If you are looking for software for your ecommerce business that can help you manage, maintain, grow and also run your online shop smoothly & efficiently then the article below is just for you!
There is no doubt that ecommerce business is growing really fast and it will continue like this for a long time. With the Internet sales projected to reach $ 4 trillion by 2021 (Source: Forrester), we need every minute of every day to find good software solutions for running ecommerce business.
Shopify
Best ecommerce solution for larger businesses
Start selling from $29 a month
Best for large stores selling 10+ products
4.6out of 5TOP CHOICEEase Of Use
3.5 out of 5 starsDesign Flexibility
3.9 out of 5 starsSales Features
4.5 out of 5 starsWebsite Features
4.2 out of 5 starsCustomer Score
4.7 out of 5 starsHelp and Support
3.8 out of 5 starsValue For Money
3 out of 5 starsVisit SiteRead Review
| Shopify Pros | Shopify Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to create a powerful online store – no coding needed! | Poor for international growth |
| Powerful sales features help large stores continue to grow | Transaction fees are applied to sales unless you use Shopify’s inhouse payment gateway, Shopify Payments |
Shopify Gallery
Click the image below to expand
Shopify is the best hosted ecommerce software for large stores, with strong sales tools and dedicated ecommerce designs and features.
Browse Shopify’s themes to find one that suits your store’s branding – once you’ve chosen your style, you can customize it, too!Shopify’s standout feature is its enormous app store, which holds over 6,000 apps. This lets you fully customize your store’s features.
Shopify has three core price plans, ranging from $29 to $299 per month. Most new stores will find the cheapest plan provides more than enough features to start fueling growth.
Shopify is one of the best ecommerce software in the market today.
It’s suitable for small businesses who are just starting out, but we recommend it most for larger stores that sell a range of products and manage large inventories. Shopify customers include Tesla and Penguin Books Store. This is a solution with the scalability to grow with your store as your business expands.
Here are some key Shopify highlights:
- Over 100 beautiful, professional, mobile-ready themes to help your store look great
- Over 1,400 apps to add to your store and extend the functionality of your business
- 24/7 anytime support (perfect if you find yourself pulling your hair out at 3am)
- Qualified/re-approved experts available to hire if you want to customize your design and functions
Shopify is a one-stop-shop for ecommerce solutions. Its drag-and-drop functionality eliminates the usual challenges of building an online store, with no coding required whatsoever.
In our research testing, Shopify scored an impressive 4.5 out of 5 stars for its range and quality of sales tools. Some of these tools include:
- Multi-channel selling through Facebook, Instagram, Amazon and more
- 100+ payment options
- No limit on number of products you can sell
- Mobile app to manage your store on the go
- Customizable checkout and guest checkout options
- Automatic email notifications for customers
- Abandoned cart recovery
- In-depth analytics and insight reports
- All-round shipping support
To put it simply: Shopify is one of the very best ecommerce solutions. It’s used by brands like Red Bull and Tesla, so it must really be doing something right! It’s perfect for starting and scaling your business.
Shopify has three main price plans: Basic Shopify ($29/month), Shopify ($79/month), and Advanced Shopify ($299/month), unlocking a wider range of brilliant sales tools the more you pay.
Volusion
Best for tracking your store’s progress with analytics features
Start selling from $29 a month
3.3out of 5Ease Of Use
3.2 out of 5 starsDesign Flexibility
3.4 out of 5 starsSales Features
3.7 out of 5 starsWebsite Features
2.5 out of 5 starsCustomer Score
1.9 out of 5 starsHelp and Support
1.7 out of 5 starsValue For Money
2.5 out of 5 starsTry For FreeRead Our Volusion Review
| Volusion Pros | Volusion Cons |
|---|---|
| Great analytics features | No blogging tools, which can limit your marketing strategy |
| Multi-channel selling is easily managed from your dashboard | Limited bandwidth can result in unexpected fees down the line |
Volusion Gallery
Click the image below to expand
Volusion’s ecommerce solution has great analytics features to help you track – and improve – your store’s performance.
Volusion has a smaller number of themes than Shopify and BigCommerce, and some of its designs aren’t quite as sleek. Not to worry, though – you’ll still have plenty of choice!Volusion has very similar pricing to Shopify, but offers less value for money due to its more limited features. Still, its 0% transaction fees are a great perk.
Like BigCommerce and Shopify, Volusion is a comprehensive ecommerce solution.
Key features include:
- 24/7 customer support – impressively thorough support pages and video tutorials, plus phone support on higher price plans.
- Broad range of mobile-responsive themes – whatever you want to sell online, Volusion has you covered. Its themes cover fashion, beauty, food & beverages, electronics – pretty much anything you can imagine! These themes are also mobile-optimized, meaning your customer’s experience will be smooth no matter what device they’re using. However, for sheer number of designs, Volusion can’t match Shopify (offering 45 compared to Shopify’s 100+).
- App market – you can choose from over 20 apps to bolt onto your store from Volusion’s App Marketplace.
- Ecommerce tools – add products, offer subscription billing, get automatic tax rates, and integrate with Amazon and eBay – all without touching any code.
We like the simplicity of Volusion’s design. The overall offering is not as comprehensive as Shopify or BigCommerce, but Volusion’s store editor is pretty accessible.
Volusion does not charge transaction fees on any of its plans. This means you can keep all your profits and reinvest them in your store.
Like Shopify and BigCommerce, Volusion also has a great range of analytics tools. This makes it easy to assess where your store is doing well and where it could be improved.
Volusion is especially helpful if you’re selling over multiple channels, such as Facebook and Instagram. It allows you to pull all your sales into one place, making it really easy to keep track of everything.
But beware: Volusion doesn’t have any in-house blogging tools, which is less than ideal for growing your store. Blogging can be central to your marketing efforts, so Volusion’s lack of blogging tools is a big drawback.
On the whole, though, Volusion is a more than decent ecommerce software that can get you online even if you’re not at all technical. It’s not quite up to the standard of Shopify or BigCommerce, but it’s still an ecommerce solution that lets you build a stylish store and sell online without coding.
Wix
- Pricing starts at $13 per month for a standard website or $23 per month with a site that offers eCommerce functionality.
- What is it: Hosted eCommerce solution
- Sell: Physical and digital products, services, and dropshipping
- Features: 10/10
- Ease of use: 10/10
- Designs: 9/10
Wix stands out as one of the most versatile tools on the market for businesses of any size. You don’t need to be a master coder or have years of experience online to succeed with Wix. This sensational product ensures that you can access everything from high-quality templates to automation with ease. There’s even complete design freedom with drag-and-drop customization.
Wix gives you all the functionality you need to build a successful website. There are over 500 templates to choose from, and many of them are highly professional and attractive straight out of the box. You can sell products in a range of ways, and you can even build your site with the help of AI thanks to Wix ADI. This means that you can get the Wix system to build a multi-channel solution for your eCommerce business. You won’t get that from companies like ECWid and BigCommerce.
Wix also gives business owners and retailers plenty of access to extra add-ons and features, such as plugins for cart abandonment, drop-shipping, SEO, and beyond. You can find SaaS solutions for all of your needs, and there are plenty of analytics for tracking the performance of your campaigns too.
Whether you’re a startup trying to scale fast, or you’re a larger business that needs a flexible website for sales, Wix has you covered. To make it even better, the Wix experience also keeps updating with new features and functionality all the time.
Pricing
If you need Wix Ecommerce,then you will need to go with the Business Basic package that starts at around $23 per month. This product comes with customer accounts, secure payments, a custom domain which is free for a year, and a host of other great functionalities.
Upgrade to Business Unlimited and you’ll unlock 10 hours of video for $27 per month, as well as unlimited bandwidth, 35GB of storage, and so much more.
The final product for eCommerce is Business VIP, which comes with 50GB of storage space, all the features of Business Unlimited, priority support, a loyalty program by Smile.io and support for automated sales tax on 500 transactions per month.
If you do have a particularly large business, you can upgrade to an Enterprise package, which comes with custom pricing. You’ll need to contact the team to find out how much service this will be for you, but it usually starts at a price of at least $500 per month.
Some of the notable features you get with Wix include:
- More than 500 templates
- Complete drag and drop customization
- Mobile friendly designs
- Industry leading integrations with things like Salesforce
- AI supported designs
- Media galleries and advanced design options
- Tons of app options and plugins
- SEO and marketing feature
- Unified database management for your CRM
- Scalable range of API connections
- Restaurant booking and reservation
- Multiple payment processing support
- Forums and memberships
- Event management
- Booking forms and contact management
- Comprehensive analytics and reporting
- Integration with social media
- Custom domain name
- SSL certificate support
- A professional mailbox
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 or trying to track down customer details using random spreadsheets.
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.
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 Online Dashboard, click Edit Website 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 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.
Conclusion
Do you want to start your own ecommerce site? If yes, then you are probably looking for some of the best software that can help you. Ecommerce business is booming these days. There is always a niche that you can easily penetrate if you have the right tools at your disposal.