or are able to pay someone who does), then you have great freedom to build the store of your dreams.
But Magento’s editor just isn’t as easy to use as hosted ecommerce software. For an inexperienced store builder, there are far more potential pitfalls. For example, we found the Magento interface includes a lot of technical terms that will seem alien to a first-time user.
The more time you spend working out what they mean, the less time you spend perfecting your store. This is why we scored Magento 2.5/5 in our ‘ease of use’ research category.
One area Magento is pretty strong in is the sales features category, scoring a brilliant 4/5. With Magento, you can:
- Sell physical, downloadable, and service products
- Accept payments for WorldPay as a built-in feature (though this payment processor is only suitable for large businesses)
- Add multiple product variants
- Generate total revenue reports
- View total visitor count
The Magento community is very helpful, too, and there are lots of quality guides available. This is why, combined with SiteGround’s customer support, we scored Magento 5/5 for help and support.
As with Shopify and BigCommerce, you can purchase themes externally via Magento, while you can also access a large selection of apps and plugins. The key difference with Magento is that you need to pay for your own hosting.
How much does hosting cost? Well, we recommend using SiteGround to power your Magento store, which comes with three main price plans costing $9.95/month, $17.95/month, and $29.95/month. Overall, considering the cost of extensions and SiteGround price plans, we scored Magento 3.5/5 in our value for money testing.
WordPress + WooCommerce
- Price: from $6-$10 / month
- What it is: self-hosted ecommerce software
- Sell: physical products, digital, services, dropship
- Features: 8/10
- Ease of use: 5/10
- Designs: 7/10
This entry is our first case of dealing with self-hosted ecommerce software. What’s different about it compared to Shopify or BigCommerce is that instead of signing up for a user account, what you get is a raw software package called WordPress, which you need to install on a web server by yourself.
In other words, to get started with WordPress, you have to buy a web hosting plan, and then set things up somewhat by hand. I’m saying “somewhat” since most web hosts have easy installer scripts that make your life easier. For example, if you use a company like SiteGround, you’ll get a working instance of WordPress right from the get-go.
Now, about the other part – WooCommerce.
Under the hood, WooCommerce is a plugin that you install in WordPress to enable ecommerce features and turn your website into a fully-fledged online store.
The strong point of WooCommerce’s is that it’s really versatile and allows you to sell anything you wish. You also get full freedom when it comes to how you want to configure your store and what you want to add to it (extra features). This isn’t something you get with either Shopify or BigCommerce.
At the same time, setting up WooCommerce is a bit more manual in nature, so you need to be aware of that.
Also, for things like dropshipping or some advanced payment processing, discounts, gift cards and etc., you generally need extra plugins (add-ons). While they can be installed quite easily, it is another step that you need to take care of on top of the standard setup.
Price-wise, both the WordPress platform and WooCommerce are free and open source. You can download them with no strings attached. However, what you do need to pay for, as I said earlier, is web hosting. Without that element, you can’t have a working online store on WordPress. Usually, this will set you back around $5-$20 a month. For instance, using a host we recommend – SiteGround – you’ll pay $3.95 / month.
WordPress offers a huge abundance of themes (design packages) to choose from. There are literally thousands of them on the web, both free and paid. The only difficulty is finding the right one. You can also either build your own theme or hire someone to do it.
Here are some of the features you get with WooCommerce:
- Everything unlimited: orders, products, file storage, bandwidth
- Support only from your web host, which may or may not be helpful (it is with SiteGround)
- Optimized for mobile
- SSL certificate via your host
- Accept PayPal by default, and you can also install extensions to process credit cards
- Shipping and taxes handled by extensions
- Good drag-and-drop builder for site content
- A top-of-the-line blogging platform included
- Works with multiple languages
- Set up customer profiles and accounts
- Optimized for the search engines
- Social media integration via extensions
- Inventory management
- Product variations
- PCI compliance depending on your host
See WooCommerce in action:Main dashboardNew productThemes directory
Some examples of existing ecommerce stores built on WooCommerce:
Why use WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is your ultimate DIY solution. It lets you sell anything imaginable – physical products, digital goods, services, drop ship, you name it.
The only difficulty with WooCommerce is that it’s you who has to handle the initial setup and then the ongoing maintenance. If you don’t feel intimidated by that – but rather excited – you’re going to love it.
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 types of ecommerce platforms are there?
In order to make your online store accessible to the public, you have to have a hosting solution. Hosting stores your information on a server, which lets internet users visit your site and view all of the content.
Every website is hosted somewhere, meaning it has dedicated server space from a provider. Some ecommerce platforms have hosting built in, while others require you use self-hosting or open-source hosting.
1. Hosted
Some website builders offer a hosted platform. In this case, you don’t need to worry about the mess of self or third-party hosting and the additional fees attached. Shopify stores, for example, include website hosting in every plan.
All Shopify updates are automatic and hassle free, so your site will always be up to date. Building on a hosted ecommerce platform gives you more freedom to focus on running your business—not on putting out fires caused by downtime and the need to fix bugs.
2. Self-hosted
Self-hosted, or non-hosted, ecommerce platforms require merchants to use their own server space or pay to rent space from a hosting provider. This makes ongoing website management complex, as you’re responsible for updates, maintenance, and bug fixes. This requires a lot of internal resources that you could otherwise allocate elsewhere.
Self-hosted platforms are typically open source, and you use a third party to host your website data. Third-party sourcing options charge fees for their services, and these costs quickly add up. Many times, these hosting services use tiered pricing structures, so those on the lowest plans don’t get much in the way of customer support. This can leave you hanging at really important times, like traffic boosts after unexpected press coverage.
Conclusion
Ecommerce has long been recognized as one of the most important business sectors in the world. Recent estimates tell us that ecommerce creates three times more jobs than the rest of the old and new economy combined. That is a big deal by any measure, and it only adds to the importance of ecommerce.
It makes perfect sense for any startups to want to run an ecommerce store. With the number of people selling things online growing exponentially, it’s crucial to create a unique ecommerce website that stands out from the crowd. This can be achieved by operating your own ecommerce store using one of the best platforms for ecommerce.