10 Best Ecommerce Platforms For Small Business And Startups
In the last decade, the Internet and technology have affected our lives in multiple ways possible. One among them is E-commerce and its benefits have deeply changed the way people order and purchase stuff.
For the people who were until now trying to get sales through brick and mortar stores the facility of being able to reach many people at the same time is definitely a huge advantage.
However, there are many E-commerce platforms available online and it is usually tough to find one where our products would get the best reach and that too with minimal investment on our parts. To help you out we have compiled a list of 10 Best E-commerce platforms.
These platforms have been compared on the basis of their reach, ease of use, cost, and suitability. You can read each platform’s features and benefits and then decide which one would work best for your business.
1. Squarespace
Engage with your audience using our comprehensive set of marketing tools, from search to social to Squarespace email campaigns. Creating a powerful communications strategy has never been easier.
Think of Squarespace as your very own it department, with free, unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security, an enterprise-grade infrastructure, and around-the-clock support. Get personalized support from our customer care team via email or live chat, or join a live webinar.
Review: Capterra
Pros: how flexible the templates are, once you figure out how to use spacers, blocks and all the good stuff you can really customize the templates to pretty much look like anything, and if you HTML savvy, well the then, the world is your oyster.
Cons: Squarespace recently updated their terms so that HTML code injection is only available for business users, which doesn’t make much sense to me since the people who tend to use square space the most are designers, photographers, etc. For their portfolios. I can understand why an e-commerce plan would cost more, after all you’re using their platform to generate income, but why would a young designer that’s just trying to get hired by showcasing his portfolio and skills be charged more for using code is beyond me.
Overall: amazing. Really. I’ve made countless sites and was always super happy with the result and customer support along the way. The only platform I created that I wasn’t entirely happy with was an e-com site, not only does it cost 3x but it doesn’t offer a-lot of the robust options that site like shopify and magento do. Granted it’s cheaper, but I can’t see a serious e-comm store using the platform in it’s current state. Overall if you’re building a portfolio site, or a site for your restaurant, ss is better then wix and any other web builder I used. But if you’re looking to build something more complicated I would look elsewhere.
2. Weebly
Get access to customizable webpage designs and useful tools to grow your ideal business. Easily build a site to help you get discovered and grow your customer base in style.
Weebly is now a part of the square product suite. This means never missing a sale and letting your customers pay how they want to. Whether it’s at a pop-up shop or your own online store, the square takes care of your payments for you, so you can focus on your business.
Review: Capterra
Pros: I enjoy weebly’s “Drop and drag” blocks to build the website. You can move things around. You can change the way they look. You can add features…The design results are truly limitless. I have used weebly for several years in hosting a few of my websites. The customer support is terrific. I’ve only had to contact them a couple of times and have had very quick responses. Definitely worth the price (and their prices are very comparable to others out there that do not even come close to weebly’s quality)!
Cons: every now and then, I will want to try and do something of a tweak to my website, and I do not know how to make it happen. There is almost no tutorial help. The best way of finding out “How to do something on a weebly website” is to go to youtube or google and put in a search. I’ve found that is the fastest way to make a change I’m not sure how to accomplish on my own.
Overall: I have used weebly for several years. I’ve had an occasion or two to contact their customer support and they have been a great help. Usually, my issue is resolved fairly quickly. I cannot recommend weebly an higher than I already have! This is a great platform to build your website on!
3. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is now the most popular eCommerce platform on the web (stats from Builtwith), so you can rest assured you’re in good company.
With hundreds of free and paid WooCommerce extensions, spanning all your logistical & technical requirements, you can rest assured there’s an extension for your specific needs.
Review: G2
What do you like best?
The ease of implementation of add-ons into the woocommerce product. I’ve been able to expand the already robust woocommerce product into an extremely agile product. The add-ons have helped me tackle some ideas I didn’t think were possible basically out of the box.
What do you dislike?
I’ve had a few issues with the woocommerce subscriptions helper on the back-end of WordPress, that’s about it. Aside from that I get exactly what I pay for.
Recommendations to others considering the product
Again, if you are even a little bit savvy, you can combine this with woocommerce for excellent additional features that may help boost your ROI. I’ve been using subscription-based add-ons for over four years now and they’ve enabled me to expand my business and increase the options I can provide to my customer base.
What business problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?
I was able to solve dynamic pricing, it was something woocommerce didn’t necessarily have out of the box. This solution enabled me to scale pricing at certain quantity break points. I use several other add ons.
4. 3dcart
eCommerce statistics show that 74% of sales are lost to abandoned carts. Your online store follows best practices for cart abandonment prevention and also includes cart abandonment recovery tools to automatically engage visitors and motivate them to return to their abandoned cart. About 12% will return immediately and more will complete their purchases overall, significantly increasing your sales.
Review: G2
What do you like best?
Easy to work with both larger (even multi-store) sites and small stores. Loads of pre-made templates to choose from. Very easy to modify the look and feel of your stores or go completely custom. Many built-in features with options to add more from third-party developers.
What do you dislike?
Doesn’t integrate with all order management companies.
Recommendations to others considering the product
3Dcart is great for small stores with plenty of room to grow. Built-in inventory management. Easily integrates with Quickbooks and other order fulfilment software. Makes selling on third party market websites easy.
What business problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?
Great for small companies just starting out in eCommerce. One monthly fee (flexible to meet your current needs). No per sale fees.
If you are interested in a Successful Ecommerce Business, you might be interested in our following articles:
- 4 Ways To Grow Your eCommerce Business
- How To Start A Successful Ecommerce Business In 2023
- 16 Best eCommerce Software Platforms For Online Business
- 6 Things To Consider When You are Running an E-Commerce Business
- What is Ecommerce Marketing? Everything You Need to Know About Ecommerce Marketing
5. Neto
All your sales channels, one platform. Sell in more channels and grow your business faster by managing your marketplace listings and e-commerce business from a single source.
Single integrated back office. Centralize your operations, improve efficiency and take back control with a complete retail solution.
With a full view of their omnichannel operations, our customers are able to make the right decisions to unlock their full revenue potential. Specialized solutions that are right for your business. Choose from shopping carts, marketplaces, accounting, shipping, helpdesk, and more.
Review: Software Advice
Business is growing and so is the functionality of Neto
Pros
Neto is a complex platform, it’s helped me grow my business and has many more features that I know I have yet to tap into.
Cons
As a medium business, there are sometimes limitations to the time that glitches are resolved. But overall I understand that every business has these growing pains and I enjoy supporting an Aussie business that has support staff in Brisbane
6. nopCommerce
nopCommerce is a universal eCommerce platform fitting every merchant’s needs: it powers both corporate and small business sites all over the world, companies selling physical and digital goods. nopCommerce is a transparent and well-structured solution, it combines the best features of open-source and commercial software.
The platform has everything you need to get started and grow your eCommerce business. Discount codes, gift certificates, product rating and reviews are the must-have options for a successful online store. nopCommerce offers an arsenal of marketing tools for statistics automation and content marketing.
Review: FinancesOnline
nopCommerce provides a long list of advantages that make it a popular eCommerce solution for many businesses.
Here are some of the visible benefits: It is an open source shopping cart, which means people can set it up easily and quickly. It can also be configured and improved with added tools and functionalities. All stores and sites built with nopCommerce are designed to be fully functional and optimized for mobile devices.
Run multiple stores from a single nopCommerce installation. Sell products that are not in your inventory with the multi-vendor and drop shipping features. All sites and stores are optimized for high visibility and rankings in search engines.
7. Vend
Effortlessly sell, manage, report and grow your retail business in every way with Vend’s unmatched POS, multi-outlet retail and inventory management system. Whether you have one store to optimize, want to sell more online or open five doors next year, Vend POS software will take you where you need to go. Watch our 2‑minute video to see how Vend will transform your business.
Some point of sale systems locks you into their payment provider. This may not best suit your needs or get you the best rate. Vend allows you to select the sharpest deal from our best in breed partners, or connect our POS to your bank.
Review: SoftwareAdvice
Being able to set up quickly, access from the cloud and use on multiple devices are just some of the benefits to me.
Pros: The ease in setting up an online store and having the actual inventory be available is amazing. Being able to set if you want items available online or not is a plus, as being able to set a product with unlimited inventory so that it is still available to order online, even if you physically sell out of the item. This is great for quick to order in products.
Cons: It would be nice to have better integration between my POS system on the iPad so that I could use a receipt printer and auto-cash drawer without using a PC setup.
8. Bigcommerce
Save time and money with a platform designed for the functionality small businesses need. With more built-in features than other leading platforms, BigCommerce gives you the power to grow your business from day one.
More built-in apps and features give you time back to focus on running your business. Unparalleled DDoS protection, site uptime, fraud alerts and PCI compliance keep you protected around the clock. Sell products on Amazon and Instagram from your BigCommerce Control Panel.
Review: Capterra
Pros: I have built several eCommerce stores on BigCommerce for my clients and I continue to be impressed with the support that BigCommerce provides. In this day when you very rarely get to talk to a human, it is greatly appreciated. I build sites that the product requires a lot of custom options and the staff is always coming up with ways to help me figure out the best way to build these options.
Cons: There is little not to like. With the new Stencil themes, it is not as easy to edit templates for someone like me who is not a developer.
Overall: BigCommerce support and the platform has been easy to use and I would recommend this over some of the other sites that my client
9. PaySimple
Everything included in the PaySimple platform for one low monthly price. No contracts and no cancellation fees. … Grow your business with PaySimple’s all-in-one platform for payments, billing, and customer management. you can easily send your customer a receipt and access your payment details in both the Android app and PaySimple’s Web-based PaySimple Pro.
Review: G2
What do you like best?
I like that it combines the features of a merchant account with an invoicing service. I can use a single service (outside of my accounting software) to handle all of my billing and payments.
What do you dislike?
The user interface is not the most intuitive. They have been making updates and as they roll out the user experience is improving.
What business problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?
My biggest need is for an easy way to do recurring invoices and collect payments from those invoices. I have a service with the yearly renewal that would be very difficult to track and invoice manually each year. (The renewal dates are unique to the customer.) PaySimple’s recurring invoice feature works perfectly for this need and ensures we stay up to date with customer’s we may only talk to once a year.
10. Competera Pricing Platform
Competera is a cloud-based pricing platform for retail teams. It leverages the power of neural networks to provide retailers with the best-in-class product data for the full market visibility and timely competitive response. With Competera, businesses reach their sales and revenue goals.
Competera boosts your price setting with quality guaranteed data exploration and algorithmic price recommendations built in a consolidated software environment Any competitive data, from any type of data source: stores, marketplaces, mobile apps, etc., in a convenient format, on schedule with a guaranteed quality of product matches, data delivery accuracy, ensuring any custom logic of scraping and delivery.
Review: GetApp
The best thing we achieve beyond smart pricing is the optimization of managers workflow and competent planning. Competera provides Votonia with advanced online analytics for the last 3 years. The service is easy to use and we love the friendly interface of our campaign. We get always operative information about a dynamically developing market. The best thing we achieve beyond smart pricing is the optimization of managers workflow and competent planning. With Competera, we are always in a swim of trends in e-commerce!
Competera provides Votonia with advanced online analytics for the last 3 years. The service is easy to use and we love the friendly interface of our campaign. We get always operative information about a dynamically developing market. The best thing we achieve beyond smart pricing is the optimization of managers workflow and competent planning. With Competera, we are always in a swim of trends in e-commerce!
