With the advancement of technology and secure payment gateways, and improved logistics an e-commerce business has become popular all over the world. This has advantage the business organization to gain customers beyond their boundaries and made easier for consumer to purchase their needs with just a use of internet. Therefore, e-commerce business has become one of the multi-millionaire businesses industry offering the products and services through website with a vision to enter the regional, national and global marketplace.
The e-commerce has grown to a highly demanded industry which allows anyone to enter the market whether they are a small sized business or a large scale business. However, the business has impact on a traditional retail business, still the e-commerce industry create an opportunity that move their business with the change in digitalization.
In this article, we will be describing what an e-commerce is and how can e-commerce helps in our business growth. We will also explain what the different types of e-commerce websites with examples. Lastly, we will explain best 10 E-commerce Platforms to create an e-commerce business website.
In our Previous Article we have explained about some of the best website builder which can help you to create a professional website without requiring any coding knowledge or hiring a developer. Read Here.
E-commerce stands for electronic commerce or business. E-commerce website is a digital platform to sell any products or services whether they are physical or digital products by an individual or businesses. It is a virtual store where customer can browse and purchase item online. Therefore, the store should be user-friendly and secure so any business can easily browse the product and purchase from the comfort of their home.
Creating a e-commerce store benefits small to large sized businesses. Here are some benefits for creating an e-commerce website.
Benefits of E-commerce Website?
- E-commerce helps in breaking down the geographical barriers. This allows business to reach the nationwide or global market and no need for physical store in different locations.
- As we do not have to create the different store in different location and gain customers worldwide, this helps business to grow and safe their huge money such as the rent, warehouse, staffs, and other expenses.
- 24/7 Available: Your website is operated 24/7. Customer can easily browse and purchase the product with their convenience time.
- E-commerce allows business organization to offer wide ranges of products without any limitation of physical space.
- E-commerce also enables direct (two-ways communication) communication between business and customers building trust and loyalty.
- E-commerce enables various payment methods including debit/credit cards, digital wallets, PayPal, and other payment ways. The E-commerce also has Cash on Delivery, and buy-now-pay later option to build their business trust and loyalty.
Types of E-commerce Websites
There are eight types of e-commerce website available in global market. The most common types of e-commerce are basically 3 types- B2B, B2C, and C2C.
- Business to Business E-commerce Store (B2B)
- Business to Consumer E-commerce Store (B2C)
- Consumer to Consumer E-commerce Store (C2C)
- Business to Business to Consumer E-commerce Store (B2B2C)
- Business to Government E-commerce Store (B2G)
- Consumer to Business E-commerce Store (C2B)
- Direct to Customer E-commerce Store (D2C)
- Consumer to Consumer E-commerce Store (C2C)
What are best examples of E-commerce?
Here is some successful example of e-commerce business that made significant impacts on the industry. Check out these highly successful e-commerce business industries.
Amazon
Amazon is an American multinational store that focuses on providing every available products from consumer basic needs to electronic and gadgets all over the world. Beside e-commerce business, the company also focuses on other related business such as cloud computing, advertising, digital streaming and Artificial AI.
Alibaba and Alibaba Group
The most popular e-commerce industry known all over the world. They have various e-business established to provide products to business and customer. It is a trusted Chinese multinational technology company founded in 1999. Some of their available services are Alibaba.com, Alibaba Cloud, Aliexpress, Taobao, AliOS, Tmall, Lazada, 1688.com and Daraz.
Ebay
Ebay is another American company established to provide various goods and services worldwide. The e-commerce sells their products and servers more than 190 markets around the world.
Walmart
Walmart is an American multinational retail business organization that operates in a chain of hypermarkets.
Shopify
Shopify is a web-hosting company launched to provide e-commerce platform, interested to create their own e-commerce store to sell their products and services.
Netflix
Netflix is a entertainment service provider company offering TV shows and movies such as documentary, feature movies, and original series through subscription on the Television and Mobile.
Etsy
Etsy is a global marketplace to sell your creativity on Internet. As a creator, you can use their service and become a part of their sell and help you sell various products related to mock-up, T-shirt printing, Crafts, Handmade Items, Jewelry, Clothing, and vintage items.
Airbnb
Airbnb is a e-commerce business, is an marketplace for property owner and guest. The site offers rental and purchase of property services with secure methods.
Uber
Uber is another types of site, where you can get transportation services that allows us to hire a driver or ride. The Uber facilities both riders and driver. In Nepal, we have similar services such as Indriver and Pathao.
Rakunten
Rakunten is a e-commerce store that provides various products to their customers. Beside a e-commerce store, they also have other business such as communication app-Viver, Food Delivery, Travel blog, Ebates, Rakuten Delivery, and so on.
Themeforest
Themeforest is a marketplace where developer can sell their designers and services and customer purchase the themes and plugins for creating the website. Themeforest offers the best theme and plugins to create a website and includes the products you can use if you are using platforms like wordpress, Shopify, Opencart, Prestashop and more.
What is an E-commerce Platform?
E-commerce platform is the Content Management System (CMS) allows a user to create a e-commerce website and manage the products you are offering. Under these platforms, you can create various types of e-commerce store and works best without need of technical expertise.
Best 10 E-commerce Platforms in 2024
Check out best 10 different e-commerce platforms to create a desired e-commerce store for your business.
01
Woo-commerce
If you are already familiar with WordPress or a WordPress users, Woo-commerce is a powerful plugin that helps to turn your WordPress website into a e-commerce store with highly customization features from listing a products to managing a order and maintaining inventory. As a WordPress user, you can find thousands of free and premium themes that support Woo-commerce and customization your theme.
You can also have various plugins that can be easily integrated with Woo-commerce to add functionality of your online store and grow your business from small organization to a large company. Some of the most popular plugins to integrate woo-commerce are payment gateways; customize product pages, invoice, and more.
Woo-commerce can be an excellent choice to create an online store whether you are a small business owner or a larger company. The platform also offers various shipping offers including the customer locations, weight or size and other factors.
If you are looking about its costs, Woo-commerce is a free plugin that can easily integrated with WordPress but required other related costs such as domain name, web-hosting, premium themes and plugins, and other related expenses.
Explore more on WooCommerce vs Shopify.
Benefits of Woo-commerce
User-Friendly Interface
Woo-commerce is easy to integrate with WordPress and provides simple and easy user-friendly setup wizard making a user accessible even with limited technical knowledge. With their user- Friendly interface, Woo-commerce makes business easy to add products, manage products and add payment gateways and shipping methods including physical or digital products.
Highly Customization
Woo-commerce provides high level of customization through themes and plugins. You can easily integrate various plugins with your theme and Woo-commerce and build your online store to match your brand and unique requirements.
Wide Range of Themes
WordPress has various themes for different purpose based on your business and objectives. WordPress offers wide ranges of Themes free and premium that allows you to create a simple or professional online store easily integrate with Woo-commerce.
SEO Friendly
Woo-commerce is created with best optimization for search engines helping your online store rank well in search engine result.
Community Support
They have large and active community support to their users, developers, and experts providing solutions for their issues.
Payment Gateways and Shipping Options
Woo-commerce supports numerous of payment options making customer easy to payment options. Plus, they offer and can configure various shipping options with shipping rates and time with popular shipping carriers.
Limitation of Woo-commerce
Responsibility of Maintenance
WordPress is a self hosting solution to create a website and Woo-commerce is a plugin that help you create a website into an online store. Therefore, you are responsibility for maintain backups, security, updates and other technical related performance.
Add-on Costs
Woo-commerce is a free plugin you can install and develop your online store. However, you might required Add-on costs including domain name, web-hosting, premium theme and plugins.
Mobile Responsiveness
It is important to have a website with a fully mobile responsiveness. Most of the WordPress themes are responsive ensuring a flawless mobile shopping experience that might require additional customization.
Coding Dependencies
When a business required advance customization they might required coding or hire developers. This can also add up cost on your project.
02
Shopify
Shopify is another leading player in creating a e-commerce website for their customers providing a best user interface and a e-commerce related features to grow your business. Shopify is a renowned e-commerce platform established in June 2006 by Tobias Lutke headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. According to demandsage.com, the platform has the biggest market in USA and second is the United Kingdom. The Platform has gain the most popularity in short period of time with almost 20% market share with 1.7 Million users in 175 different countries.
Shopify has a complete e-commerce features that helps you start, manage, and grow your online business. Through, Shopify platform, you can create various online stores digital and physical products and also support dropshipping as well. Shopify has ranked to third largest e-commerce platform in 2023 with large e-commerce options making users to grow their business without required of technical person or technical knowledge.
To create a e-commerce store using shopify, you can directly register your account and choose their pre-designed themes and customize their theme help you create a website easily and save your time and money.
Advantage of Using Shopify Platform
Easy and Friendly User Interface
Shopify is a renowned company providing the best interface to create and manage own online store and manage the products listings, order management, and managing customer data. With their easy and friendly user interface, company provides the simple navigation and clear instructions to create a online store.
Customization and Design Options
Shopify helps you to create a unique and visually appealing online store with their free and premium available themes, you can use and create your online store and freely customize the theme. The platform provides drag-and –drop editing options without any effort and need to required coding skills or professionals developer.
App Store Functionality
Shopify provides diverse selection of tools to meet your business needs including SEO optimization, Marketing automation, and inventory management with the help of various plugins.
Mobile Friendly
In the present era, mobile shopping is on the rise. The platform provides the mobile responsiveness features that automatically adjust the layout and design offering browsing and shopping experience on mobiles and tablets.
Secure payment Options
Shopify provides multiple payment gateways including Paypal, Digital Wallets, Cash on Delivery, Credit or Debit cards that are convenience to your customers. You can easily integrated all of these payment gateways and accept the payments for your customers.
Limitation of Shopify Platform
Monthly Costs
Shopify provides various payment gateways to their clients. The platform provides it payment gateway (Shopify Payment), using external gateways including PayPal or Stripe might incur additional transactions fees.
Transaction Fees on External Payment Gateways
New starter business with limited budgets might feel the monthly subscription costs higher than other available platforms. Because of their higher monthly subscriptions, clients feel to shift to other platform to create their online store.
Requires Coding skills for Advance Customization
The platform provides drag-and –drop function to customize your theme and create your online store. In another word, you have all the basic customization facilities. However, if you want to advance customization, you might require the knowledge of coding languages or hire a professional developer.
Limited Free Themes
The platform provides several few themes that are free and also very limited premium shopify themes to create your store. If you want to create additional features store, you might required to a professional developer to create a theme for your store.
Scalability
Shopify is mostly suitable for small and medium sized business to grow their business and sell their products to the customer. Shopify platform has very limited features in terms of scalability and customization so, for the larger companies the platform might not be suitable.
03
Squarespace
Squarespace is another popular platform enables individuals, businesses, and creators to create a functional website without required of extensive technical knowledge. The platform is founded in 2003 headquartered in Manhattan’s West Village, USA. Squarespace has gained popularity for its user with their elegant templates and required tools that enable various functionality for online presence.
Squarespace offers a built-in e-commerce feature that allows to you creates an online store with product listing, managing product, secure checkout, and order management with secure hosting and regular updates and securing website and data.
The Platform is best suitable for creative professional and small businesses for an easy-to-use solution with best templates with your website’s long term goals and requirements. The platform also has limited blogging features offering basic blogging features.
Benefits of Squarespace Platform
Stunning Templates
Squarespace has a wide range of professional designed templates with modern design, aesthetically pleasing, and responsive. The platform offers amazing website design looking great on all available devices.
User-Friendly Interface
Squarespace has drag-and-drop editing features making user easy to create and customize a website without need of technical expertise and any coding knowledge. It has real-time changes features that helps you learn how your actual website looks as a viewers.
All-in-one Platform
Squarespace provides domain registration service, hosting service, templates, and content management system as all in one platform for creating a website.
Mobile Responsiveness
The templates provided by Squarespace have fully mobile optimized features ensuring your website accessible and functional on Smartphone and tablets.
Customer Support
Squarespace offers the best customer supports through live chat, email and a comprehensive knowledge base to solve their customer issues.
App Integrations
Squarespace offers some important features that help you integrate with popular tools like Google Workspace, social media platforms, and more.
Limitation of Squarespace
Limitation on Design
Squarespace offers limited templates design. If you are looking for highly unique designs, Squarespace is not a best choice for you. Also with their limitation customization features, you cannot create a highly professional website.
E-commerce Complexity
As a small and medium sized business, creating a online store with Squarespace can be acceptable. But if you are a large company for complex stores with extensive products variations, Squarespace is not a suitable platform.
Migration Challenges
If you are planning to move or transfer your website from Squarespace to another platform, migration could be complex due to the platform’s proprietary structure.
Limited App Marketplace
Like other platform in the market, Squarespace offers very limited apps and plugin limiting your website functionality.
04
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is an Open SaaS e-commerce platform launched in 2009 headquartered in Sydney, Australia founded by Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani with an aim to make business organization enable to sell their products online. As company focuses on scalability and customization and seamless experiences, BigCommerce has become a popular platform for business with powerful e-commerce solutions.
BigCommerce is also known as Big Business. The platform allows business owner to set up an online store for any sized business and customize the store that enables you to sell an unlimited physical products, digital products and also service related products. The platform help you create a website and manage your store from anywhere and need not required purchasing any web-hosting.
Some of the popular companies that trust BigCommerce and build their own store are Toyota, Ben and Jerry’s, GE Appliances, Detroit Pistons, RandMcNally, and Old Spice. The other e-commerce website you can create such as fashion, Electronics, Jewelry, beauty and Salon, Food and Beverage, automotive, Education and publishing as well.
Benefits of BigCommerce
Scalability
BigCommerce means Big Business. Therefore, BigCommerce offers best plans that are suitable for all sizes of business allowing selling any products (Physical and Digital) and services helping you grow your business. It also allows upgrading your plans as your business grows into a huge market.
Customization
The platform has a variety of customization features to edit their available templates and create your own unique design and visually appealing online stores.
Built-in Features
BigCommerce provides various e-commerce related features including secure payment gateways, product management, inventory tracking, and SEO related tools.
Hosting and Security
The platform handles your hosting and security. This helps you to secure your online store and enhance your website performance.
Customer Support
BigCommerce offers customer support to assist and handle problem through live chat, email, and a knowledge base.
Limitation of Big Commerce
Pricing
As the company offers the large scalability options, BigCommerce’s pricing can be higher compared to other e-commerce platform.
Limited Templates
Like other e-commerce platform, BigCommerce has very limited templates to create a online store.
Transaction Fees
BigCommerce might charge transaction fees on the top of regular fees based on the payment option you have offered in your online store.
05
Big Cartel
Big Cartel has a user friendly e-commerce platform helping individuals, business and creators to create an online store and sell their products online. The company is founded 2005 headquartered in Salt Lake City, USA founded by Matt Wigham. Big Cartel has become a popular choice for those individual and business looking to establish their online presence and connect their target audience.
Like other available e-commerce platform, the company provides simple and easily interface to create and set up their online stores, manage the products, and process the transactions and may not required any technical skills or resources.
Big Cartel offers free plan for small business organization that allows you to sell 5 products with free customizable theme and use custom domain with shipment tracking and product option groups but has some limitations. This plan is best for the people with tight budget or a starter company. Big Cartel empowers creative individuals to turn their passion into a successful online venture.
Benefits of Big Cartel
Easy to Use
Any business or individuals with no coding skills can easily create their own online store and start selling their products. The platform has simple and friendly interface where, any common person can understand their interface and create a website.
Easy Customization
The platform offers few ranges of customizable themes that allows users to create a unique website and visually appealing online storefront that aligns with their brand identity.
Limited Templates
BigCommerce might charge transaction fees on the top of regular fees based on the payment option you have offered in your online store.
Limitation of Big Cartel
Limited Features
Big Cartel has limited features with basic e-commerce features and lacks some advanced features and functionalities than on other available e-commerce platform.
Product Limitations
The free plan has very limited number of product listing i.e. 5 products per plan which can be restrictive for businesses having wide ranges of products.
Customization Limits
Big Cartel has limited customization features with the limited features and limited themes customization making user find limitation of their design and functionality.
Advanced Marketing Tools
Big Cartel has basic marketing tools and lacks more advanced marketing features for a business with large sizes.
06
OpenCart
OpenCart is a free and open source e-commerce platform that enables you sell and purchase products online. OpenCart is a completely free to download and use. OpenCart offers all the necessary functions to create your online store with low price and has full control on your store with great customization and flexibility.
OpenCart is founded in 1998 by Chirstopher G. Mann. OpenCart has become a popular platform with easy and friendly interface, powerful open source online store that help users to manage multiple online stores from a single back-end and customize the store you desired.
OpenCart has a maximum ranges of features with 14,000 additional extensions you can download and install on your store that are perfect for e-commerce stores of any business sizes and business budget.
The company provides wide ranges of additional extension to increate functionality of your online store such as Payment Gateways, SEO optimization, Analytics, marketing tools and many more. As a user, you might require some basic technical knowledge to set up and customize your online store and provided plenty support for their users with best level of expertise.
Benefits of OpenCart
Open Source with Cost-Effective
OpenCart is an open source platform which is free to use with minimum investment to start your online store.
User Friendly and Customization Option
OpenCart provides user-friendly interface to set up your online store even if you have limited technical knowledge. The platform also provides ranges of customizable option on themes and templates allowing user to create their unique design website that align with your business brand.
Extension and Plugins
OpenCart support and offers wide ranges of extension and plugins to enable functionality of your online store from SEO optimization to marketing tools, payment gateways, and shipping options.
SEO Friendly
The platform provides best SEO tools and features to optimize your online store helping your business visible on search result and rank your websi
Limitation of OpenCart
Technical Knowledge Required
OpenCart is a open source platform and is free to install but required some level of technical knowledge that might be necessary for more advanced customization and coding.
Scalability
OpenCart is suitable for small and medium sized business but may not be a perfect solution for large sized business for wide ranges of functionality and features.
Security and Updates
As a User, you are responsible for ensuring the security of your online store and include regular updates and patches.
Complexity Customization
OpenCart offers customization options however, for more complex design changes or features might require coding and professional assistance.
07
Prestashop
Prestashop is another best free Content Management System (CMS) that helps you easily create, manage and design website. The platform is a leading e-commerce solution in Europe and Latin America. The software is written in the PHP programming Language with support for the MySQL database management system.
Prestashop is founded in 2007 by Burno Leveque and Igor Schlumberger headquartered in Paris, France evolved into a powerful and best platform to establish your online store with high features, and customization.
Prestashop has become the dynamic and versatile e-commerce platform to create and manage online store best for small, medium, and large sized businesses offering the best features to reach their global customers.
Prestashop contains more than three hundreds of built-in features such as managing product listings, manufacturing and suppliers, payment gateways, and shipping options. The company also provides basic responsive themes you can use and customize it with your desired design website. Search Engine is an important feature to rank your website and present your business on search engine and Prestashop has the great optimization for search engine result.
Benefits of Prestashop
Cost-Effective Platform
Prestashop is open source software so it is free to use and offers the cost effective solution to built your online store and manage your store and products.
Modular Architecture
With the help of the modular architecture, the platform helps users to extend their store’s functionality with available 300+ extension and add-ons from Prestashop marketplace.
User Friendly Interface
The platform is simple and user friendly interface to create, manage your online store and also manage payment, orders, payments, and other e-commerce related options on online store.
Customization Options
Prestashop contains wide ranges of customization option on their themes and templates to create their online store with desired design and adding functionality that reflect your brand identity.
SEO- Friendly
The Prestashop has amazing SEO tools to optimize your online store help your business to rank on search result.
Scalability
Prestashop is suitable for small, medium, and large sized businesses offering the flexibility to grow your business.
Limitation of Prestashop
Technical Expertise
Prestashop offers user friendly interface to create and manage your online but required some level of technical knowledge or technical expertise for more advanced customizations.
Maintenance and Updates
Prestashop is open source platform so, users are responsible for the regular updates and maintenance to secure your website and speed-up the performance.
Design Flexibility
Although you have best customization option, sometime for creating highly specific design changes may required coding expertise or professional assistance.
Customer Support
Based on the sizes of business, customer support may vary. The customer support provided to small and medium sized can be limited compared to large sized business.
08
Ecwid
Ecwid is another e-commerce popular platform to create an online store founded in 2009 by Ruslan Fazlyev headquartered in Encinitas, CA. The platform has successfully able to solve more than 175 countries and available in 50 different languages.
The platform is created especially for small sized businesses or an individual to add an online store to their existing sites. You have an ability to integrate with existing websites, social media platforms, and other online channels helping your business to expand and reach your customers through various channels. Ecwid provides free plan solution that enables you to list at least five products on sell on your website but has limited features.
The platform allows to their business turn online presence without need to any expertise or technical knowledge with ranges of features and customization options.
Benefits of Ecwid
Easy Integration
Ecwid is a best platform to create an online store from your existing website, blog, or social Medias platform. You can easily integrate with the platform and start selling products online without any major changes.
Multi-channel Selling
You can integrate and sell your products and services through multiple channel including website, blogs, Facebook, Instagram, and other major marketplaces like Amazon and eBay all over the world.
Secure Transaction
Ecwid offers SSL encryption and PCI DDS to ensure safe and secure online transactions for both business and customers.
Responsive Design
Any theme and templates you choose on your store have a responsive design ensuring a bestselling experiences for customer whether audience is using a desktop, tablets, or smart phones.
App Integration
Ecwid offers a marketplace of app integration to enhance better functionality. Some of useful App integration tools can be payment gateways, marketing tools, SEO tools and so on.
Limitation of Ecwid
Limited Advanced Features
The platform is designed for small and medium sized businesses to sell their products and service online. Therefore, the platform lacks some advanced features that may be required by large sized business organization.
Limitation on Customization Options
If you are looking for advanced customization, the platform has very basic customization options compared to other available platforms.
Dependency on Third party platform
Ecwid relies on the third party platform that might lead to limitations on adding certain features and capabilities.
Lest Control Over Hosting
Online Store created using Ecwid platform means you have very less control over hosting and server resources.
Limited SEO Control
If you are looking for best SEO tools, Ecwid provides very limited SEO features with few controls and customizations tools.
09
Wix
Wix is an Israeli software company established in 2006 by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan headquartered in Tel Aviv, Isreal. The company provides various services and products such as website builder platform, business management service, web hosting, and logo maker services.
Wix is popular known for drag-and-drop website builder platform to create various types of websites for free and paid serving all over the world. According to W3Techs, Wix is used by 2.3% of the top millions websites.
Wix provides customizable website templates with drag-and-drop features HTML5 web site builder including apps, graphic, image galleries, fonts, vectors, animations, and other features helping you create a website without any expertise or having a technical knowledge.
Using Wix platform, you can create an online store and start selling your products and services easily with customization options on their themes provided and use of third party app integration to add functionality for your e-commerce store and marketing tools. The platform emphasis on visual design, flexibility, and user experience without need for coding knowledge.
Benefits of Wix
Drag-and-Drop Interface
Wix has Drag-and-drop feature interface making users easily create any website without any technical knowledge and expertise. With Wix, you can easily create e-commerce store and sell your products online.
Customizable Templates
You receive wide ranges of templates and can easily customize for creating various types of websites, helping users create professional looking sites.
Mobile Responsiveness
All Wix templates are optimizes for mobile device help you create a website best for smart phones and tablets.
E-commerce Capabilities with integration
Wix offers a best app integration with various available features like product listing, inventory management, secure payment gateways, and order tracking.
Hosting Service
Wix provides hosting services as a part of its packages including website management and manage your performance.
SEO Friendly
Wix offers various SEO related tools and features to optimize your website for ranking your website on search result and help to optimize your website including meta tags, al text, and customizable URLs.
App Marketplace
Wix provides larges ranges of extension and plugins for adding up functionality such as e-commerce, social media integration, booking system, and SEO Tools.
Limitation of Wix
Limited Design Change
Once you choose a templates you can start create your website adding different templates but have limiting design customization.
Free Plan with Limitation
Wix has a free offer for beginners but has some limitations such as sub-domain with Wix brand domain name and Wix ads that cannot be suitable for a professional and business website.
Monthly Subscription Costs
The premium plans provided by Wix is relatively costly compared to other available self hosted websites platform.
Storage Limits and Bandwidth
Plans provided by Wix have limitation on storage capacity and bandwidth which can affect your website with high traffic or extensive media content.
10
Shift4Shop
Shift4Shop is a technology company that create e-commerce software for business founded in 1997 by developer and architect Gonzalo Gil headquartered in Tamarac,FL. The platform is cloud-based e-commerce software to create, manage, and grow an online retail store. The platform has a easy and friendly user interface to create a perfect e-commerce website for your business and start selling your products and services online.
The Shift4Ship is a website builder with a wide range of features for product listing, product order management, customer marketing tool, and so on. The platform also provides dozens of professional designed, industry-specific templates that are mobile friendly and SEO optimized.
Shift4Shop is suitable for small, medium, and large sized businesses providing awesome design templates and themes with customization, and has scalability features including security and e-commerce additional functionality to grow your online business.
Benefits of Shift4Shop
Comprehensive E-commerce Solution
Shift4shop provides the best solution for creating a stunning e-commerce website including web design, product management; secure payment, and marketing tools.
Design Flexibility
The platform offers a variety of professionally designs of templates and themes with customization options and has a user friendly drag-and-drop editor helping user to create a visual appealing website.
Scalability
Shift4shop is suitable for all sizes of business and help user to sell any products whether they are physical or digital products or services helping you grow your business.
Security
Shift4shop prioritizes security with PCI DSS Level 1 compliance with their regular updates ensuring in protecting customer data and information.
Mobile Optimization
Online Stores created using Shift4Shop has a mobile friendly templates and themes providing best shopping experiences on various devices- Laptop, Tablets, and Smartphones.
Limitation of Shift4Shop
Monthly Subscription
Shift4shop has a monthly subscription based pricing model with costly fees which can or cannot be reliable for every business or individuals mostly for new business from developing nations.
Migration Problem
Migrating your existing website from Shift4Shop might be complex due to the platform’s proprietary structure, and limiting the flexibility in the long term.
Limitation on Design
Shift4Shop does provide limited design flexibility. For advanced design change, a user might require coding expertise or hire personal assistance.
Other Popular E-Commerce Platform
- Square Online
- Big Cartel
- Webflow
- Magento
- Commerce Cloud
- Lightspeed
What Platform is best for E-commerce Platform?
Selecting any platform is highly depended on the specific business you are creating for your business and other reasons such as needs and requirement, Pricing or Budget, and requirement of technical expertise, Customer support, transferability, and so on.
We have selected the top 3 among the 10 E-commerce platforms to create your online store. You can consider any of these 3 due to its user experiences, customer support and popularity. You should also remember that other platforms are also great in their own features and market demands.
My Top 3 Recommendation for E-commerce Platform
01
Shopify
Why it’s one of the Best?
Shopify is my first recommendation for creating an e-commerce store for small and medium sized business company. Shopify is widely recognized platform for creating an e-commerce store with their user friendly interface. The platform provides range of professional design themes and templates and can easily customize with drag-and-drop feature making user accessible to customize the design without need of any professional or knowing coding. Beside their user experience, the platform also provides other necessary features such as product management, inventory tracking, order management, secure payment gateways, marketing tools, and payment options.
02
Woocommerce (For WordPress User)
Why it’s one of the Best?
If you are a WordPress user or considering creating a website using WordPress to E-commerce website you can prefer Woocommerce as a one of your best choice. The platform is best for all sizes of business organization with high flexibility options. As a WooCommerce user, you are provided wide ranges of themes, templates, and plugins you can use and create your perfect e-commerce store. As your website is build on WordPress, you are access to powerful content management system (CMS) for blogging and optimization for Search Engine.
03
BigCommerce
Why it’s one of the Best?
BigCommerce is a strong e-commerce platform that’s suitable for businesses for any sizes for a comprehensive solution that offers wide ranges of built-in features including multi-channel capabilities, SEO related tools, secure payment options, and Shipping options. The platform also focuses on scalability with ambitious growth plans. Some of the popular companies that trust BigCommerce and build their own store are Toyota, Ben and Jerry’s, GE Appliances, Detroit Pistons, RandMcNally, and Old Spice. Therefore, you can also start your online store and grow your business selling your products and services.
