From my own experience, it can be hard to find the right e-commerce platform to build a great online store that doesn’t cost a lot of money. It can be hard to choose the best option for your needs when there are so many good ones to choose from. In order to find out more about this topic, I did a lot of research to find the best e-commerce platforms for small businesses in 2023. These platforms have everything you need to quickly launch your website, get more people to visit it, and make more sales.
It’s exciting to start an online business. You get to choose the name of your business, make an image and brand, and set up a website. Even though it’s easy to think about what you need right now, you should also think about where your business is going and what other tools you’ll need in the future.
There are plenty of eCommerce themes accessible, so designing your e-Commerce website doesn’t have to be pricey. In addition, if you have a physical business, a Point of Sale (POS) system for mobile credit card processing may be quite beneficial. Because of its beginner-friendly editor and outstanding eCommerce features, it is the best solution for tiny stores, according to our analysis. Below we have mentioned the best e-commerce Platforms.
Best e-commerce Platforms
Wix
Easily one of the best e-commerce platforms available on the market, the Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder that also offers web hosting and domain name registration. You can create a basic website for free, but to use Wix’s ecommerce capabilities, you’ll need to switch to a premium plan. Wix includes a few tools that might aid with ecommerce. Merchants may track orders, take online payments, offer products across different channels, and run abandoned cart campaigns using the platform.
However, it is missing some key aspects that are critical for product-based enterprises. Low-stock warnings and other important inventory management capabilities are not available. You’ll need a platform with more extensive inventory-tracking tools if you have more than 10 or more products. Furthermore, social commerce integrations require the use of a third-party app.
Shopify
Because Shopify accepts a wide range of credit cards, you will not have to worry about payment conflicts in your store. Shopify also offers PCI Level 1 compliance and 256-bit SSL encryption for security, so you can be sure that your customer and store data are protected.
Shopify’s comprehensive CMS gives you complete control over the operation and presentation of your online store. Another great feature of Shopify is that it allows users to manage their stores from their smartphones. The platform is fully responsive and allows users to monitor, manage and adjust their store from any device, including mobile and desktop.
It is a practical and efficient method for entrepreneurs who are always on the go. One of the reasons Shopify is the largest sales platform is precisely this. However, standing out among the thousands of sellers on Shopify is difficult, so all successful businesses collaborate with product retouching services to attract buyers with high-quality photographs.
Magento
Magento is valued by major brands such as Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Cisco. Coding is a necessary component of the product. Magento is a good choice if you have a developer or the budget for it and want something really configurable and robust. You can make changes and undo them until you get the feature-rich Web store you want.
The community is an important aspect of Magento. It has a significant number of developers who will work on your store for a fee or respond to some of your requests for free. There is also a marketplace where you can purchase extensions and themes to enhance the functionality of the platform. Overall, it is one of the best e-commerce platforms that you can consider.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is extremely easy to set up on your website. Register on the WooCommerce website. Select Auto-install WooCommerce on an Existing WordPress Site when you reach the last step of the onboarding process. You will be asked to log in before installing the plugin. This could not be easier if you are already using WordPress. Likewise, WooCommerce integrates seamlessly with your current backend.
From your WordPress dashboard, you can manage orders, create coupons and track sales. Adding new products is as simple as writing a regular post, and since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, it uses the same interface as WordPress, so you won’t have to learn a new platform. The only difference between adding a new product and creating a new post is that you will have to include product details, such as description, image, categories and tags.
Shopwired
ShopWired is quickly growing in popularity as an ecommerce platform. It caters to consumers all around the world and scores highly in terms of features, performance, convenience of use, and other factors. It’s comparable in price to main competitors Shopify and BigCommerce, and its feature set is comparable. 1-click upsells, digital products, customizable products, product export and import, and more are included in all options.
Many of the features that Shopify and BigCommerce charge for, such as abandoned cart recovery and ratings and reviews, are accessible for free with ShopWired. ShopWired’s B2B functionalities are one area where it really shines. It facilitates the creation of trade accounts, credit accounts, bulk discounts, and a quote request mechanism for store owners.
Squarespace
Square offers some of the strongest onboarding practices in the industry. When you sign up, you must complete a brief questionnaire about your company and its requirements. Depending on what you’re searching for, you can create a single booking page, a full online store, or basic checkout links. The default theme will be changed to fit the business category you choose.
Square is a little more limited than some of the other options when it comes to storefront personalization. Instead of choosing a theme that takes care of the majority of the work, Square requires you to create your own design using the (admittedly superb) site builder—or pay a designer for $99 to do it for you.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce, a NASDAQ-listed eCommerce platform, was launched in 2009. It’s a SaaS-based open platform with a lot of scalability and flexibility. BigCommerce is a well-respected and reliable platform for growing your business. It has a large number of themes, but you can only use seven at a time across all stores. You must invest some of your riches on premium themes.
BigCommerce also has some advanced capabilities that help with content marketing and creation, as well as allowing you to promote your products and services in a variety of ways to boost conversion rates. BigCommerce is a terrific way to grow and scale your company.
Shift4Shop
3dcart (formerly Shift4Shop) has supported over 22,000 online businesses since its public launch in 2001, with clients including PCMag. They offer useful features such as limitless storage and no transaction costs. You may also use their point-of-sale system, which supports multi-channel sales. The company changed its name to Shift4Shop.
Despite being older than BigCommerce and Shopify, Shift4Shop does not perform as well, and the reason is obvious. It is not suitable for novices. Despite a great onboarding video when you go into your dashboard, the entire process is difficult to understand; the builder is not particularly visually appealing.
Sellfy
Sellfy began in 2011 as an ecommerce platform dedicated solely to digital goods. They’ve developed the platform over time so that you may create your own online store in minutes, regardless of your business plan. It’s a simple website builder that doesn’t require any technical knowledge to use. Premium plans start at $29 per month and go up to $159 per month before annual discounts.
Sellfy is one of the most cost-effective ecommerce platforms when compared to other solutions. When compared to Shopify, you may save a lot of money with the tools and ecommerce capability that come included. To take advantage of features like recurring subscription billing, you’ll need to invest in some expensive third-party programmes.
CoreCommerce
CoreCommerce was founded in 2001 with the goal of providing small and medium-sized businesses with ecommerce services. The company emphasises simplicity and transparency, claiming that its platform is simple to use and that clients will not be hit with any unexpected fees.
CoreCommerce, like other ecommerce platforms, includes features for store design, product administration, order processing, and marketing. Unlimited product customization choices, a built-in blogging engine, and secure hosting supplied by Rackspace with a 99.9% uptime guarantee are just a few of the platform’s highlights. A 15-day free trial of CoreCommerce is available.
