Choosing the right ecommerce platform for your business can be a daunting task.
But, your decision can be made a bit easier when you consider your capabilities and your goals. Each eCommerce platform has their own strengths and weaknesses, so to determine which will best suit you, you need to line your own wants and needs up with their strengths. If you’re clear on what you need to accomplish, this article, as an eCommerce platform comparison, will show you which is right for you. If you’re unclear on what your organizational goals are, we can help.
We have reviewed all of the most popular eCommerce platforms to bring you this list. It includes everything from free solutions to enterprise-level software. We’ve included our top picks for various categories along with some honorable mentions that might work well in certain situations. These include:
Our goal is to make it easy for you to decide which platform is best suited for your business needs with a clear eCommerce platform comparison. Check out our eCommerce platform comparison table below or read on to learn more about each option!
Shopify was the first popularized SaaS platform for small-to-mid-sized businesses and mid-market retailers. With Shopify Plus, you have the same dashboard and editor as Shopify, but you’ll have access to higher-level tools, features, customization, and a dedicated staff.
Shopify Plus makes sense for merchants when they reach around $1-2 million in annual revenue. Although it's not the actual amount that’s significant, it’s the growth and level of organizational sophistication this sales number represents.
We've found that at the $1-2 million point, Shopify Plus' usefulness and uniqueness compared to other programs like Square and even Shopify becomes more and more obvious. One of the most beneficial features about Shopify Plus, is that they work to eliminate overheads around platform maintenance, upgrades, and security patching. But remember that pricing for Shopify Plus is calculated by usage and sales volumes — this can vary greatly, depending on your business.
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Starting at $2,000/month. Shopify Plus fees vary depending on the complexity of your needs. |
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Medium to Enterprise-level businesses |
WooCommerce is a WordPress eCommerce plugin that gives you more control over your online store than Shopify Plus — it allows for hosting to be done in any location. WooCommerce is not an eCommerce tool for beginners, however, you also don’t need to be an expert coder to use it.
Even though WooCommerce comes preinstalled with Bluehost, it’s still not intuitive for those without technical knowledge. The learning curve can be steep — especially since there's no live help. Fortunately, there are detailed video tutorials available that will guide new users step-by-step through every feature. WooCommerce also has a very large world-wide online community you can turn to for help.
WooCommerce is great for those looking for a maximum amount of flexibility. This is the site for you if you have the technical knowledge needed for customizations.
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Free and customizable |
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BigCommerce Enterprise is a high-volume eCommerce platform for brands who have a lot of site visitors. It provides a higher level of service, with features able to withstand intense traffic influxes or conversion rates that are higher than what most companies need. You'll never have to worry about your site going down again because as long as there's power in the building — you're good from an uptime perspective (99%).
BigCommerce Enterprise is great for businesses that are purely or mainly online.
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If you’re a one-off seller, a small business owner, or just getting started in the eCommerce space, Square could be right for you. Getting set up with Square only takes a few minutes. Just follow their step-by-step guide and you’ll be up and running in no time. The free option will give you a basic, functional online storefront. If you ramp up to one of the paid versions, you will have more transparency into how your eCommerce store is performing, and can adjust your tactics accordingly.
You don't need to know anything about web design or coding to get started. This also means that you won’t be able to customize your store or your customers’ experience as much.
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Magento is made up of eCommerce platforms and flexible cloud solutions. There are two available products: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce. Both of these can only be operated by those with professional web development experience. Magento is not for beginners. It is for businesses who have developers on their team.
Magento does, however, supply plenty of resources for customer support — you just have to be fine with pursuing answers yourself.
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Magento Open Source is free Magento Commerce |
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Shopping for an eCommerce platform can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. We think that choosing the right one is worth your time and energy because of how much they can impact your bottom line. After all, you want the best ROI possible! To help make this decision a little easier, we created a free eBook, “The hitchhiker’s guide to the B2C ROI-driven ecosystem." Download yours today.