Deciding that you want to take your business online, is the best decision you’ll ever make. So, if you are ready to take the next big step for your business, you need to make some important choices. For creating an ecommerce store you first need to choose the platform on which you will create the website. When it comes to selecting the platform for ecommerce websites, there are tons of fishes in the water. We present here the list of most preferred, secure and best ecommerce platforms that you can choose from, to create your website.
If you have already decided to create an ecommerce shop, the following points are going to make you proud of your decision. If you’re not yet ready, these are the reasons you should be.
- Timeless availability – With online shopping website, people can shop anytime, anywhere. No matter if it is day or night, Monday or Sunday, or a national holiday, your shopping is forever available.
- Wide range of Products – With online shops, you can sell a wide range of products. There’s nothing that limits the scope of your product categories.
- No shop maintenance and staff management – The online shops do not need salesperson who’ll sweet-talk the customers into buying the products. So save your funds and use it wisely to develop your shop or providing more products.
- No physical boundaries – This is one of the main advantage of online shopping websites. Your shop can cover up a large geographical area and you can sell to more and more people.
There was a time when creating websites was a domain of computing experts/Programmers/webdesigners. A merchant had to hire a technical person to get his website created. The programmer would write long codes using programming languages and create a website. This was not only inconvenient and costly, but also time-taking. However, that era is long gone now.
At present, we have facilities of CMS, powerful frameworks, website building tools that lets you create websites with utmost ease. So, even if the merchants do not possess any technical expertise, they can create their website and sell their products online. For creating websites with such tools, you don’t need to have any coding or designing skills. Moreover these tools are affordable, flexible and feature rich, so that you can create any kind of website.
Please take a note that this is not a comparison of the options, it is a list. The list of the best ecommerce platforms for your ecommerce website. In no particular order, the following are the best ecommerce tools you can rely on to create your website.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the best and most successful ecommerce platform. This platform offers more than just ecommerce. It enable you to start your business very easily. The shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce platform. This is because it lets you create comprehensive stores, easy dashboard managements, appearance customization, etc. You can even add products to your shopify ecommerce website very easily. It also has an import products feature that is very important if you want to move your website from some another platform.
Besides, shopify is reliable and affordable. There are a few pricing plans that you can choose from, based on your requirements. Shopify also offer 24×7 support for letting you have expert advice.
Magento
Magento is also a popular ecommerce framework that is specifically designed for ecommerce website. It strives to provide you the features to create a best ecommerce shopping cart features. It is used by a considerably large number of retailers to create their eshop. The admin interface is intuitive and easy to use. So, you can change the settings and manage your ecommerce website easily.
Magento ensures that your websites will work seamlessly in mobile phones. Magento is SEO optimized which is one of the most desirable feature in any kind of website. It comes with a easy add to cart and checkout process that provides your customers with smooth user experience.
This Open source ecommerce software comes in different versions, you can opt for the free version or the paid enterprise version. You can opt for a free version and then use the available addons to add features to your website. Alternately, you can buy the enterprise version.that ensures a multi featured website with smoother development and pro features, and faster return on investments.
Volusion
Volusion is one of the easiest ecommerce platform. It ensures easy checkout facilities, backend management and intuitive dashboard options. So the settings and changes can be made easily. Volusion takes care of SEO for better search results. It also allows smooth checkout and payment processing. There’s a wide range of payment gateways you can opt for with this. Volusion also lets you secure your website, for which you will need to get the SSL certificate with extra charge. With this ecommerce platform you can build a mobile friendly ecommerce website.
Volusion lets you choose from the available plans. You can try out the free trial version and then proceed with the paid version to get started with your ecommerce website. You also get the benefit of accessing a superb support team for help setting up your website.
Opencart
Opencart is an open source and free ecommerce shopping cart software. With this platform you can create feature rich ecommerce website very easily. You can add features into your website by integrating the opencart extentions. It supports multiple currencies and flexibility in payment gateways.
This platform lets you set tax, shipping configurations, discounts, and reports. It also provides efficient backup and restore tools for your data security. Opencart also allows you to analyse the sales using the reports.
The best thing about opencart is that it provided free lifetime updates and support. However, you will need to buy the hosting service and domain name.
3dCart
3dcart is a complete ecommerce solution that you can opt for a comprehensive ecommerce website creation. This platform works with over 100 payment gateways. 3dcart is an ecommerce solution using which you can create your website quickly, with easy customization options. It lets you create SEO optimized websites.
You can choose from a wide variety of plans for your ecommerce website. You can obtain a SSL certificate and This ecommerce software comes with ensures 24×7 support from the technical experts.
ecwid
When you want to add ecommerce and shopping cart facility to some existing website, you can use the ecwid. ecwid stands for ecommerce widgets. Though it is not an end to end ecommerce platform, it is simple and ecommerce solution. This is helpful when you are owner of an existing website and want to integrate the ecommerce features into it. However, ecwid is not too good for Search engine Optimization.
The ecwid follows freemium model and comes with three pricing models. You can choose from Ventures, business and unlimited. Ecwid lets you create a portable eshop that can be plugged in to your existing website. Ecwid is ideal if you have an existing website and need to add the shopping feature into your website.
Prestashop
Prestashop is a creative and elegant online store builder. It allows you to create an online store efficiently and easily accept the payment. This platform has lets you configure the shipping, logistic and tax details and discount. The ecommerce website will let you customers experience a smooth and hassle free checkout process.
Prestashop is opensource and free. The powerful store builder, lets you create your store easily, from the scratch. It has some analytics tools and customer service tools too. Prestashop also provides a cloud based ecommerce system. If ever you encounter a problem while using prestashop, there’s a whole ecommerce community and a skilled technical support team to help you out.
Squarespace
Squarespace, is one of the best website building tool. It allows you to create your website with simple, powerful and easy options. It lets you create professional website with the user friendly content management system. Squarespace is completely affordable. Create your website effortlessly using the content blocks. There are gorgeous Squarespace templates that you can use to create beautiful websites. The backend options are easy and intutitive.
Squarespace takes care of SEO too. So, the website you build using the sqaurespace tool, will be SEO friendly.
Squarespace is quite affordable and is a convenient to use. This platform though not precisely designed for ecommerce, works pretty well.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce has a different story. It is an incredible WordPress plugin that changes your website into a full-on ecommerce website. WordPress, is a CMS that was basically designed as a blogging platform so that the bloggers can get started easily and manage their website on their own. But it evolved to be one of the easiest to use and flexible platform for ecommerce too. You can install WooCommerce and turn your website into an ecommerce website in a click.
WooCommerce does everything, It takes care of currency management, product and inventory management, sales management, shipping/taxations, transaction reports, etc. Moreover, you can extend the capabilities of WooCommerce with the addons available for it. Nothing can be better than WordPress + WooCommerce if you want to run your eshop along with a generalized website with blog. However, WooCommerce is equally good for creating a fill-fledged ecommerce website dedicated to sell products online.
WordPress is free and opensource and WooCommerce is free. You will only need to spend on theme and hosting. There are beautiful and feature rich themes available for the ecommerce website using WordPress and WooCommerce.
osCommerce
osCommerce is an open source(os-commerce) comprehensive ecommerce solution written using php. So, if you are an php expert, you can tweak the code of this platform and change the way it performs.
The basic versions of osCommerce are not too good for SEO. Specially the urls of the product page are too long and not SEO friendly. However, there are solutions for that. You can use the osCommerce SEO addons available on the internet. osCommerce is free to download and use.
osCommerce shopping cart software is a blessing for the web developer, designers, and SEO experts to get started with their website. They can use their skill to modify the code and create a website of their desire.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is literally big thing for ecommerce. It is designed to let you create really comprehensive ecommerce websites with utmost ease. This ecommerce platform is totally feature packed ecommerce platform. This platform lets you share the content of your ecommerce on different social channels.
BigCommerce also lets you add features by integrating new tools to your website. They have an App store through which you can get these tools. BigCommerce Next is a newer and enhanced model of this ecommerce software that is more mobile friendly. It is the definitely the next big thing that has all the features and flexibility to compete the others.
Wix
Wix is a website building software that allows you to create stunning websites with drag and drop options. Wix is a blessing for the creative non-technical people who want to work out their websites on their own. At wix it is called Artificial Design Intelligence – ADI. Wix lets you create any kind of website, that includes stunning and feature rich ecommerce websites.
There’s a variety of ecommerce templates you can choose from. Create amazing store front on your own. It also lets you create beautiful product display pages. With wix you can build an ecommerce website that does it all – easy payments, shipping, promoting products, etc. The website created using Wix looks gorgeous irrespective of the device.
Wix offers 24X7 support to its customers. The expert team will be there to help you with any confusion or problem you might face while setting up your website.
ZenCart
ZenCart is the free and open source shopping cart software. This is a highly customizable software. It allows you full flexibility for making changes in your website. ZenCart allows quick setup and customization. There are many features of this platform like product linking, product featuring, WYSIWYG page editor etc.
This is platform specifically designed to create ecommerce website. It is easy to use and lets you manage everything with intuitive options. It allows multiple languages and currencies.
Weebly
Weebly is a complete solution for your website. It includes website building tool as well as hosting service. Weebly allows a person with no technical knowledge to create a website for himself using the drag and drop website building tool.
Weebly is as resourceful and easy to use as wix, squarespace or any such website builder. This tool allows you to create ecommerce with easy payment options and SSL security. There is also an app store for Weebly. You can download the tools and add features to your website.
The basic plan for weebly is free but that will contain advertisements. Other than that there are plans – starter, pro and business performance. Depending upon your requirements you can select the plan you want. You get a free domain for first year. Fee will be charged from the second year onward.
Conclusion
These platforms are designed to help you launch your ecommerce project easily and effortlessly. The competition is intense and sticking to the traditional won’t lead you anywhere. And you can’t expect an improvement until you are ready to make changes and take risks. You need to evolve from time to time, and so does your business. Widen the reach of your business by creating an ecommerce website. We have compiled this list of best ecommerce platforms that the sellers generally use to create their ecommerce website. Hope this list helps you take the best decision for your business.
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