Online shopping has been around for some time but was only used by big brands in the industry. However, the recent pandemic has given eCommerce the push that it needed. As many businesses were not allowed to deal with their customers physically, many companies suffered huge losses, and some even had to shut down. This was when people realized that they had to make their stores digital to conduct business while respecting pandemic safety measures.
As many local and small businesses are going online, there is a big question revolving around the community: which e-commerce platform is best for the company? Several eCommerce platforms are available in the market, and it can be a little overwhelming for new users. Therefore, this article will list our top 5 eCommerce platforms that can help you start your online store.
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Shopify
Shopify has a reputation of being the most popular and successful eCommerce platform among entrepreneurs. The main reason for this popularity is that Shopify is one of the few platforms built solely for selling products online. Although this is quite a full-proof eCommerce platform, some cons still need to be discussed.
Shopify Pros:
- Apps, plugins, and integrations: Shopify has tons of useful apps, like the Shopify pre order apps, various plugins, and integration services that can help make your store more user-friendly and easy to use
- Well-designed templates: Shopify provides any pre-developed templates for your homepage, footer, header, and product page that can be customized to give your store a more personal touch.
- Built for eCommerce: as discussed above, Shopify is quite popular and issued by thousands of websites online; therefore, its community is vast and still spreading at a rapid speed. Thus, thousands of other users can solve any technical problem regarding the platform free of cost.
Shopify Cons:
- Expensive: Basic Shopify plan starts at $29 a month, and its advanced program goes up to $299 a month. Although there are a lot of advantages of Shopify, it can prove to be a little pricey, especially for new users.
- BigCommerce:
BigCommerce is one of the oldest eCommerce platforms in the market to help you build your online store easily and quickly.
BigCommerce Pros:
- Built-in features: As it was a platform designed to sell online, BigCommerce provides unique eCommerce features right out of the box.
- Easy build: BigCommerce is great for newcomers as it is pretty easy to make an eCommerce store on BigCommerce and get your business up and running in as little time as possible.
BigCommerce Cons:
- Selling limit: The biggest con of BigCommerce is the selling limit. In simple words, BigCommerce will start to charge you extra fees if your store sells more than $50000′ worth of products in a year.
- Magento:
Magento is a platform made for professionals. Suppose you want to create a fully customizable store and have the budget to hire a professional eCommerce developer. In that case, Magento is the way to go because no other platform can come even close to Magento when it comes to customization.
Magento Pros:
- Scalability: Magento handles business expansion like a pro and provides a unified experience. You can use magento multiple stores set up to integrate and manage inventory and sales of multiple locations all over the world.
- Flexibility: As discussed above, Magento is customizable from head to toe and gives you complete control of your store.
Magento Cons:
- Challenging to use: Newcomers cannot develop Magento-based stores, and a professional developer has to be hired to create eCommerce stores using the Magento platform.
- WooCommerce:
WooCommerce is a free eCommerce platform for WordPress users. It has many free and paid plugins that can help you completely customize your eCommerce store.
WooCommerce Pros:
- Free: As discussed above, WooCommerce is the only free eCommerce platform, and a vast number of available plugins can end the need to buy any paid tool while making your online store.
- User-friendly: WooCommerce is one of the most accessible platforms to use, and developing an eCommerce store using WooCommerce seems like a walk in the park.
WooCommerce Cons:
- Security issues: the only downside of WooCommerce stores is security issues. Although several paid and free plugins are available that can resolve this issue, WooCommerce security is not that good, right out of the box.
- Amazon, eBay, and Etsy:
I know what you are thinking, “these are not eCommerce platforms”? They are the oldest and most popular eCommerce platforms of the eCommerce industry. Shoplly Review Yes, you cannot make your website, but you can make your online store and don’t have to spend money buying a domain name and hosting.
Amazon, eBay, and Etsy Pros:
- An abundance of customers: Unlike other platforms, if you are well on these three sites, you won’t have built your customer ship from scratch. Instead, millions of worldwide customers are already present on these websites looking for products you are selling.
- Easy to set up: setting up an online store on these platforms is easy. All you have to do is follow a few simple steps, and you will be listing your products in no time.
Amazon, eBay, and Etsy Cons:
- High commission fees: these platforms charge the buyer a commission fee for every sale they make, and these prices can get a little overwhelming sometimes.
- They have all the control: As these platforms host your entire store, they can kick you out whenever they want. So, management is entirely in their hands.
Our recommendations:
If you want a store that gives you a deal that includes “half control and not so expensive,” then you should go for Shopify or BigCommerce. Because these platforms enable you to do sufficient customization, prices are also not that high.
If you want complete control and do not care about cost, Magento is the way to go. Magento gives you full control of your website, and the possibilities to expand your business are endless with Magento.
If you do not have a budget to spend on the eCommerce platform, you can go WooCommerce, Amazon, eBay, or Etsy. With WooCommerce, you have to spend on the domain, hosting, and specific plugins, but everything is free with the other three platforms, and you pay whenever you make a sale.
All the platforms mentioned above are the best in the industry, but as you can see that every service has its pros and cons. Therefore, it is up to you to decide which site platform is suitable for you.
