Starting an online store can feel overwhelming, but choosing the right eCommerce platform makes the process much easier. In this post, we’ll explore the top eCommerce platforms of 2024 to help you find the best fit for your business.
In 2024, a few eCommerce platforms truly stand out, offering a variety of features and tools to help you create and manage your online store.
These platforms cater to businesses of all sizes, from small startups and solo entrepreneurs to large enterprises and global brands.
Let’s dive into what each platform has to offer.
1. Shopify
Shopify is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform out there. It is a good choice both for beginners and professionals.
With Shopify, you can create an online store without any code experience. The platform provides a wide range of free and paid themes, so you can easily choose depending on your industry.
The platform provides a wide range of features for building an eCommerce store, including an intuitive user interface, shopping cart solutions, easy product management, detailed analytics, and other features required to build a successful store.
It also offers a range of payment methods and allows for integration with various third-party services.
Shopify has a marketplace that includes a variety of apps and plugins for different fields like marketing, product management, and more. The best part of this marketplace is that most of these plugins and apps are free.
Key Features:
Shopify is an eCommerce platform designed to help businesses manage their online sales. It provides a powerful yet easy-to-use solution for retailers to build and maintain their eCommerce websites. Here are some of the critical features of Shopify:
- Ease of use: The Shopify platform is simple to use because of its excellent user interface.
- Store Design and Customization: Shopify provides a wide range of store designs and themes that can be easily customized to fit the specific needs of your business. You can also add custom codes and plugins to further enhance the look and feel of your store.
- Inventory and Order Management: Shopify lets you manage inventory levels, keep track of orders, and handle returns quickly and efficiently.
- SEO support: Shopify allows you to boost your store’s search engine ranking by using practical SEO tools and plugins.
- Promotions and Discounts: It provides tools to help merchants and store owners promote their businesses and provide discounts and promo codes.
- Product Reviews: Visitors can post reviews about your products and read other people’s thoughts on your Shopify store
Pricing:
You can get started with Shopify for just $1 in your first month, then choose from one of their pricing plans:
- Basic: $32/month
- Shopify: $92/month
- Advanced: $399/month
Each plan offers different features based on its price, and you can save by opting for annual billing.
2. Wix
Wix is certainly one of the most popular solutions for creating an online store, and it is an excellent choice for individuals just getting started. It is easy to use and has powerful features, allowing you to customize your store and make it look professional.
Wix offers a variety of well-designed eCommerce templates for all store categories that are easy to personalize for your store. Wix also has a marketplace where you can integrate tools and services to boost store productivity, such as accounting, marketing, and communication.
Plus, you can add extra value to your business by adding a blog page to the store to boost search engine visibility. It also includes payment solutions to third-party gateways such as PayPal and Stripe.
Despite the many features that Wix provides, it may be ideal for building a small store by including simple products. There are no other complicated things such as inventory or shipping to different countries, so Shopify and Bigcommerce may be much better if the matter is exposed to that.
Key Features:
- Drag and Drop Builder
- professionally designed templates
- Mobile Responsive Design
- secure payment gateways
- Inventory Management
- SEO optimization tools
- Mailing List Integration
Pricing
Wix offers four pricing plans to suit different business needs: Light at $17/month, Core at $29/month, Business at $36/month, and Business Elite at $159/month.
Each plan provides varying levels of features, from essential tools for small businesses to advanced options for scaling and managing larger online stores.
3. Bigcommerce
Bigcommerce is the best e-commerce solution for large businesses with extensive product inventories, and it is also a popular platform. By creating an online store with Bigcommerce, you can easily manage many complicated issues that large businesses face.
The platform is designed to make it simple to start and run an online business. It has many features, such as payment processing, SEO optimization, and custom design options.
Bigcommerce helps you expand your business by displaying your products on the largest marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping. Also, in marketing, you can get more customers from social channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
BigCommerce allows you to accept more than 100 currencies and translate your site into multiple languages using Apps or APIs for third-party translation services.
Key Features
- Customizable, Responsive Designs: Create a beautiful, professional online store with intuitive drag-and-drop design tools, customizable themes, and an array of integrated payment and shipping options.
- Inventory Management: Manage your products, inventory, and orders with ease with the help of intuitive tools.
- WordPress integration: Using a powerful plugin, you can connect your WordPress site to BigCommerce.
- Marketplaces integrations: BigCommerce integrates with the world’s top marketplaces, including eBay, Amazon, and Google Shopping.
- Flexible Shipping Options: Offers customers a variety of shipping options, including flat rate, weight-based, and free shipping.
- Flexible Pricing Options: Offer discounts and loyalty programs with flexible pricing options.
- Customer support: BigCommerce offers 24/7 technical support.
Pricing
BigCommerce offers three main pricing plans: Standard at $39/month, Plus at $105/month, and Pro at $399/month.
For larger businesses, there’s also BigCommerce Enterprise, where pricing is tailored to your needs. You can request a custom quote or choose from their essential plans, with the Standard plan starting at $29/month if billed annually.
4. Woocommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform that allows users to create an online store quickly and easily. It is built on top of WordPress, making it simple to integrate into existing WordPress-based websites.
WooCommerce is powerful and flexible, offering a broad range of features and customization options to help create a unique online store.
It provides a comprehensive collection of features to help with product management, shipping, and payment processing. Its extensive plugin and extension library allows it to connect easily with other software to build a comprehensive eCommerce site.
WooCommerce is a wonderful alternative for anyone looking to establish an online store on WordPress to take advantage of the best CMS.
Key Features
- Easy to set up: WooCommerce is simple to install and configure, with various features and plugins.
- Highly customizable: WooCommerce can be modified to match any type of e-commerce website thanks to a large selection of themes, plugins, and extensions.
- Supports multiple payment gateways: WooCommerce is compatible with various payment methods, including PayPal and Stripe.
- Comprehensive shipping options: WooCommerce makes it simple to set up shipping options, including flat rate, flat rate per item, weight-based, and free shipping.
- Intuitive product management: WooCommerce’s powerful product management system makes adding, editing, and managing products simple.
- Flexible tax options: Businesses may modify their tax rates by country, state, and zip code using WooCommerce.
Pricing
WooCommerce and WordPress are both free, but you will need a hosting web service to install WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin. Check out WPEnigne, one of the best WordPress managed hosting providers.
5. Squarespace
Squarespace is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that offers complete eCommerce solutions to businesses of all sizes. The platform includes website design and hosting, online payment solutions, business analytics, and all of the tools required to set up, manage, and market an online store.
Squarespace’s user interface makes it simple to customize the appearance and feel of your business, add products, handle orders, launch promotional campaigns, and analyze performance.
Squarespace’s eCommerce features help businesses increase overall sales and reach out to potential clients through marketing campaigns such as mail and email.
Additionally, the platform integrates with key third-party solutions and payment systems such as PayPal, Apple Pay, and Stripe. Squarespace’s customer service team is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to give support, information, and assistance.
Key Features
- Drag-and-drop site builder: customers can customize their products with drag-and-drop product customization tools.
- Multiple payment options: customers can choose from various payment methods, including merchant accounts, PayPal, and more.
- Strong security: A secure payment processor, secure hosting, and an encrypted checkout process are all provided for businesses.
- Inventory management: Businesses can track inventory, manage product variants, and set up low-stock notifications.
- Built-in analytics: Businesses can analyze website performance, order history, consumer demographics, and other information.
- Multiple shipping options: Businesses can pick from various shipping options to match the needs of their customers, including flat-cost shipping, calculated shipping, and more.
- Automated marketing: businesses can use automated marketing campaigns to reach new customers and re-engage existing ones.
Pricing
Squarespace offers two eCommerce plans: Basic e-commerce ($40/month) and Advanced eCommerce ($72/month). When you pay annually, you can save up to 30%.
6. Sellfy
Sellfy is a fantastic e-commerce platform for selling digital products. It’s designed to be user-friendly, with all the features you need to manage your online store. Some of its highlights include customizable storefronts, secure payment gateways, and inventory management systems.
Sellfy is an eCommerce platform that allows you to easily sell digital products such as ebooks, PSD files, and more. You can also sell print-on-demand products such as T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and more. Additionally, you can create digital subscription products.
One of the best things about Sellfy is how easy it is to use. The platform is intuitive and user-friendly, so anyone can set up and manage an online store. Plus, Sellfy offers plenty of customization options, so you can create a storefront that reflects your brand and style.
With a secure payment gateway that guarantees the safety and security of your customers’ transactions, Sellfy also takes security seriously. This is an essential feature for any e-commerce platform because it gives your customers peace of mind and security while they shop.
Key Features
- Sell digital products and subscriptions
- User-friendly interface
- Customizable storefronts
- Built-in marketing features
- Secure payment gateway to ensure safe transactions
Pricing
Sellfy offers three pricing plans: Starter, Business, and Premium. The Starter plan costs $29/mo and includes basic features such as customizable themes and discount codes.
The Business plan costs $79/mo and includes advanced features such as store design migration, product upselling, and cart abandonment.
The Premium plan costs $159 per month and includes all Business plan features plus priority support and Product migration. Additionally, Sellfy offers a 14-day free trial for all plans.
What is an Ecommerce platform?
An eCommerce platform is an online software solution that allows businesses to build and manage an online store.
It provides all the necessary tools to create an attractive and functional eCommerce website, from website design and development to inventory management, payment processing, and order fulfillment.
Most e-commerce platforms offer built-in features such as product catalogs, shopping carts, payment gateways, order tracking, content management, and analytics.
An e-commerce platform’s purpose is to make it simple and easy for businesses to create and manage their online stores.
How To Choose the Best eCommerce Platform?
There are many factors to consider while deciding on the best e-commerce platform for your business. To begin, look for platforms that allow scalability as your business grows so your site can handle increased traffic.
Additionally, you should consider the features provided by the platform, such as payment processing, shipping and tracking, product management, and order fulfillment.
You should also look into the platform’s security measures, customer care, and support options. Finally, consider the platform’s cost and whether it fits within your budget.
By carefully weighing your choices, you can make an informed decision and select the e-commerce platform that best meets your industry’s needs.
What is the best eCommerce platform?
Choosing the best eCommerce platform depends on your business’s needs. Considering the abovementioned factors, such as the budget and the features provided, you can determine the most appropriate option for your business. Still, Shopify, Squarespace, and Bigcommerce are my recommendations for creating a successful online store.
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