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While building a successful online store involves many steps and decisions, it all starts with choosing the best ecommerce platform for you and your business.
Ecommerce platforms let you start selling online without the need for a bottomless budget, expert coding skills, or a degree in web design. They come pre-packed with ecommerce-specific features and designs to make setting up your store as easy as possible.
Once the store is all set up and ready to go, it will be up to you to promote and drive traffic to it (luckily, Ampd can help you with that). But, for now, let us focus on how to choose the right ecommerce platform that will set you up for success.
From multichannel functionality to drool-worthy SEO and cool marketing features, these are all-time best ecommerce platforms:
BigCommerce was founded back in 2009 by two Australians, Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani. Today, it is headquartered in Austin, Texas with over 750 employees spread across multiple offices all around the world.
BigCommerce is a leading open SaaS solution, offering sophisticated enterprise-grade functionality, performance, and customization, combined with ease-of-use and simplicity.
The main site building features within BigCommerce include:
Best For...
BigCommerce is the best ecommerce platform for small- to medium-sized businesses that require an advanced tool to create complex or large catalogs. The platform includes numerous features out of the box, and, similar to other platforms, allows you to extend functionalities with third-party applications. In addition, BigCommerce works well for both B2B and B2C businesses.
Price
Pricing for BigCommerce is divided into four levels:
For the Plus and Pro options, you can receive a 10% discount if paid annually.
Pros
Cons
Founded in 2004 by a group of snowboarding enthusiasts, Shopify quickly became one of the best ecommerce platforms on the market, with over 1 million clients across 175 countries. Shopify’s retailers vary in sizes and come from countless different industries.
Shopify’s site building features include:
Best For…
Shopify is a great platform for SMBs and ecommerce beginners that need detailed guidance through the store set up. Everything you may need is already integrated into the platform: from content marketing to storefront design, to performance analytics. Once you have the basics figured out, it’s easy to upgrade your store with third-party extensions.
Price
Pros
Cons
WooCommerce is an open-source free shopping cart plugin for WordPress that was developed by and is owned by Wordpress. Today, it is among the most popular ecommerce options out there and can be found on 30% of all online stores.
Site building features of WooCommerce include:
Best For…
WooCommerce is the best ecommerce platform for small online retailers who already have a website built with WordPress. It is also a great choice for those operating on a tight budget but still looking for a robust online store. WooCommerce includes thousands of third party plugins and themes, making it incredibly flexible to accommodate most needs.
Price
WooCommerce is free to download, with add-ons and extensions.
Pros
Cons
Wix is a cloud-based drag-and-drop website builder that allows users to easily create online stores. It has a wide range of designs and templates that make it simple for resource-strapped business owners and beginners to build their own functional and compelling websites.
Site building features of Wix include:
Best For…
Wix is the best ecommerce platform for small business owners who don’t have the resources to hire a dedicated web designer. The website builder itself is simple to use, and the ecommerce functionality is enough to fulfill basic needs. The functionality can be extended with plugins, but businesses with more complex product lines may be better off with a different, dedicated platform for ecommerce.
Price
The pricing here can be quite confusing. ecommerce and VIP plans allow you to build an online store on your website, but only the Business plans will let you collect and process payments. The Enterprise plan offers more levels of consultation and support, but doesn’t include any more features than the Business VIP plan.
Pros
Cons
Magento is among the most popular open-source platforms for ecommerce in the entire world. The original version was released in 2009 and was later replaced by Magento 2.0 in 2005 with more stability/usability features and an improved code base. In 2018, Magento was purchased by Adobe and now comes in two versions: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.
Magento Open Source comes with the following site building features:
Best For…
Magento is ideal for small- to medium-sized businesses that have already established demand and have sufficient time, skill, and manpower to build their own website. The platform is incredibly powerful and contains a library with over 5,000 extensions. However, it requires a larger budget and a longer development time as compared to most of its competitors.
Price
Magento has two main pricing tiers:
Pros
Cons
Square is a New York-based SaaS company that provides ecommerce store and website creation and hosting to customers. Customers use pre-built website templates and drag-and-drop functionality to create their web pages.
Squarespace offers the following features with its ecommerce extension:
Best For…
Squarespace is a great ecommerce platform for small business owners or entrepreneurs with only basic ecommerce needs. The ecommerce extension is effective, but only as an add-on to the main website builder. Businesses that have more advanced online retail requirements or those that handle large amounts of inventory would do better with other dedicated platforms.
Price
Squarespace offers four pricing levels:
Pros
Cons
Started in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, Amazon is now a massive online retailer with a market capitalization of 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars. In addition to serving as an online retailer, Amazon allows for businesses and individuals to sell and display their products on the platform, reaching millions of potential customers worldwide.
Amazon store features include:
Best For…
Amazon is a great ecommerce platform for merchants selling hobby or niche products, or products that are absolutely unique to them. General merchandise retailers that offer similar products to many other companies may find Amazon overly-saturated and competitive.
Starting selling on Amazon is easy and doesn’t require building a separate website, which makes it an ideal platform for businesses that want to start immediately or have a limited budget.
Price
Amazon offers two monthly selling plans:
In addition, Amazon charges a referral fee for each item sold, which can range from 8% to 15%.
Pros
Cons
Walmart is a well-known retailer, but it is also among the fastest-growing marketplaces today. Similarly to Amazon, Walmart enables merchants to sell and display their products on the platform and continues to implement new features that make it easier for brands and sellers to reach Walmart’s giant customer base.
Walmart store features include:
Best For…
Walmart prohibits the sale of vintage, used, or handmade items. In addition, it doesn’t encourage low-end imports and high-end luxury products. Therefore, it is best for retailers selling general products that are moderately priced. Similar to Amazon, Walmart Marketplace is an excellent platform for sellers that have a limited budget or want to start immediately.
Price
Walmart doesn’t charge regular monthly fees. Instead, you can expect to pay a referral fee on each item sold, which can range from 6% to 20% of the selling price.
Pros
Cons
While there are countless ecommerce platforms available out there, the key to success lies in choosing the best ecommerce platform that is right for you and your business.
To ensure that your online store brings you the revenue you want, it is important to invest in Google Ads that will drive even more traffic and conversions.
The good news is that Ampd’s unique ad automation platform can take all the legwork out of setting up and managing Google Ads for your online business. Get Ampd now.
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