With the advancement in technology and the internet more and more businesses are taking their business online. No matter where your targeted audience lives, you can now reach them with online stores. The website and online stores have become the face of an organisation. More and more people are finding online shopping easy and fun. So if you intend to stay in the business for a long time then it is high time that you adapt to these changes and takes your physical business online.
Wondering what you need to create an online store? All you need is an eCommerce platform. Getting the right multi-channel product management platform and an e-commerce platform will help you sell better and automate your management. Sounds cool, right? But with many e-commerce platforms available online, it is quite hard to find the best eCommerce platform.
Not any more, check out the best eCommerce platforms in this list and find a platform that matches your needs and requirements.
Shopify
Shopify has become one of the most popular e-commerce platforms. Since its inception in 2006, it has helped many people in building their own online store. The idea behind starting Shopify was to overcome the lack of a simple eCommerce platform. The founders of Shopify has built this platform for people who want to build their online store without any technical expertise. Shopify claims that you can build a store and run it in a matter of minutes. It also offers users additional functionalities such as in-depth analytics, functionalities, and unlimited hosting. Shopify is a highly recommended e-commerce platform as they allow you to design, publish and manage your online store, including every aspect of your business. If you’re looking for a customized solution built around your industry’s current practices, then Shopify experts might be right for you. Shopify experts provide quantitative design and marketing services that help companies start, expand and optimize their business ventures. Shopify experts help in eCommerce, you can create more profitable stores for yourself by investing in an experience that will make your store irresistible to potential customers. If you’re not quite sure what platform will work best for you or if you need help with the design process to better communicate the value of your product to potential customers, Shopify specialists can help.
Shopify is offering users with a wide range of templates to choose from. In case they want to try out their personal ideas they can also build their own template. From Level 1 PCI Compliance to customisable storefronts for Instagram and Facebook, Shopify has it all. With Shopify mobile app the users can manage their store from anywhere at any time. It offers a free trial for 14 days, check out the trial version before you make a decision.
Woocommerce
Another popular eCommerce platform that has been offering WordPress eCommerce solutions is Woocommerce. It is not a standalone e-commerce platform like other platforms on this list. Woocommerce is a plugin (free) that will turn your WordPress site into an e-commerce platform. Cool, right? The basic Woocommerce platform is simple to install and easy to use. Also, it will be better for you to straight-up download and use it. If you want to get most from the Woocommerce plugin then you must install a few set of third-party plugins that will help you in additional features to your eCommerce platform such as inventory management, payment processing, etc.
This platform is perfect for people who are just planning to start an online business. It also supports accepting payments from different options such as Sagepay, Paypal and Stripe. Not only that it also offers integrations like Mailchimp for accounting. As you can choose your own plugins, you can customize your e-commerce website as you wish. Cool, right? Checkout the Woocommerce guide to install, setup and manage your Woocommerce store.
Yo!Kart
Yo!Kart is a standalone multi-seller marketplace platform that was launched in 2015. The platform allows global business owners to create and launch future proof multi-vendor ecommerce marketplaces similar to Amazon or eBay. Yo!Kart offers a wide range of ecommerce features such as product catalog system, multiple payment gateways, multi lingual, BOPIS, Geolocation, abandoned cart recovery, etc. Also, the platform comes with pre-integrated taxes and shipping management APIs. It is built on the LAMP stack framework thus it allows business owners to fully customize their stores and scale as per the business requirements. I
Yo!Kart comes with a lifetime license and full source code. There are no recurring and transaction fees. It is also backed by 1-year free tech support and a month’s access to Digital Marketing services. The platform has been used by 1000+ business owners across the globe.
Yo!Rent
Yo!Rent is a ready-made eCommerce marketplace software to help entrepreneurs launch an online platform for renting out items like dress/clothing, jewelry, heavy equipment, sports equipment cars, travel gear, furniture, etc. With unlimited product listings and zero payment processing fees, Yo!Rent scales along with your business. Its UI is especially designed keeping in mind the workflow of rental businesses, including an advanced rental booking calendar to efficiently book rental products.
For the purpose of business promotion, Yo!Rent comes with various marketing features like SEO, PPC, affiliate module and discount coupons management. It has over 15 payment gateways and supports several third party integrations that you can add on your eCommerce store. As Yo!Rent is fully customizable, adding any functionality and feature that you want in your eCommerce platform is not a problem. Like several other platforms present in this list, Yo!Rent is also not a SaaS-based solution. Its lifetime usage license is available at a one-time cost and Yo!Rent’s team provides 1-year free technical support to all its customers.
Bigcommerce
Bigcommerce has been in the market since 2009. This platform claims that it will not just support your online store, it will also support your business too. Bigcommerce offers you a wide variety of themes and templates to choose from. They will beautify your website and make sure that you’re ready for the website to be up and running. You can also use their designers or design your store all by yourself. Apart from excellent themes and templates it also offers excellent analytics and marketing tools that will help you in effectively managing your store.
It is integrated with 40+ payment gateways. So you can accept payment from your customers without worrying about anything. It has also added new features such as shopping in Instagram Stories, support for Amazon import, etc. This platform offers flexible tax rules based on the country the orders are made and shipped too. Check out their 15-day trial before making a decision.
3d cart
Without a doubt, 3d cart is one of the oldest platforms on this list. Since 1997, it has been helping a lot of customers to build their own eCommerce stores without any hassle. The reason behind building 3d cart was to incorporate as many as eCommerce features possible into one single platform. Like the other platforms on the list, 3d cart also offers templates for their users to choose from. Making changes to the store is simple and easy. It also offers store integrations with which the users can sell their products from Facebook too.
The users can directly blog from this platform, not only that it also provides users with tools that will help them in sending newsletters, setting up coupons and affiliate marketing. It also provides users with an offer feature where uses and their customers can negotiate the price. Apart from these this platform also offers many professional services. From shopping feed management to SEO and Facebook ads it will provide you with different services. 3d cart provides hosting and their customer support team are already there to help 24/7 through phone, email or chat. If you want to understand this platform better you can use the 15-day trial version and then decide.
Wix
If there is an e-commerce platform on this list that has improved to become the best in the market is Wix. It has been helping small businesses and entrepreneurs to create amazing stores and sell their products without worrying about a thing. Wix has started offering amazing features that will help the users such as abandoned cart recovery, print on demand, dropshipping and multi-channel integrations. This platform is simple to use and really easy to set up. The users can drag and drop the video and it is offering around 72 free themes in its 500 themes and if you want more options you check out the other themes. It also offers it, users, with on-page support for many needs. As your business grows the limited features offered will not do for your business. So it is highly suitable for small businesses and most importantly it is beginner-friendly.
Volusion
Although Volusion was launched back in 2002, it was founded in 1999. This platform offers users a simple and easy to use website builder with in-page editing and drag and drop elements. Like all other platforms in this list, Volusion is also providing its users with a lot of premium themes along with 11 free themes. If you want blogging capability then you must need a third-party plugin like WordPress. Not only that you must purchase an SSL certificate too. The dashboard of Volusion is clear and simple making it easy for users to find everything they’re looking for. The users can manage inventory and marketing from here. Their plans put a limit on the number of products you can sell. It provides users with a step-to-step guide to build the store. Volusion also has dropshipping and in case you have any issues you can easily approach their support team they are always ready to help you.
Weebly
Weebly is perfect for users who are looking for a store that is simple and comes with marketing automation built-in. It is providing its users with a drag and drop editing tool. Along with that, it is also offering CSS and HTML options to customise the template. It has both free themes and premium themes that will help you in designing your store as you please. Weebly is simple and easy to use the platform because it comes with the basic tools that your store needs. Their dashboard is also quite simple to use. And you can also add your products in bulk. Weebly mobile app will allow users to handle their business from anywhere at any time.
Squarespace
As many other platforms in this list, Squarespace also offers drag and drop elements. This platform was founded back in 2003. It is perfect for users who don’t need a lot of features. Simply put, it is suitable for users who are looking for an easy to use the simple platform to run their online business. The catch with this platform is that you must be at least on their platform if you want to sell the products. Also, you must pay 3% transaction fees. You will also receive access to their other features such as marketing, analytics, inventory, SEO, social selling, etc. It has amazing features such as Real-time shipping rates calculation from major providers. Cool, right?
Magento
The core and integral part of Magento is coding. If you are planning to build a store that is powerful and highly customized then this platform is perfect for you. Simply put if you have a budget and a good developer by your side then you can build an amazing feature-rich store within no time. Many amazing stores such as Cisco, P&G and Nike have used this platform to build their stores. One of the biggest assets of this platform is its community. It has many developers who are working on your store for a fee. Some of them are even ready to answer your questions for free.
Conclusion
Here are the best e-commerce platforms that are rich in features and help you in creating amazing online stores. First, understand the demands of your business and then choose an e-commerce platform that matches your needs to provide you with adequate features that will help you in running and managing your online store.