Top E-commerce Platforms For 2018/19 & Beyond

Top Ecommerce Platforms For 2018-19 & Beyond

Ecommerce has come up with today’s biggest growth driver in the worldwide marketplace for those who are planning to start a new ecommerce business in 2018-19 or beyond. It is essential to understand the digital commerce beyond mobile and social by considering the every aspect of ecommerce evolve Let's have a look at the major features that will frames and influence ecommerce now and in the future.

What is an Ecommerce Platform?

An ecommerce platform is a software application that allows online businesses to maintain the websites sales and operations. Ecommerce software is making the online store to get easily managed behind the scene like manage inventory, add or remove products, calculate taxes, and fulfill orders.

Why Use an Ecommerce Platform?

Either you’re looking to switch a business solution from scratch, yourchoice of e-commerce platform makes a huge impact on the expediency and profitability of your business.

The probable options to using an ecommerce platform are: ● ●

Building business website from scratch,​​ which is out of the question for most businesses.

Using a plugin,​​ if you’re looking to build, grow and expand a business - even a smaller one.

There are 3 main ways to classify the the ecommerce platforms: ● Open Source. ● SaaS (Software as a Service). ● CaaS (Commerce as a Service)

Beyond this, there are two ways in which ecommerce platforms offer a hosting environment for your customers.

The two types of hosting environments are: ● ●

Cloud: Hosted Anywhere.

On-Premise: Self-hosted on your business premises.

Ecommerce platforms has ability to customize the products and its informations according to the own online retail needs which can offer benefit for both the business and its customers mutually.

What are important ecommerce platform features?

Every business has a unique requirements so choosing a right solution is completely depend upon the ability of platform to solve the day-to-day challenges within your organization. Below are some basic things you should approach about prospective provider.

Important ecommerce platform features: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Hosting environment and bandwidth Unlimited API calls Fully customizable site free themes SEO features and user friendly URLs throughout the site Extensive application marketplace full of pre-built integrations with best-in-class services Mobile optimized site, checkout are fully customizable Built-in basic ecommerce features and WYSIWYG editors, etc.

Things to Consider When Choosing an Ecommerce Platform Following are the things you’ll need to consider when you’re looking for the best ecommerce platform for your business. ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Pricing and Payment SEO Friendliness Mobile Friendliness Customer Service Security Scalability Social media integration

Ecommerce Platform Comparisons As the market is saturated with numerous ecommerce solutions, here we evaluated some of the popular ecommerce platforms based on their own specific needs and use cases, and their advantages and disadvantages.

1. Shopify A canadian-based ecommerce solution allows anyone to sell online easily across the globe having a core focus on the lean social-commerce and mobile shopping. Shopify was founded in 2004 with the pace of evolving ecommerce trends and technologies. For ex. social shopping where your customers not ever abandoned form their social media platform in order to buy from your web store.

The Good: ● Easy To Setup And Use ● Visually Appealing Online Store ● App Integrations ● Security and Reliability ● Excellent Loading Speed ● Powerful Marketing Tools ● Mobile Responsiveness ● Outstanding Customer Support The Bad: ● ● ● ●

Shopify is probably more expensive.

Higher transaction fees (credit card fee: 3% credit card fee + Shopify fee: 1 -2%).

Less customizability: Available plugins are generally more expensive, and also less availability.

Shopify is non a CMS (Content Management System) and optimized for selling products.

The Verdict: Startup level ecommerce businesses with the traditional e-commerce approach can benefit from shopify.

2. Magento Magento is an open-source ecommerce solution mostly preferred by brands who have invested in IT or development team. Its reliability and scalability has made it one of the most popular ecommerce platforms available today. A leading companies such as Burger King, Huawei, Pepe Jeans and Liverpool F.C. have their websites built on Magento.

The Good: ●

The major advantages is Magento include 100% control of your own ecommerce instance.

The Bad:

● ●

● ● ●

Magento is available in many versions. The community version of Magento is free, while the enterprise version of Magento costs more than fifteen thousand dollars approx.

Magento has a large community of users as well as developers. It is harder to find authentic Magento developers. The major reason for this is the complex understanding that one needs to have in object oriented(OO) development and immense experience with core software.

Magento has a slow loading time.

You have to use a dedicated server to host Magento web store.

The product support for Magento is quite expensive because developers and consultant charge more for Magento.

The Verdict: Magento is the right choice for Enterprise level online stores with a huge volume of products.

3. BigCommerce BigCommerce is an Open SaaS platform service provider and a growing CaaS ecommerce solution provider having a low ownership cost of and highly flexible APIs. For ecommerce store owners who deficit basic coding skills, the huge list of BigCommerce’s built-in features are there.

The Good: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Ease of Use BigCommerce pricing are little complex, but for small business the pricing options are fairly competitive comparatively to other ecommerce platforms.

No Transaction Fees Multiple Sales Channels There are variety of different formats available for BigCommerce support, such is 24/7 through chat, email and phone.

BigCommerce stores are protected by multiple layers of security.

Creating Products is Simple in BigCommerce.

Easier Store Management

The Bad: ● ● ●

Expensive BigCommerce Themes No Lite Version(Lite version similar to Shopify’s that allows to use it to build a store elsewhere).

Theme Editor Could Use Improvements

The Verdict: BigCommerce is an ideal solution for ecommerce businesses who want a full-fledged store with hassle-free coding, integrated plugins and other technical obstacles.

4. WooCommerce A free WordPress plugin, WooCommerce comes along with a secure payment gateway and a shopping cart. Open source and easy to use for WordPress, WooCommerce needs an additional plugin to start a multi-vendor ecommerce store.

The Good: ● ● ● ● ●

WooCommerce is free Professional and customizable Provides Analytics Very Secure Flexible Functionality

The Bad: ● ● ●

Frequently WooCommerce updates Can be costly if does not meet your requirements Effective knowledge to use

The Verdict: WooCommerce is a viable option if you want to stick to WordPress websites and don't anticipate having a large, high-volume store.

We @Bonzer Technologies Pvt. Ltd. can implement ideas for you. Get a quote out​ e​ commerce development services​ to develop a your own ecommerce store!