Whether you’re a blogger, brick-and-mortar shop owner, or an entrepreneur looking for new business avenues, starting an e-commerce store is certainly exciting.
You will create your logo, sort your products, and develop a website that will help you reach millions of people all around the globe.
Here are the top three e-commerce site-building platforms that will help your dream of opening an online store come true.
1. Shopify
As a leading e-commerce platform, Shopify offers a wide range of self-hosted software to help you sell your products to customers worldwide.
It has multiple features to help you design your website, set up a payment gateway, and handle all other retail aspects to launch your online store.
Shopify has a real-time, all-purpose, interactive dashboard that allows you to keep track of your online store activities with just a few clicks. You can use it to optimize the e-commerce website, try different sales models, and expand your shop’s reach to social media.
This platform also has a high-converting checkout, Shopify POS, that will help your customers place orders using minimal steps. Meanwhile, you will see all those orders synced to your dashboard, helping you process the orders with ease.
What’s more, if you’re just trying new business ideas, you can use this platform’s free trial and 100+ themes to build your online store within a day.
Some of Shopify’s best features are:
- Shopify Fulfillment to manage inventory
- AI platform to generate appealing product descriptions
- Global sales tool to manage international currency, shipping, and taxes
- An all-round mobile app to fulfill orders from anywhere, at anytime
Price: $39/month ($29/month when paid annually)
POS: Yes
Integrated Sales Channels: Facebook, Google, Amazon, Instagram, eBay, and Walmart Marketplace
2. WooCommerce
Unlike standalone e-commerce platforms, WooCommerce is an open-source, free plug-in that can turn your WordPress blog or content site into an online store.
It can add product listings, checkout, shopping cart, and other e-commerce features to your WordPress site to help you start selling products online.
But that’s not all.
WooCommerce can also help you add shipping security, feature-rich customizable themes, and other features using additional paid plug-ins. This will make your WordPress blog an advanced e-commerce store without interfacing with your blogging activities.
While many people love the option to choose whatever feature they want, others may find WooCommerce’s plug-in add-on features burdensome. After all, it’s hard to keep track of every plug-in and extension.
It’s hard to manage all these plug-ins and extensions with different functions on top of managing your blog and e-commerce activities.
Fortunately, you can easily solve this problem by outsourcing the management of your WooCommerce site to a reliable e-commerce website designer.
Pros of WooCommerce:
- Highly active community with many experts
- 6,000+ integrations
Cons of WooCommerce:
- Available for WordPress sites only
- Needs the merchants to manage a diverse set of plug-ins
- Self-hosted
Price: Free (Only the basic plug-in)
POS: Yes
Integrated Sales Channels: Facebook, Google Shopping, Amazon, Etsy, Walmart, eBay, and Pinterest
3. Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento)
Adobe Commerce, formerly known as Magento, is a perfect e-commerce platform for web developers and those who want near-perfect control over their online store.
This platform offers a great deal of flexibility that other e-commerce platforms can’t compete with. However, you must be well-versed in coding to set up your e-commerce website with Adobe Commerce.
Don’t know how to code?
Don’t worry. You can build your own in-house team of developers or outsource the construction and management of your Adobe Commerce online store. The flexibility, customizations, and security this platform offers is worth the effort and investment.
Such flexibility made Adobe Commerce a popular choice among global brands like Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, and Krispy Kreme.
Pros of Adobe Commerce:
- Supports personalized site designs
Cons of Adobe Commerce:
- Needs coding knowledge
- Needs third-party hosting
- Lack of out-of-the-box tools and extensions
POS: Available (Third-party extensions)
Pricing: Custom
Integrated Sales Channel: Amazon
Conclusion
Remember, your goal isn’t to find the best e-commerce site-building platform, but the one that will suit you and your business the best.
Apart from the three platforms we have mentioned above, you can also check other e-commerce platforms like BigCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, and Volusion.
Evaluate which platform offers a cohesive system, payment gateway, and other features that align with your business needs and objectives.
Only by doing this can you find a platform that will help you grow your e-commerce business steadily.
