Aysha Software Development May 16, 2019 372

Nowadays buying things online has narrowed down your time allocated for shopping. In this busy world, now it has become very easy to buy things by sitting at one place and buying a wide variety of products online.

Selling the products through online business has become a trend now and this is e-commerce business. E-commerce business is highly competitive and definitely, you need to invest your time and efforts to make your own brand in your e-commerce business.

If you are a startup in e-commerce, you need to know the top list of E-commerce development platforms where you can successfully start your e-commerce business.

There are few factors which can be considered to rate the top 10 e-commerce platforms. Factors like best features, performance data, customized interface, should respond well for search engines, easy navigations in the e-commerce platform, how well manages the load of products and integrated with other software.

Based on these factors we can decide whether it meets your requirements by testing all the e-commerce platforms to evaluate the real-time performance and features of the e-commerce platforms

In this article, we will see the top 10 list of e-commerce platforms 

1. BigCommerce

BigCommerce stands on the top of the list of e-commerce platforms due to its rigid search engine for its products. This will help the large retailer to start an e-commerce business. It opens its space for the new beginners of e-commerce business and other business units like brick and mortar store can also extend their operations through this platform where they can effectively perform their online orders of the brick and mortar store.

It is good for the startup and for any business model to use this platform to achieve success in their business

Without much coding knowledge, it is easy to customize its interface of the platform as per your needs. It provides customizable templates to design your own store, the navigations for product search, adding to cart. You can start selling and promote products. Basic knowledge about HTML and  CSS will help you to make your own design without involving any complex coding in the customization of the design templates  

Pros

• Highly flexible and highly scalable
• Goes on well with the multi-channel network to sell the products.
• Responds well for SEO and provides good performance.
• Large customized theme designs
• Best cart features

Cons

• Not suitable to handle high volume store
• Performance varies depending upon high volume and thus the speed varies.
• Entry plan does not offer the best cart features

2. Shopify

If you are focussing only on selling, you can go ahead with Shopify and not that good at drop shipping. It stands behind in SEO and the major benefit is 1-click upsells i.e. within a click you can purchase the product by having the payment options also on the same page. For this option of 1-click upsell it can be placed on the second top position in the list of e-commerce platforms.

Comparatively the performance is not as good as BigCommerce. BigCommerce can handle large volume when compared to Shopify.

Got a very good customized drag and drop interface which makes it easy to use Shopify for the beginners

Pros

• It loads the pages quickly
• Very easy to set up Shopify
• Certified partners to support Shopify
• 1-Click upsell
• Enables social and multi channel selling
• Good themes with great designs

Cons

• Stands behind in terms of SEO.
• Checkout process cannot be customized
• Adding Apps are costly
• For any additional features need the support of a developer.

3. 3dcart

It is developed in 2001 so it served more than 22,000 business through online. The best features are like unlimited storage and zero transaction fee. They also support in multi-channel selling.

Being older than BigCommerce and Shopify they are recommended for the beginners.  The themes and templates are outdated and so they are not appealing

Not having an easy interface as in Shopify. The drag and drop functionality is missing 

The major benefit is in shipping without using API (Application Programming Interface)

Like BigCommerce it restricts the large volume with the lowest price plan

Pros

• Good features for blogging when compared to other e-commerce platforms
• Can be easily integrated as per your requirement
• Great in handling management tools like email, inventory, etc

Cons

• Templates are old and outdated
• Shared more negative feedback from the customers
• Not recommended for new beginners
• Upgrading issues

4.WooCommerce

If you know Wordpress, then WooCommerce is very easy to use. It is one of the best platforms to start the e-commerce business

There are multiple extensions available in WooCommerce. Extensions like payment gateway integration, integrating to social media and email marketing, 1-click upselling and shipping.

If you are not that familiar with WordPress configuration then its going to take time for you to understand WooCommerce to set up themes and add-on plugins

When you add more products to the store it is going to slow down in processing and loading the page

It is a free source to use through WordPress. 

Pros

• WordPress ranks good in SEO
• App available for 1-click selling
• WordPress experts to support WooCommerce
• Good customization part is available.
• Can be integrated easily as per your requirement
• Many marketing options available

Cons

• Good hosting is not affordable
• Troubleshooting is not an easy process
• No proper WooCommerce support
• Extensions needed for any simple integration.

5.Volusion

Founded in the year 1999 but it was into the market by 2002 as an e-commerce platform for the users.  Only a very few free themes are available and the great number comes with the premium package of the platform.

You need to pay for SSL certificate whereas it comes with the free package in other platforms.

In-built blogging functionality is missing so you cannot expect good SEO and if you need blogging you need to integrate with WordPress.

There is a limitation in the bandwidth of the products used in the store. With a low price plan, it restricts the large volume store

Learning guide is available in the dashboard to support the beginners.

The dashboard is designed well to handle the marketing options like SEO, eBay, Social selling, etc

Pros

• Have good help center to support
• Flexible with Sitemaps
• Built-in subscription available
• Well designed dashboard
• Good inventory system

Cons

• No cross selling features available
• No features for in-built blogging
• slow speed.
• The URL structure of the sites is poor.

6. Prestashop

In 2007  PrestaShop was founded and it is an open-source platform which supports cloud hosting. The performance value is good. Two options are available to use the tool. One is a ready paid version and the other one free version where you can download and customize as per your requirement. 

If you are not too good at solving technical issues then you can opt paid version of Prestashop.

Like other hosted platforms Prestashop also comes with free SSL. Only a few themes are available for free. Should make use of HTML and CSS to customize the themes.

Drag and drop functionality is missing in the interface

Pros

• Many integrations/Apps available
• Supports strong SEO
• Very flexible hosting
• Many community developers to support

Cons

• Slower when compared to other platforms
• Can have  the Add-on options
• Marketing integration is limited to the third party
• To tweak, a skilled developer is required.
• If hosted version then there is no multichannel functionalities.

7. Weebly

In 2006 Weebly was founded and it supports about 40 million customers.

If you are looking for a simple store with automation options for marketing then go for Weebly.

It stands behind for SEO. No big technical knowledge is required to handle the issues.

The basic starter plans lack many features like an inventory system, cart features,

Drag and drop functionality is present in this platform and with the help of HTML and CSS you can customize your template

Pros

• Good performance value
• Automation in e-commerce marketing is highly affordable
• Designs are very affordable.
• Good user management tools like email tool
• Mobile app with an easy interface
• Good for beginners

Cons

• Additional transactions are not free
• Poor SEO
• Only basic inventory management is available

8. Squarespace

In 2003 Squarespace is founded and it provides drag-and-drop functionality.

If more features are not required and if you are using a simple store then you can go Squarespace

The prices are very affordable and the transaction fee is not free

only the high priced plan will provide you cart features like auto recovery and they also provide discounts

Pros

• Setting up Squarespace is very easy
• Good to use for low volume simple store
• Designs are very well structured
• Strong SEO with rigid tools
• Can be integrated with ShipStation and also with ShipBob

Cons

• No facility for dropshipping
• Automation for marketing cannot be integration
• No integration with Amazon
• The speed is according to the price
• No more features or functionalities present

9. Magento

It is widely used by large brands and they strongly trust Magento. For any customization, you need skilled developers and the community developers will support you to use this platform.

You can add extensions and themes in this platform to enhance the functionality

It is a free open source platform and it also provides a paid version for a large business in e-commerce.

It supports cloud computing and so fast in retrieving the data. It triggers automatic emails.

In Magento, it offers more features. Features like discounts, ability to mix up with SEO, subscriptions, membership packages.

It can handle unlimited products

Pros

• Rigid and strong features
• Good in SEO
• 1-Click Upselling
• A good number of community helpers to support
• Highly scalable
• Good customization options
• Flexible in hosting the software

Cons

• Themes are costly
• Low speed
• Developers are required to troubleshoot
• It utilizes ample space and memory to install and perform

10. Wix

This platform is also good only simple store with less volume of products. When you look at the price the benefits are less when compared to the other platforms with the same price. 

So many features are missing and so it is not rated that good when compared to other e-commerce platforms

In terms of SEO also they stood behind.  If your business is large, it is not recommended since SEO plays a major role in any large business

It provides a drag-and-drop option to enhance the functionality of the platform

Pros

• a huge number of free themes
• Easy setup and very simple to use
• On-page support is available
• Recommended for beginners

Cons

• Poor SEO
• No features for cart recovery
• Sites are not very secure
• Features for marketing options are limited

Conclusion

Hope this article helps you to find the top 10 list of e-commerce platforms with Pros and Cons and it will surely give a clear picture on which e-commerce platform to be used according to your business type and needs. Here is the Review of Top 10 E-commerce Websites in India and their special features.