The Top 5 Platforms for E-Commerce Websites

A new e-commerce venture is exciting. You get to pick the name of your company, design the logo and branding, and develop the website. It’s simple to think about your current demands, but it’s also crucial to consider your company’s future goals and the additional tools you’ll require. But most importantly, you will be needing an E-Commerce platform for your e-commerce business. 

But the first question that would pop in anyone’s mind is what is an E-Commerce platform? 

The software that an online store uses to manage all of their merchant purchasing needs and their own seller needs is known as an e – commerce platform. Product pages, reviews, transactions, order fulfillment, customer service, and returns are some examples of these requirements.

The most effective e-commerce platform depends on your distinct business model and expansion strategy. Here are some options for some of the top e-commerce platforms for 2022 to assist you in choosing the ideal one for your company.

 

• Wix 

With more than 110 million users globally, Wix is a very well-liked drag-and-drop website builder and e-commerce platform. Wix is an expert at building websites and online shops.

But things haven’t always been like this. Wix has significantly improved its ecommerce offering over the past few years, which has raised its score and allowed us to name it the top all-around ecommerce website builder.

The sales features on Wix have greatly improved since our last review, and we are especially pleased with them. This places it only behind e-commerce behemoths Shopify and BigCommerce in third place for this category. In addition, Wix provides the best website functionality of all the builders we evaluated, as if that weren’t enough!

As a result, consumers don’t need to search very far to find the resources they need to run a successful online store; everything they need is available at the click of a mouse.

We would still limit the use of Wix to smaller internet shops. Although its capabilities and features are outstanding, they fall short when dealing with a large or complicated inventory. For that, we’d suggest Shopify or BigCommerce.

Wix is among the finest we examined in terms of value for money. Its three ecommerce options are really reasonable when you consider the fantastic features they provide. The most affordable plan starts at $27 a month, which is $2 less than Shopify.

Wix is well-suited for users of all technological backgrounds and is renowned for its usability. So, without having to worry, you may start exercising your ecommerce skills!

 

• SquareSpace

Squarespace is recognized for its artistic refinement and is best for smaller companies or those wishing to sell digital goods online. This is the option for you if you want to make your online business as visually appealing as possible!

Squarespace is a desirable option due to its beautiful templates, effective inventory management, and abundance of high-quality features.

The simplicity of usage is one of Squarespace’s strongest features. It won first place in our ease of use testing, indicating that it is the simplest function to use.

Despite this, it’s important to be aware that there is still a little learning curve at first, but once you have the fundamentals down, using Squarespace to design a store is simple as pie!

What about the business aspect, though? For combining a chic storefront with traditional e-commerce functionality, including offering discounts and promotional pop-ups, Squarespace is a pretty excellent overall option.

Squarespace’s expert templates will definitely highlight your products and make your business stand out. As long as your online business doesn’t outgrow its range of ecommerce options, it’s a good option.

 

• WooCommerce

WooCommerce is particularly well-known to individuals who are familiar with WordPress because it is essentially an addition to the well-known blogging platform. WooCommerce is WordPress’ response to people looking to do online business because WordPress is typically used for content-driven websites rather than e-commerce.

Many of WordPress’ selling features are basic or dependent on integrating apps because it is first and foremost a content management system (CMS) and then an ecommerce platform. Additionally, even if you can add a ton of apps and plug-ins to your store, the more you utilize them, the more probable it is that you’ll break something. And given the lack of available help, this isn’t always a risk worth taking.

Overall, WooCommerce’s fragility and instability make it challenging to both create and operate an online business. Additionally, since it’s not hosted, managing your website hosting will be an additional effort and expense for you. Additionally, it is not PCI compliant, putting your company at danger while processing payments.

There are several pros of having WooCommerce if you are a WordPress user. It has open sources which are very adaptable. It has more than 6000 WordPress plugins and integrations. It has a community of experts and active developers.

A few cons of having WooCommerce as your E-commerce platform are its self-hosted and it has high prices for hosting, development, maintenance, and other costs required for WordPress.

 

• Weebly 

Square owns Weebly, a straightforward website builder for online shopping. If you’re looking for a modest, low-maintenance internet store, it works great. Although Weebly’s platform doesn’t require any technical knowledge to use, it only provides a very simple web store.

On Weebly, you may create a store for nothing but until you purchase a paid ecommerce package, you cannot utilize your own domain name or remove the in-app advertisements.

The advantages of having Weebly are Its simple and user-friendly features with rapid site loading. Also it has very adaptable themes. It’s the most affordable platform for small businesses. However, it has minimal blogging equipment also if you need better support it will be a bit costly.

 

• Shopify

The greatest software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for e-commerce is undoubtedly Shopify. You may sell directly through your website, at your retail location, on social media and third-party marketplaces, and everywhere in between thanks to its powerful platform’s complimentary tools and drop-shipping features. Select from more than 100 paid and free themes to launch your business quickly and with no learning curve.

Additionally, Shopify manages every area of your company; you can create a full business command center using our best-in-class toolkit. Low transaction costs are used for payment processing by Shop Pay, in-person sales are managed by Shopify POS, and product delivery can be assisted by Shopify Fulfillment. Additionally, it provides limitless bandwidth and online storage, so you won’t have to pay more as your business expands and your traffic increases. Additionally, USPS, UPS, DHL Express, and other shipping companies offer affordable delivery rates to Shopify customers.

These are only a few of the numerous effective apps that function harmoniously as a part of the Shopify ecosystem. You may further enhance your experience with Shopify by utilizing our wide library of third-party applications. For business owners, Shopify provides a free email marketing service, abandoned cart recovery, search engine optimization, and many native tools.

With tools for order fulfillment, product addition, real-time sales and inventory changes, and more, Shopify’s mobile app provides almost total parity for managing your business online or on a mobile device.