Choosing the right eCommerce platform is the most significant decision you can make for your business. The decision could potentially make or break your online venture. Every platform is unique with its own nifty features and pricing. In this article, we introduce the most popular eCommerce platforms of choice by the small and medium scale businesses.
But, if you are wondering about the factors that you should consider before selecting an eCommerce platform for your business then you should probably head over to our article “20 Top Factors to Consider While Choosing an eCommerce Platform.” The one common misconception when it comes to selecting an eCommerce platform. Many believe a powerful eCommerce platform is all you need to take your business online.
However, that’s not necessarily true. A powerful eCommerce platform may sound like a good idea to the uninitiated. But, those of you who have prior experience will know that is not the case. Albeit a powerful platform means that it can support many functionalities and whatnot. But, it is not necessary that the platform you select supports the unique functionalities that your business requires.
Your eCommerce platform will also need to be super flexible. The eCommerce industry is constantly evolving, your platform needs to have the capability to adapt to these changes. An open-source eCommerce platform is preferred by many aspiring entrepreneurs. This is because of its high flexibility and superior command over the platform.
A reliable eCommerce platform will ensure that you are not left to fend for yourself if or when something goes wrong in your eCommerce store. Check out the platform’s history and reviews before choosing an eCommerce platform. Make sure that the platform offers good customer service. Ensure they provide expert help if something should go wrong with your store.
It's best if you can make a list of all the functionalities or capabilities that you want on your eCommerce store. Check for a platform that can support them all. This will help you to not miss anything. You can cross-check your requirements with what the eCommerce platforms have to offer.
In this article, we discuss some of the best eCommerce platforms suggested by the leading eCommerce experts. We list the top open-source-based eCommerce platforms as well as SaaS-based platforms. The article further goes on to explain how they can get you the most out of your business.
- WooCommerce
- Magento
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- Volusion
- Squarespace
- Wix
- Big Cartel
- 3dCart
- PrestaShop
- OpenCart
- VTEX
We discuss the best-suited business to run on each platform. We also take you through the pricing of each eCommerce platform listed here. We hope you can make a well-informed decision that is best for your unique business.
Knowing Your eCommerce Platform
Every business is unique, and hence they have unique requirements as well. You need to consider the size and nature of your business, is it product-centered or service-centered? What kind of features will you need to integrate into your store? A powerful eCommerce platform is capable of supporting a large product catalog, multi-store feature, and more.
But the question you need to ask yourself is, “Does my business need it?” In other words, it is not necessary that the eCommerce platform you found on Google is the right choice for you. Ideally, you’d have a reliable eCommerce expert to advise you on important decisions like this. But, even eCommerce companies often try to sell you the eCommerce platforms that they specialize in and not the one that is best for you.
So, how do you make sure that you have selected the right eCommerce platform for your business? You need a platform-agnostic eCommerce expert who will give unbiased and reliable advice, like Virtina. Virtina has in-depth experience and certified expertise on all major eCommerce platforms. This will help us pick the ideal platform on which you can set up your business.
This post will shed light on some of the best eCommerce platforms out there. You may then decide the ideal choice for your business.
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the best free eCommerce platform built on WordPress. One of the best things about WooCommerce is that it’s an open-source eCommerce platform. This means you have full access to the code that runs the website. This means that your site will be highly customizable with unique designs & layouts. WooCommerce is the platform for you if you want a flexible platform. It lets you customize your website extensively.
WooCommerce provides thousands of third-party plugins and themes. They add to the flexibility of the platform. The fact that WooCommerce comes mobile-optimized makes your website accessible via any device. Geo-location support helps both you and your customers. Catalog and inventory management is made easy with WooCommerce. It even provides a shipping calculator, which makes shopping easier for your customers.
Since WooCommerce is built on WordPress, it inherits many features from WordPress. A significant one among these features is the ability to handle heavy content. eCommerce companies are replacing age-old advertising strategies with effective alternatives like content-commerce. Apart from this, you also get advanced eCommerce SEO capabilities. You can drive more traffic to your store with SEO. The pricing and its capability make WooCommerce the best eCommerce platform for startups.
Price
Free to download, with extensions.
Best Suited Business
Small and mid-size businesses.
2. Magento
Magento is a powerful eCommerce platform with strong functional capabilities. Being an open-source eCommerce platform, it is one of the most sought-after platforms. Over 5000 extensions are available on the platform. This makes Magento flexible and helps you set up your eCommerce store with all required functionalities. With the community version, Magento offers the cheapest eCommerce platform. On the flip side, it also offers an enterprise eCommerce platform with Magento Enterprise.
Magento comes with integrated checkout, payment, and shipping. This cuts your work short and makes business transactions easier for you. It is also mobile-optimized, meaning that your site can be accessed from any device. Magento is a powerful platform and has multi-store capabilities. It can help you run two or more businesses and manage them centrally by a single admin.
You can always choose to extend the functionality of your Magento store through the App marketplace. Global selling, instant purchases, and site search further enhance the flexibility of your store. Magento also offers a high customization capability. This is thanks to it being an open source-eCommerce platform.
Price
Magento Open Source is free to download and use. Magento also offers “Magento Commerce,” an enterprise-level solution. Magento Enterprise can cost you anywhere between $15,000 to $50,000 annually.
Best Suited Business
Magento can work for pretty much all kinds of businesses. This includes everything from small-scale businesses to large enterprises.
3. Shopify
The eCommerce platform comparison is incomplete if we don’t pit the open-source platforms against the SaaS ones. Shopify was started in 2004. It is one of the most established eCommerce platforms in the world right now. The best thing about Shopify is that everything that your eCommerce business requires is already integrated into it. This includes everything from storefront design to performance analytics to content marketing capability.
Shopify also supports unlimited product listings. So, if yours is a business that sells a wide variety or range of products, Shopify can come in handy for your business. Shopify focuses on running your eCommerce business easier on their platform. This is evident from the features like real-time sales statistics and inventory tracking. With the help of such features, Shopify provides helpful insight into your business.
Shopify is also a leader when it comes to AI or personalization. This is supported by a wide variety of themes and templates available. However, one area Shopify really seems to shine and set them apart from the rest is their support. With 24 hours of chat support, phone support, community forums, and online help centers, Shopify has your back. Should anything go wrong with your website, you will get proper support from their team.
Price
Basic Shopify: $29/mo
Shopify: $79
Advanced Shopify: $299
Best Suited Business
Shopify is capable of running businesses from any and all spectrum.
4. BigCommerce
If eCommerce has been on your mind for a while now, you’d have certainly come across the name BigCommerce. It is one of the best eCommerce platforms for running a retail business. Bigcommerce’s abandoned cart and shipping integration features are very popular. Established in 2009 and spread across 120 countries, there is no question about its reliability.
BigCommerce lets you have unlimited product listings. You also get unlimited bandwidth and file storage. This would come in handy if your business sells a wide range of parts (small or big). The vast number of products wouldn’t pose a problem with the BigCommerce platform. Unlimited file storage means that you can include more content in your store. You can use heavy content like videos that can be further used to attract more customers to your store.
The other capabilities that you get with BigCommerce include multi-currency sales and gift cards. One expands your customer pool. The other keeps the existing customers happy with attractive rewards. The integration with shipping and POS software makes it an ideal platform for businesses that already have a physical store.
Price
BigCommerce Standard: $29.95/mo – $50,000 annual sales limit
BigCommerce Plus: $79.95/mo – $180,000 annual sales limit
BigCommerce Pro: $299.95/mo – $400,000 annual sales limit
BigCommerce Enterprise: available upon request
Best Suited Business
Although BigCommerce can support most of the businesses, it works best when used for retail stores.
5. Volusion
Volusion is yet another big name in the eCommerce industry. Volusion's standard dashboard already has many important features. Volusion is also known for its security features, especially its secure checkout. The one element that everyone adores in Volusion would be their “Drag and Drop Builder.” Modifying, and editing your page is a cakewalk with drag and drop.
Volusion also offers advanced inventory management. This makes the handling of your business through eCommerce easier. The discounts and coupons feature adds yet another brownie point for Volusion. This is one of the features that can help you build a positive relationship with your customers. If done right, the SEO tools that come with Volusion are all you need to optimize your store for top SERP.
One feature that could possibly be the most useful to you may be the Automatic Tax Calculator. Managing your business’s taxes could easily be the hardest part of running a business. Volusion eases this pain with their Automatic Tax Calculator. Apart from this, Volusion also offers free and paid themes, social media integrations, SKU import/export, and abandoned cart reporting.
Price
Personal ($29/mo)
Professional ($79/mo)
Business ($299/mo)
Custom plan
Best Suited Business
Volusion is a platform that is mostly preferred by startups and small businesses as it is easy to set up while providing enough room to grow their business.
6. Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the eCommerce platforms that is fast gaining popularity. They have a drag and drop functionality combined with their pre-built website template. This makes it effortless to create their web pages in Squarespace. Some of the loved features on Squarespace include abandon cart auto-recovery and gift cards. They can be utilized for customer retargeting and to build customer relationships, respectively.
Squarespace also happens to be one of the platforms that are popular for selling digital products. So, if yours is a business that sells digital products, this could be the platform you are looking for. Furthermore, it comes with ready to use SEO tools that let you optimize the pages on your website for SERP.
Squarespace lets you personalize your products. Hence if your business involves custom products that the users can customize, this could be the right choice for you. It also provides real-time shipping rates and tracking for your customers. Automatic discount is one of the favored features that seem to have a positive impact on the users.
Price
Personal: $16/mo
Business: $26/mo
Basic Commerce: $30/mo
Advanced Commerce: $46/mo
Note: A transaction fee of 3% is charged for every purchase made on the store except for the personal tier
Best Suited Business
Squarespace is ideal for small businesses and entrepreneurs who has basic eCommerce requirements.
7. Wix
Wix is a cloud-based website builder and is one of the widely used eCommerce platforms. Wix allows you to create eCommerce stores with the help of drag and drop tools. This makes it easier for you to design and build your store the way you want it. Wix offers one of the easiest to use site builders, and you’d have no trouble creating the site for your business.
Wix can handle basic eCommerce well, it is not built for managing complex product lines. You will have no trouble whatsoever to fulfill basic eCommerce needs. Wix can be optimized to sell digital products as well. So if you are an entrepreneur who wants to sell digital products Wix can be the ideal platform for you.
Wix does give you a mobile-optimized experience. This means that your store is accessible through pretty much any device. The other advantages are Product galleries, easy inventory management, and abandoned cart recovery.
Price
eCommerce: $17/mo
VIP: $25/mo
Business Basic: $23/mo
Business Unlimited: $27/mo
Business VIP: $35/mo
Enterprise: $500/mo
Best Suited Business
Wix is ideal for your business if it is a small scale one and if you don’t have a dedicated web designer.
8. Big Cartel
Big Cartel is an eCommerce platform explicitly aimed for artists, by artists. The best part about Big Cartel is that the builder is simple and straight-forward. This means there is very little room for confusion. You can create an eCommerce store without the help of an expert. The dashboard is another highlight of the platform. It is easy to use and without any unnecessary complications.
One of the exciting features in Big Cartel is the ability to provide product options with different price points. and this could come handy for an artist selling his/her work. Big Cartel comes with many selling channels, inventory management, discount codes, and more. The best thing is that it even has a limited tax calculation capability coupled with SEO tools.
Price
Gold (Free)
Platinum ($9.99/mo)
Diamond ($19.99/mo)
Titanium ($29.99/mo)
Best Suited Business
Big Cartel is best suited for artists as well as entrepreneurs, and it can be the ideal substitute for Etsy.
9. 3dCart
Versatility is the trump card that 3dCart holds. It can be used by the smallest businesses to huge online stores. 3dCart’s dashboard is among the most loved dashboards in any eCommerce platform. It is clean, simple, and even provides you with an introductory video. 3dCart also takes SEO to another level by making SEO functions visible on the site.
3dCart offers a wide range of integrations. It even provides a much better Blog Feature than Shopify. But, it can not compete with WooCommerce (WordPress) when it comes to blog features. 3dCart also provides excellent business management tools.
It comes with over 200 built-in functions, 90 free templates, and supports more than 160 payment gateways! The plethora of features offered by 3dCart makes it an ideal B2B eCommerce platform
Price
Startup Store: $19/mo
Basic Store: $29/mo
Plus Store: $79/mo
Power Store: $129/mo
Pro Store: $229/mo
Best Suited Business
3dCart is ideal for you if you are just starting out on your business journey.
10. PrestaShop
PrestaShop is a feature-rich, open-source eCommerce platform. It offers one of the most secure payments in the industry. One feature that makes PrestaShop stand out from the rest is its Demographic Assistance. which lets your eCommerce store support multiple currencies as well as languages. This feature is useful if you want to target a large number of international customers.
Easy customization is another aspect that has helped PrestaShop succeed in the industry. You can easily customize your website through PrestaShop. It lets you add or remove features from your store effortlessly. The platform is ideal for you if you are under immense budget-constraints. PrestaShop is free of cost and is looking for minimal investment business.
The platform also provides a user-friendly design. The downside of the platform is that it does not have an official support team. Furthermore, it has limited scalability of the eCommerce platform.
Price
Free to download.
Best Suited Business
Ideal for small-scale and budget-restrained businesses.
11. OpenCart
OpenCart, like many of its competitors, is an open-source eCommerce platform. This makes it transparent as well as flexible. Using OpecCart means you’ll get powerful catalog functionality and superior order processing. The order processing capability of OpenCart is among the best in the industry.
OpenCart offers a vast range of extensions that can optimize your eCommerce store. It also offers lightning-fast speed, which ensures a better user experience. OpenCart even enables you to run multiple stores simultaneously. You can manage them from a single Admin panel with their multi-store function. But, it is not very easy to customize your store in OpenCart as compared to their competitors.
Price
OpenCart is free to download.
Best Suited Business
It is the ideal eCommerce platform for you if you need to run multiple stores from a single admin or if you are good at customizing a web store.
12. VTEX
VTEX is one of the promising eCommerce platforms that is fast gaining traction in the industry. The best thing about the platform is that it can tend to the requirements of all verticals, let it be B2B, B2C, B2E, or B2B2C. This makes the platform highly versatile and susceptible to change. VTEX is famous for being the first fully-integrated marketplace-commerce-oms solution.
Some of the factors that add value to the platform are responsive designs that can work well for pretty much any kind of business. Secure payment gateways, and a centralized order management system are also vital aspects. It is an ideal platform for businesses that gives priority to order management. VTEX comes with a customizable Content Management System (CMS). which can come handy if you intend to implement a content commerce store for your business.
Price
VTEX offers its services starting from $250.00/month.
Best Suited Business
Customizable Content Management System (CMS) and a centralized order management system are excellent for content-rich B2B eCommerce stores.
