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The Best Platforms for E-Commerce
An eCommerce platform is necessary for online sales. A website may give you all you require for business promotion, but prospective customers will not be able to purchase your products with the absence of your site’s integration with payment processors and courier service providers.
The way out is a platform for eCommerce that offers payment processing, web hosting, and shopping cart tools. Additionally, you may add other features like real-time stock inventory or bulk upload, depending on your budget, sales traffic, or field of business.
In eCommerce platform selection, ensure features that upsurge customer experience and offer customization options are provided, and ensure the platform matches your tech abilities.
In this article, from a list of over 24 eCommerce platforms, we have narrowed your search by making a compilation of 10 of our favorite ones. They are categorized by the ease of use, varying templates, and available plans.
10 of 2021’s Best Platforms for E-Commerce:
- BigCommerce – Best Overall
- Wix – Best for Small Business
- Squarespace – Best for Startups
- Magneto – Best for Large Business
- Shopify – Best for Drop-shipping
- Smoolis – Best for International Sales
- GoDaddy – Best for Ease of Use
- Square Online – Best Affordable Option
- 3dcart – Best for Online Only
- Weebly – Best for Small Business
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BIGCOMMERCE
Ranked as the best eCommerce platform, BigCommerce is flexible enough to cater to all business types. Pros include international payment recognition, bulk-product upload, multi-channel integration and sales support, and even a 15-day premium trial run. The cons however limit trial vendors to only a couple of themes, and state that paid plans can get expensive as sales traffic increases.
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WIX
Wix is the fastest way for small businesses to launch into digital sales. With one of the most user-friendly platforms, including a drag-and-drop site builder, and of course, multi-channel sales compatibility, Wix provides vendors with all they need to kick-off their online store in the shortest time possible. While the 20GB basic plan is perfect for small businesses, larger businesses that need more storage space will have to upgrade to keep their stores running smoothly.
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SQUARESPACE
Start-ups can get busy as they spend most of their time solidifying their business foundations and not enough time for complexities. Squarespace understands this, hence the reason they are the favorite eCommerce platform for start-ups. Entrepreneurs are provided with the best promotional tools for site building, including a two-week trial run that is more than enough time to experience the potential the site holds for their business. The platform also provides tons of aesthetically pleasing templates, a simplified site builder, credit card integration and unlimited storage room. Squarespace, however, charges a small payment processing fee, and has a cap on the number of integrations allowed.
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MAGENTO
Magento is carefully curated for big firms. It provides users with all the features needed to run and sustain a large-scale business without glitches. Even with its size, it is customizable down to the last detail. Its software is open-source, and it is perfect for SEO. Due to the target market of the platform, Magneto’s interface is not completely user-friendly. Users might need to employ the services of a developer to build their sites.
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SHOPIFY
The drop shipper’s favorite, Shopify is best used for the sales of trending products. With a trial period of two weeks, the platform allows for the sale of unlimited digital and physical products, and integrates well with Pinterest, Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook. Shopify supports over 100 payment methods but requires a third-party app for foreign currency. However, they only offer nine themes with the trial run, and charge transaction fees on payments outside of Shopify.
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SMOOLIS
Smoolis is an eCommerce platform that supports over 50 languages, crowning it the king of international sales platforms. The site supports multiple foreign currencies without the need for developers, or even plugins. On request, users and site visitors can translate pages into their preferred language. The site also has a currency converter to make for more seamless transactions. Smoolis only supports 50 products and limits web pages to 100.
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GODADDY
As the most user-friendly platform, GoDaddy lets vendors use AI to customize their online store with zero tech skill requirements. It offers round the clock customer support and a built-in central dashboard. Users can make and send over 20,000 emails monthly, monitor orders, create and reply to social media posts, and accept payment from major payment providers. However, GoDaddy has only one eCommerce plan and does not let users change themes.
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SQUARE ONLINE
With $12 packages, Square Online remains the most affordable eCommerce platform. Users can trade multiple products on multiple channels in a user-friendly way. Even with the 500MB trial plan, users can integrate with over 100 applications, provide curbside pickup to shoppers, and sell physical and digital products including event tickets. Square Online is best for businesses with small traffic as it has limited payment gateways.
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3DCART
3dcart is the most responsive eCommerce platform, solely dedicated to online businesses. It is compatible with over 200 payment gateways and displays live shipping information. It is easy to use but customization is limited. 3dcart has great SEO features and gives users over 60 free themes and some of the best marketing and site review tools. It is also mobile-compatible.
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WEEBLY
Weebly was made for small businesses. It is the perfect platform for online sales for in-store pickup. It has an easy-to-use mobile app that provides any small business owner with the right number of resources to balance maintaining an online presence and running a physical store. Weebly lets users sell an unlimited number of products but support only a few payment methods. It has one free plan and three paid plans.
