A Peek Into Today’s Top E-Commerce Solutions
There’s a plethora of e-commerce platforms that can help you build a secure, well-designed, and high-performing website for your bustling business. Which one is right for you? Take a peek at some of the leading e-commerce solutions on the market.
Shopify
Without a doubt, Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce solutions today. This subscription-based platform supports more than 1.7 million websites worldwide, which stretch across industries such as fashion, beauty, automotive, sports, and food and beverage. In fact, Shopify is the preferred solution of respected global brands including Hyatt Hotels, Red Bull, Heinz, Tesla, Penguin Books, and Kylie Cosmetics. Because of its quick-and-easy setup, user-friendly interface, and flexible features, Shopify has become the go-to choice for businesses seeking to extend their influence in the digital space. But while it’s generally used by big-time players, this platform is also popular with entry-level enterprises looking to build their digital presence.
Perhaps one of the best features of Shopify is its diversified selection of ready-to-use and customizable themes. It has over 100 design options that allow companies to easily experiment with the color, layout, and general makeup of their digital storefronts. E-commerce merchants are able to build attractive, unique, and responsive websites with the least amount of time and resources.
Another notable feature of this platform is its payment processing capabilities. Businesses can integrate more than 100 payment getaways into their sites, including Shopify Payments, PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, WorldPay, and more. Interestingly, Shopify offers Shopify Payments to some qualified merchants, which is a great in-platform solution for processing and managing payments. It eliminates the need for third-party payment providers or the support of external applications upon setup and activation. Aside from that, e-commerce merchants can enjoy lower fees by utilizing Shopify Payments compared to using other payment processing options.
In addition, Shopify is also one of the few e-commerce solutions to have an efficient mobile application, allowing businesses to manage and track the operations of their digital stores from their handheld devices. Merchants are able to update their product pages, process orders in real-time, monitor inbound traffic, and track live sales wherever they are. This handy mobile application also enables e-commerce businesses to add multiple sales channels to better manage and track social marketing efforts.
The Basic Shopify costs $29 per month while the Premium Shopify costs $79 per month. The Advanced Shopify is $299 per month.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is another prominent software for managing e-commerce websites. It’s particularly popular among companies in the United States, specifically those in the retail sector. Because of its scalable features, sales tools, and cheap cost, BigCommerce is widely used by small-time merchants (70%) and medium-sized businesses (20%). While it doesn’t have a large market share like its competitors, BigCommerce is equipped with powerful capabilities that help new businesses strengthen their digital presence. In fact, BigCommerce is highly scalable, offering online businesses the most number of built-in tools to manage websites. Companies can also explore different design possibilities outside the common website templates that most businesses use.
BigCommerce is also known for its multi-channel integration capabilities. This platform makes managing marketing channels hassle-free. E-commerce merchants can easily connect their social accounts, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon, to the platform through the BigCommerce Channel Manager. This tool streamlines the integration and management of marketing channels, so businesses won’t struggle with managing and tracking their marketing efforts outside their websites.
Moreover, BigCommerce offers useful search engine optimization (SEO) tools that can help small and midsize businesses (SMBs) improve their online performance. For instance, BigCommerce has built-in tools that automatically generate SEO-friendly URLs for websites as well as incorporate microdata into product pages to improve their overall search rankings. BigCommerce also uses automatic redirects and rewrites so e-commerce merchants don’t have to manually update their URLs every time they make changes.
The standard version of BigCommerce is priced at $29.25 per month. Meanwhile, BigCommerce Plus and BigCommerce Pro are offered at $79.95 and $299.95 per month, respectively.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a top-rated e-commerce platform that supports 28% of today’s digital stores. It’s free and is often used by small businesses new to the e-commerce scene. A WordPress plugin, WooCommerce can be easily installed and used without advanced technical knowledge. There are numerous plugins and extensions available through this software. In fact, there are more than 400 extensions integrated into the WooCommerce platform, which stretch across payment, analytics, and shipping functions. These extensions are usually offered for free or at a reasonable price so up-and-coming merchants can easily build their imagined storefronts without breaking the bank.
Moreover, WooCommerce is easy to understand and new merchants can easily navigate through this platform. They can even integrate third-party tools and software like CRM systems to help them manage their sites more efficiently. WooCommerce also has Agile CRM, which is an all-in-one CRM that helps SMBs better manage and track their business operations. For example, it allows merchants to monitor the activities of their customers within the site. They can also streamline their processes and perform marketing tasks like sending out emails through the Agile CRM. Aside from the organized workflow, WooCommerce is also known for its high level of security. This platform regularly runs updates to ensure its users are protected against threats and vulnerabilities on the internet.
WooCommerce is a free plugin but a number of its themes and extensions generally cost between $38 to $79.
Magento
Magento is a robust e-commerce solution that's widely used by medium to large-scale enterprises. It supports more than 240,000 websites, from beauty and fashion to sports and home furnishings. Magento offers advanced capabilities that require technical knowledge, especially during the installation process, and might be difficult to operate for inexperienced users.
Magento is equipped with a wide range of impressive functions that outshine its competitors. It recently made improvements on its product section, expanding the options for the configuration of product listings. Magento also added features that improve user experience, such as wish list button, stock availability count, image zoom in and zoom out, and more. Because of this, e-commerce businesses have more opportunities to play with their product pages and add additional components to their sites.
Aside from that, Magento is a great platform for building mobile-responsive websites. The platform uses HTML5 technology, which makes it easier to create mobile-friendly e-commerce sites right off the bat. From navigation to load time to checkout, improving the mobile performance of e-commerce stores is made possible through Magento’s lineup of tools and extensions.
The cost of Magento ranges from $9.95 to $29.95 per month.