Top 5 Best Ecommerce Platforms for your Online Business
In the past 9 months, many brick and mortar businesses were forced to make the switch to online platforms. As all non-essential businesses were urged to shut down, shifting to digital became instantly mandatory to survive.
Having an online component to your business will benefit you now and in the future. So if the idea of transporting your brick and mortar store online has been tugging at you, now is the time to answer that call. After all, without a website or an online storefront, it would be impossible for you to compete in the online space, or possibly even stay in business.
Just like running a physical business, selecting the right platform matters. Of course, you want a platform that works for you today and can grow with your business in the future. The problem is that choosing the best ecommerce platform is not as straightforward as it seems.
To make the decision-making process easier, I have listed 5 of the best e-commerce platforms for small businesses today and what you can expect from each.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the most full-featured and versatile platforms today, and hands down my favorite choice.
If you’re serious about selling and you want to give your e-commerce business a solid boost, then Shopify has the full package to support your goals. It offers a quick and easy way to launch an online store. You can choose from over 100 themes on the Shopify Theme Store to customize your site and create a unique and visually appealing storefront that fits your brand identity.
The platform even comes with an integrated Point of Sale (POS) functionality to use in your brick and mortar shop! Its mobile optimization is hands down the best and the shop apps you can integrate range from Facebook, Pinterest, Google, eBay and more!
Squarespace
Thanks to its user-friendly content management system (CMS), users can easily create a professional site without coding. All you need to do is to choose a template, add some images and text, and then hit the “go” button. Squarespace offers flexible online store templates that are sleek, modern, and built to show off your products. The templates are highly customizable and fully adapt to mobile devices.
Squarespace allows you to manage customers, manage inventory and shipping, and comes with advance features as SMS to notify customers that their curbside pick-up is ready! Something that will surely be a permanent change in the way people shop moving forward. This would be a great choice for you if you run your business by yourself or if you sell a limited number of products.
WooCommerce
If you’ve decided to create your site with WordPress, then WooCommerce is the default choice for setting up your online store.
WooCommmerce is an e-commerce platform built for WordPress. It includes most of the essential features you’ll need to set-up an e-commerce site. It can even be customized to complement your current website. You can also extend your store as your needs and budget grow. This platform comes with hundreds of free and paid extensions on the official WooCommerce marketplace.
The downside to WooCoomerce is that it requires some technical knowledge. It can be intimidating at first since there are lots of features you may need to get acquainted with.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is an ecommerce platform for small and medium size businesses. The platform’s interface is easy and straightforward. Anyone who is familiar with a content management system (CMS) should find it pretty easy to use.
This platform offers a reasonably good selection of templates that you can use for your online store.
Just like Shopify, BigCommerce can has its own Point of Sale as well. It allows you to take payment and sync inventory when selling from a physical location, or online, and integrations with various POS providers if you want to keep your inventory management on the platform you currently use.
The platform gives you the flexibility to integrate your business on Facebook, Amazon, eBay etc. Other features include single-page checkout, multi-layered security, 24/7 customer support, cloud hosting, and other marketing tools.
Wix
If you’re a small business owner with a small product selection, Wix is a great option for you, and a great place to start if you are just dipping your toe in the ecommerce waters. It provides amazing value for solopreneurs and ecommerce businesses.
Wix has more than enough to offer for small businesses looking to get started online. It uses a drag and drop editing style that makes it easy for you to create a beautifully designed website, even when you have zero knowledge in design or coding. There are also tons of templates and themes that you can use to customize your online store.
With Wix, you can build your business’ foundation without spending a dime. But you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan to actually sell products. The basic plan costs $23 a month.
Final thoughts
Choosing an ecommerce platform is one of the most important decisions you’ll make in the early life of your business. But with so many platforms available, it can be difficult to decide which one is the right one for you.
It is important to keep in mind that choosing an e-commerce platform is a lot like choosing a location for your brick-and-mortar store. There are lots of things to consider when choosing a platform for your e-commerce business, such as ease of use, features, mobile-friendliness, pricing, marketing integrations, etc. The key is to find one that meets your business’ needs as you grow and keep up with online marketing, shopping, and security trends.
Published November 10th, 2020 by Deonnah Carolus