The ecommerce industry is one of the fastest growing markets online today. An online store doesn’t have to be complex to reap the benefits. Bigger, more complex stores need software that allows them to manage inventory and sales as well as customer support and shipping. The goal of this article is to help you find the best ecommerce software for your needs.
If you have recently decided to make an online store, one of the first things that you may want to do is choose what software do you want to use. In the given article we will take a look at different platforms that can help you build your website, including open source ecommerce platforms, cms systems and dedicated solutions.
If you have any interest in starting and running an online store one day, the question about best ecommerce software is definitely not alien to you. It is a very common issue that scares many newbies away from this endeavor. After all, running an online business requires a lot of know-how — which includes understanding what software platforms can help in the process, and how to choose the best ecommerce platform for your needs.
Ecommerce software is typically used in retail and wholesale businesses. These help simplify the buying process, enable sales analysis, secure information, and enable a strong brand presence. Let’s take a closer look at what your options are when it comes to ecommerce software.
What is the meaning of eCommerce?
eCommerce Software is an online tool that can handle all processes related to online shopping with ease. For instance, an online store software can manage inventories, facilitate order placement, carryout secure payment through secured third-party applications, manage accounts, among many others. Starting from product selection to successful checkout, it can auto manage the entire process quite efficiently and conveniently. The software can organize and catalog your items as per their size, and quantity. Not just that, it can auto calculate the tax and shipping charges as per the customer location and can send confirmation emails to them on successful business transactions. There can be both b2c and b2b eCommerce software – you have to select as per your need.
How does eCommerce Software work?
Online shopping involves a series of steps and processes, and the best eCommerce software streamlines all those without any hassle. Firstly, it displays products and categories when someone visits your website. Secondly, it enables customers to create an account for shopping and stores all the necessary information there. Thirdly, it provides customer will all the required information such as the price of the product, delivery date, shipping charges, and facilitates customer to go through a secured payment process during checkout. Finally, it helps the money gets transferred to your account, confirms the order and send a confirmation email to the customer against the same. By integrating to third-party software applications, it also offers order tracking, and live chat support as well.
Is it worth investing money in eCommerce Software?
An eCommerce website software can not only help you organize your online store but also helps it easily detectable by improving its search engine rankings. With robust website management and the guarantee of 100% uptime, the shopping cart software enables you to run ahead of your competitors. The all-in-one integrated platform performs multiple tasks under a single time frame ensuring zero mistakes. Looking at the above perspective, it is an excellent choice to invest money in the best shopping cart software.
What are the types of eCommerce software?
In today’s technology-driven world, eCommerce store owners have started to develop stylish stores to make the best of their online business. To launch your shop online, you need to select the premium eCommerce software that has all the tools you need to set up and run your business online.
With plenty of eCommerce software available on the market, choosing the one that fits your business requirement and budget can be overwhelming. The options are countless. Each software has plenty of advanced features and extensions that claim to make your business setup process a cakewalk. If you are looking for the best eCommerce software, you need to understand the types of eCommerce platforms. Let’s understand the major types of eCommerce software.
BigCommerce
Best ecommerce solution for purely online businesses
Start selling from $29.95 a month
Bestfor purely online businesses
4.1out of 5Ease of Use
3.3 out of 5 starsDesign Flexibility
4 out of 5 starsSales Features
4.6 out of 5 starsWebsite Features
3.6 out of 5 starsCustomer Score
3.1 out of 5 starsHelp and Support
3.4 out of 5 starsValue For Money
3 out of 5 starsVisit SiteRead Full Review
| BigCommerce Pros | BigCommerce Cons |
|---|---|
| Has the most amount of built-in features out of all its competitors – makes it extremely scalable | Prices aren’t suitable for very small-scale sellers |
| Fantastic SEO and multi-channel integrations | Terminology can make it tricky to get to grips with |
BigCommerce Gallery
BigCommerce is a powerful ecommerce software that has more built-in features than any other ecommerce solution.
BigCommerce has a well-stocked app market for any extra features you may want to add to your store – however, you’ll be less reliant on it than you would be with Shopify.BigCommerce is perfect for ambitious sellers with big plans for growth, as it’s a very scalable ecommerce solution, with plenty of features to boost traffic.
BigCommerce’s pricing starts at $29.95 per month, and doesn’t charge transaction fees on any of its plans.
BigCommerce’s themes are fully optimized for ecommerce, and you can filter by industry – or even by layout!
BigCommerce is another reputable ecommerce software option that allows you to build your store without getting tangled up in technology.
As one of the best ecommerce solutions, BigCommerce is suitable for businesses of any size. It has more in-built features than any of its competitors, so you’ll have everything you need to succeed right at your fingertips. It’s especially great for online businesses thanks to its multichannel features and SEO tools!
Heads Up: Special BigCommerce Savings
Get one month free when you sign up to a BigCommerce plan! You can claim this offer by simply starting a free trial with BigCommerce today.
BigCommerce has the best sales features on the market; it scored 4.6 stars out of 5 in our research! With BigCommerce, you get:
- A comprehensive set of “out-of-the-box” ecommerce tools to help you build your store
- The chance to leverage different social channels to help you grow your sales
- Advanced tools through their app store (just like Shopify)
- 24/7 support
- A mobile app
The BigCommerce mobile app is a new addition that allows you to view performance metrics, update orders, and more while on the go. Another exciting recent update allows you to integrate your BigCommerce store with your WordPress site. This is a great option for combining the specialist ecommerce features of BigCommerce with the flexibility and customization of WordPress.
We like BigCommerce because it focuses on growing with your store. As you grow, you get access to more features and functionality to take your store to the next level. There are no limitations on whether you sell one or 100 products through your store. Plus BigCommerce gives you great analytics tools and reports to track the success of your business.
You can integrate your store with multiple social channels including Facebook, Instagram, eBay and Amazon. You can manage all your integrations from one place with the BigCommerce Channel Manager. This makes it super easy to sell across these different platforms and expand your business.
Because of the number of features and tools, BigCommerce is really best for anyone looking to scale their business. You get the top-notch features you pay for.
Acquire Live chat
Customer service is a crucial part of any business. The manner in which a business deals with its customers or clients determines whether they would recommend it to anyone.
E-commerce websites face certain limitations when it comes to customer servicing, thereby adding to their problems. Therefore, Acquire has come up with a Live Chat tool.
This eCommerce tool makes it easy for businesses to keep a clear line of communication with their customers, at all times. Whether your customers need help in finding the right product or need technical support, with the help of Live Chat software you can give them a live demonstration of your service or product. Also, the ‘screen sharing’ feature allows you to guide your customer step by step.
Features of Acquire
- Live text chat: It is possible to send and receive text messages simultaneously through this feature. It is one of the best tools used for the customer and inquiry conversation.
- Live Video assistance: In today’s time, it is very important for most of the businesses to provide video assistance to their customers. This tool helps the business reps to interact with the customers personally and face to face.
- Co-browsing software: Co-browsing technology allows an agent to connect directly to the customer’s browser window. The rep can also see the customer’s mouse cursor, web page and interact with the web page in real-time.
- Screen sharing: Most of the customers aren’t tech savvy so they might need the additional support. Acquire’s Screen-sharing feature allows the agents to gain temporary access to the customers’ computer and assist them through the process. It’s flawless and fluent and provides a full HD experience to both the parties.
ProProfs Help Desk
In the online industry, repeat customers are paramount to the success of any e-commerce business and therefore, it becomes all the more important to keep your customers happy and satisfied.
Now, with a lot of queries coming in the form of product feature requests, pricing requests, etc. your support team might fail to respond to every customer email.
This is exactly where the ProProfs Help Desk comes to the picture and makes your team well-equipped to deal with an increasing number of tickets quickly.
So if you are having a hard time keeping track of valuable customer emails, then ProProfs Help Desk is the solution to your online business needs. Let’s quickly explore some more benefits of this tool.
Features of ProProfsShare faster responses: When it comes to ecommerce customer service, speed is the name of the game. ProProfs helps reduce the efforts of desk agents and allows them to share lightning-fast responses.Shared Inbox: With a shared inbox, you can club all your customer-facing inboxes (support@, returns@, billing@, info@, etc.) under a single roof and manage multiple accounts from a shared dashboard.Automated workflow: Rise above repetitive tasks with an automated workflow where tickets are automatically assigned to the right agents and they receive automated alerts and notifications.Canned responses: Is responding to common customer questions eating up your valuable time? ProProfs offers a canned response feature that allows you to resolve common requests with ease.Awesome human support: ProProfs is known for its awesome 24×7 support. You can contact them via phone, email, chat, or simply register a ticket on their website.
Ecwid.
Best Online Store Builder For Existing Websites ($35/month).
With a customer base of 1.6 million small businesses, Ecwid is an excellent and one of the most popular ecommerce platforms available. It also got awarded the “fastest ecommerce implementation platform” by G2 Crowd.
It’s most suitable if you already have a website and want to add a new store or shopping capabilities to it. The good news is that the platform is simple and straightforward to use.
Moreover, it’s entirely flexible and enables users to sell on numerous sites like:
- Amazon
- eBay
This helps you reach out to a massive number of buyers across the world on different platforms from one dashboard.
Starting with Ecwid is also decidedly easy. And if you run your website on platforms like Joomla, Drupal, or WordPress Business, then things become even easier for you because of Ecwid’s in-built integration with them.
Furthermore, it has a highly customizable storefront, which ensures maximum visibility for your products – no matter which device the customer is using. You can prominently display brand elements like logos, colors, and messages to attract your target audience.
Ecwid also allows you to create, manage, and track all of your advertisements right from the dashboard itself. Curating the perfect Facebook advertisements or Google advertisements is also easy.
The payment process is straightforward, courtesy of Ecwid’s seamless integration with over 50 payment gateways like First Data, PayPal, Square, Stripe, WePay, and more via an in-built functionality with top POS systems.
Additionally, Ecwid is a ‘PCI DSS validated Level 1 Service Provider,’ which helps it ensure end-to-end data encryption and secure customer and merchant payment details.
Some of Ecwid’s other unique capabilities are:
- Inventory tracking
- Saving favorite products
- A comprehensive customer address book
- Managing product options
- Automatic updates
- Smart shipping calculations
- An easy checkout process
All these features (among others) help Ecwid stand out from its counterparts. That said, it has its limitations as well. Firstly, it doesn’t offer services in languages other than English. They also don’t provide any telephone support.
However, the feature-rich and diverse pricing plans make up for the limitations. The good news is that Ecwid comes with a free plan that provides all the necessary functions and lets you sell ten physical items in a month.
Then they offer three paid plans.
- The Venture plan lets you sell 100 physical or digital items for $12.50 per month.
- The Business plan comes at $29.17 per month allowing you to sell 2,500 items.
- The Unlimited plan ($82.50 per month) includes all sales channels.
If you already run an ecommerce website and want to migrate it to an easy-to-use-effective platform to sell across multiple channels, Ecwid could be for you.
3dcart.
Best Ecommerce Platform for Small Business Sites ($19/month).
3dcart is one of the fastest-growing ecommerce platforms known for its robust SEO features, 50 free themes, and 100+ payment processors.
Their plans range from $19 per month for a Startup Store up to $114.50 per month for their Pro Store plan. All plans come with domain registration, no transaction fees, unlimited bandwidth, a Facebook store, a built-in blog, API access, and 24/7 tech support.
They recently released new shipping settings and an upgrade to their promotional tools. For shipping, you can display all of your order’s shipping carriers and rates on your checkout page instead of just one at a time.
Then rates are loaded automatically when a buyer checks out with their credit card or PayPal.
With their Advanced Promotion Manager, you can choose multiple Customer Groups to offer a promotion at once instead of one group like in the past. This option is excellent for B2B brands that want an online shopping cart for both consumers and retailers.
Their SEO features are strong and they are touted as “the best ecommerce platform for SEO”. You can create custom URLs, dynamic meta-tags, link titles, and more.
They also take security seriously and are 100% PCI compliant. You can also sell outside of your ecommerce platform with the 3dcart built-in Facebook store. Additionally, you can reach shoppers on the go with mCommerce for mobile devices.
Ultimately, if you’re a small business that needs strong SEO, marketing tools, and ecommerce functionality without the need for advanced enterprise features, 3dcart is a solid choice.
Building an e-commerce platform is a lot like building a house. You have to imagine how it’s going to look before you start construction, find the right materials for what you want, and hire an architect to construct your idea. That’s all true of using software for your e-commerce business: it can be hard enough to choose what software you should use, alone, that the kind of software you choose can make or break your store.
Types of E-Commerce Platforms
There are several models for e-commerce business. In fact, eCommerce sales are expected to rise by as much as 78 percent by the end of the year. Given its scale, it is imperative to be aware of the right e-commerce platforms that you can make use of:
› Open Source:
It is a source of authorizing understanding that allows clients to utilize the given platform independently. The given platform offers the opportunity to control everything on the portal as the users are provided with the source. Bug fixes are made easily accessible and even updates can be made on the go.
› Licensed:
It is the platform wherein the users are expected to buy a one-time permit for setting up the online e-commerce store with the preferred host. The permit specifies what you are allowed to do with the respective rights. In case you are looking for some help with an association, you can get access to a licensed product for the best outcomes.
› Hosted:
A hosted e-commerce platform is the type of e-commerce software that serves as a SaaS (Software as a Service). It is responsible for hosting online services. A good hosted platform is known to possess eCommerce-friendly properties like effective inventory management, online payment integration, reliable & powerful server technology access, and so more. Mostly, hosted e-commerce platforms are considered ideal for small-scale & mid-scale business enterprises.
Conclusion:
E-commerce is revolutionizing the way businesses operate. The rise of ecommerce has taken a toll on brick and mortar stores as an increasing number of consumers prefer online shopping as it is more convenient and can save time as well as money.
The e-commerce industry is an important part of the online economy. For this reason, many parties have developed different software to help run an e-commerce businesses. Some have been tailored for businesses that sell other people’s products (drop shipping), while others are more general in nature and can be used by businesses of any kind.