Complete guide to help you choose the best ecommerce platform for your business

1. Scalability 

• Do you have Scalability planned?
• Have you planned for the next 10 years?

Make sure you have answered these questions, when it comes to picking up the best online store platform. Always focus on the scale of the platform right now and how it will be in the next few years.

You might not wish to spend extra efforts and money years later, when you go wrong now. Hence, plan accordingly.  You might have to pay for additional features at one platform which might be available at other platforms for free. 

When your business grows, you would surely not love to go into the hassle of re-fixing your online store, rather you would be needed to focus on the core business activities, hence make sure you make the right choice well in advance. 

2. Load of the product data or orders

E Commerce is one of the most competitive businesses, and hassle-free order management is very important. You can not afford an order management system which takes years for your orders to reach and is poorly managed. 

Tracking orders, email notifications, shipping service API etc. are needed and make sure you choose the right platform in case your business needs the same. The communication between Order Management System OMS and Inventory Management needs to be good. You need advanced eCommerce product management with cutting-edge features out-of-the-box.

• Bulk product upload through CSV and Excel files
• Ability to create different categories and Map products to them
• Ability to map different shipping options with individual products
• High-quality product image upload in bulk
• Advanced product listing based on Wish list, Product Comparison, and Recently Viewed.
• Dynamic catalog filters like sorting, price range, color, size, location, specifications, etc.

3. Performance & process of business

Understand your Business type and make a choice based on the same. You can even look for the industry leaders and make a choice according to your similarities and differences. 

Customer support is needed or not can also be a point which can make a difference in your choice. In order to help you as to which platform is good for you when you need certain features or not, we have listed all the best ecommerce platforms with the pros and cons. You can make an ecommerce platform comparison to choose the most suitable for your business.

Your industry type, might find one platform more suitable while others might not be as user friendly. Hence, you are advised to choose based on the industry type as well. 

4. Resources

The person who is developing the website for your business is also important to consider. It can be an agency or an individual and depending on their expertise, availability you can make the right choice. 

At times, you might need some long term resources and then in case you can not have the same resources for a longer period, you might have to go with another platform.

You can also choose the easiest ecommerce platform when it comes to customization, designing and developing.

5. Technical Aspects

The technical aspects of the business might make a huge difference and you can or cannot choose a platform owing to that.

You can either explore these aspects, their usability and sync with your business or even go on and consult some experts. 

Every technical aspect might not be useful for your business, hence go with something which is useful for the business and do not miss out on the aspects which are must-haves for your business. 

6. Budget & Pricing

Whether you’re a small business just getting started or an already established brick & mortar business moving online, you need to know exactly what you’ll be paying. Consider the price and budget for following:

• The resources
• Products or add ons
• Plugins and themes. etc.

Most of the platforms will have a monthly fee. The cost might however vary on various factors and you might have to make a choice based on the same. Do not forget to weigh the pros and cons of each option such that do not compromise with features or your requiremnets just for the budget. The vice-versa is also true, you should not end up with something expensive which has features which are useless for your business. 

7. Security

Nobody will enter their card details on any unsecure or  a problematic site, which is the reason security is getting perhaps the greatest worry among purchasers. 

While most programming today will have powerful security as standard, consistently check to ensure your chosen ecommerce platform comes with HTTPS/SSL for a secure or danger-free checkout for your clients. 

Additionally, ensure that any platform which you pick is PCI (Payment Card Industry) complaint. 

8. Maintenance & Customization

To get the best results customization is needed in order to integrate or tweak some eCommerce features. Make sure you either have resources for customization or you are good to go with the basic themes available.

Customization might seem to be very easy initially however, even the easiest eCommerce platform might cause hassles for you later. Hence, you need to know what is available, what can be done and what exactly is required by you. 

Along with that, you might also have similar lifelong requirements for maintaining your website. Do consider that features and issues with all the platforms such that you make a choice that is not just manageable but also comes with options to help your business. 

9. Multi-channel Integration

Integration and plugins need to be considered when you choose the best ecommerce platform. Most platforms, such as Shopify, will have plenty of tools for you to run your business. You can decide the best integration platforms needed for your business and hence make a choice accordingly. 

Not only that, the process and ease of integration is also needed to be considered. 

Here are some of the most popular types of plugins that you should look out for:

• Accounting plugins to help with sales, taxes, revenues, and profits
• Email marketing tools to help you keep in contact with your customers
• A platform that helps you reward your customers for using your products
• Apps to help with shipping your products

10. Mobile & SEO Friendliness 

When most of the world has already moved to mobile, Google too has made it a point to value Mobile friendliness of any website. Post-pandemic world has added to this need extensively. Every store be it groceries to household goods, medicine, and other staples, is now available on our mobile phone. 

Hence it is important to have a b2b and b2c ecommerce platform or the best platform to build an ecommerce website which comes handy for mobile friendliness. The platform should support an intuitive, smooth customer journey. From design to navigation, layout, and general user experience, a well-designed mobile experience from beginning to end is critical.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is quite possibly the most basic factor in
guaranteeing your store's prosperity. Organic SEO sets aside effort to assemble, and the errand is a lot simpler when the platform you pick has best practices worked in — and makes staying aware of changes in Google's Algorithm is a priority.

Not all eCommerce Platforms are made equivalent with regards to SEO, so it's significant you verify what SEO abilities are incorporated, from straightforward alternatives like refreshing metadata (tags, descriptions) and captioning, describing images to further developed highlights like adding canonical tags and pagination in product search results.

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• Well-optimized landing pages
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• An intuitive website layout

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1. Big-commerce

Positive

• Flexible and scalable
• Excels with multi-channel selling
• Strong SEO Performance
• Fantastic Theme Designs
• Comprehensive abandoned cart feature

Negative

• Shows Inconsistent speeds in many studies
• Might be expensive for high volume stores
• Cart abandonment isn’t there on the entry plan
• No. 1-click Selling as well as Upsells

2. Shopify 

Positive

• Lighting fast load time
• Extremely easy to set up
• Many certified partners to help you
• 1-Click selling available
• Allows multiple channel & social selling

Negative

• Rated poorly in SEO in many studies.
• Unable to customize for the checkout process
• Apps can add up and might turn out to be costly
• Need a developer for advanced features

3. Wix

Positive

• Hundreds of free themes available
• Simpler to use and set-up compared to others.
• On-page Support available for many requirements

Negative

• Has a bad SEO reputation, however the platform is trying to improve the features.
• Many websites were not secured earlier
• Lacks upselling features and advanced automation
• Difficult when it comes to fully customize template

4. 3dcart

Positive

• Come with a Better blog feature
• Supports all the multi-channel integration
• Great business user management tools for email, QuickBook and inventory.

Negative

• Templates are in sync with the trends, however not very unique
• Not really very supportive for customer support feature
• Potential issues while upgrading
• Not recommended for beginners

5. WooCommerce

Positive

• WordPress is considered to be the best platform for SEO
• 1-Click selling app is available
• Many WordPress experts are available
• It is Highly customizable
• Lots of marketing options available
• Multi-channel integrations possible

Negative

• Good hosting could be expensive
• Troubleshooting could be troublesome.
• No Virtual support is given
• Extensions might be needed even for simple tasks

6. Volusion

Positive

• Onboarding and help centers are great
• Great flexibility come with Sitemaps
• Built-in subscription or recurring payments can be done
• SMB friendl
• Dashboard is Well laid out
• Clear inventory & Marketing System

Negative

• Lacks up or cross selling features
• Lots of websites had poor URL structure
• Considered to be slower than other platforms
• Lots of the sites look out-dates
• No built-in blogging functionality

7. Prestashop

Positive

• Hundreds of apps are available
• Recommended for SEO
• It is Open source & highly flexible
• Large community which is ready-to-help
• Easy Integrations possible

Negative

• Slower than the other builders
• You might need to have Add-ons as add ups.
• Limited third-party marketing integrations possible
• Developer skills are needed when required to tweak
• No multichannel functionalities are there on the hosted version

8. Weebly

Positive

• It has good value overall ecommerce marketing automation is not very expensive here
• Stunning low cost and free designs
• Powerful email tools
• Simple dashboard that’s very easy to use
• Mobile app available

Negative

• Expensive as might have to pay an additional transaction fee
• Extremely poor with SEO
• Amazon doesn’t seem to be on their radar
• Inventory management is still very basic

9. Squarespace

Positive

• Easy To Set Up
• Great For Simple Stores
• Comes with Stunning Designs
• Extremely good SEO tools
• Integrates well with ShipStation and ShipBob

Negative

• No drop shipping available
• No marketing automation integration possible
• No Amazon integration available
• Could be more faster for the price
• No app store for more features and functionalities

10. Magento

Positive

• Feature rich and very Robust
• Highly recommended for SEO
• 1-Click selling available
• Many users and community is there
• Scalable and highly customizable
• Flexible to choose where you want to host the software

Negative

• Themes are expensive to use
• Could be easily Slowed Down
• Requires Development Skills
• Virtually no support is needed
• Huge Space and lots of memory is needed to perform well

The analysis of the features here is based on many surveys online and hence might not be used as a thumb rule for all the business types. You are advised to consider this before you choose something apt for your business.