Ecommerce platforms are important for business nowadays. Fortunately, it is now easier than ever to start selling online. You have two primary options to choose from: building a website using a Content Management System (CMS) like Magento or WooCommerce or using a Hosted Solution such as Shopify or Squarespace. Both categories offer a multitude of choices.
What is an Ecommerce Platform?
An ecommerce platform is a software that helps you create and manage an online store. It handles tasks like marketing, inventory management, and processing payments. The top ecommerce platforms let businessmen design custom websites and adapt their businesses as they expand.
Here’s a rundown of the best ecommerce platforms for 2024, so you can choose the right one for your customers.
10 Best Ecommerce Platforms
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- BigCommerce
- Squarespace
- OpenCart
- Magento
- Wix
- Big Cartel
- Square Online
- Shift4Shop
Related Article: Top 7 WordPress Invoice Plugins
Shopify
Shopify is the best ecommerce platform. Its self-hosted software enables businessmen to reach customers across various channels, offering comprehensive retail solutions—from website design to efficient shipping processes.
Through Shopify, merchants gain a unified back office for simplified management of all activities. This allows them to focus on enhancing their online stores, expanding outreach through social media sales, and exploring sales models like dropshipping.
As businesses thrive, Shopify scales with them, optimizing sales potential. With the internet’s most effective checkout system and seamless integration with Shopify POS for in-person transactions, merchants can serve customers effortlessly across all channels.
For those venturing into new ventures, Shopify offers a risk-free trial, providing access to over 100 customizable themes for easy store setup. Following the trial period, merchants can kickstart their sales journey with three months of Shopify for just $1 per month.
- Pricing: $29 per month with annual payment.
- Integrated Sales Channels: Connect to Facebook, Instagram, Google, Walmart Marketplace, eBay, and Amazon.
- Mobile App: Prepared with a suite of tools for complete online business management.
- Point of Sale (POS): Available.
Wix
Wix is a user-friendly website builder offering customizable templates, web hosting, and domain registration services. While you can create a basic website at no cost, accessing ecommerce functionalities requires upgrading to a paid plan.
Wix enables accepting payments, order tracking, and centralized order management across various channels for online merchants. However, Wix may not meet the needs of many product-based businesses due to lacking essential features.
It doesn’t include built-in low-stock alerts, and some key inventory management functionalities are absent. To access these features, as well as the ability to sell through social media platforms, integration with third-party apps is necessary.
- Pricing: $27 per month with annual payment.
- Integrated Sales Channels: Integrating with Facebook and Instagram demands the use of the third-party app Ecwid.
- Mobile App Features: The mobile app enables website management, yet it lacks needed business tools such as inventory management.
- Point of Sale (POS): Available.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is an ecommerce platform generally used by large-scale enterprises. Like Shopify and Wix, it provides web hosting and customization features for your online store, alongside tools for international sales, search engine optimization (SEO), and product listings on various marketplaces.
However, due to its focus on larger businesses, some merchants find BigCommerce lacking in simplicity and flexibility.
- Pricing: $29 per month with annual payment.
- Integrated Sales Channels: Seamlessly integrates with Google Shopping, Facebook, price comparison engines, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, and Instagram.
- Mobile App Features: Access analytics, update orders, manage inventory and products, and search for customers. Note: Some features are exclusive to Android devices.
- Point of Sale (POS): Available.
Magento
Magento is an ecommerce platform not hosted by a provider, designed primarily for developers. It provides extensive flexibility for brands seeking a customized website setup. However, users may require an in-house developer to upkeep their site and fully utilize the platform’s capabilities.
Additionally, Magento doesn’t offer built-in tools for creating a multichannel strategy. Activating social commerce or marketplace selling isn’t straightforward, and managing international transactions poses similar challenges.
- Pricing: Custom pricing is available upon inquiry.
- Integrated Sales Channels: Supports integration with Amazon.
- Mobile App Features: Not available.
- Point of Sale: Third-party extensions are available for Point-of-Sale (POS) functionality.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a plugin and ecommerce platform that is free and open source, designed for WordPress. It can turn a content-focused WordPress website into an online store and offers important features such as product listings, a shopping cart, and a checkout system for those who wish to sell their products or services online.
You can improve your WooCommerce setup to create a more advanced eCommerce website with additional paid extensions, complete with customizable themes, shipping solutions, security features, and other standard functionalities. Both native WooCommerce extensions and third-party options are available.
While some merchants appreciate the flexibility to choose desired features, others find WooCommerce’s reliance on add-ons to be a drawback. Managing your store through a network of plugins and extensions can complicate cost tracking, in addition to the expenses associated with hosting and maintaining your WordPress website.
- Pricing: Free
- Integrated Sales Channels: Supports integration with Google Shopping, Etsy, eBay, Facebook, Amazon, Pinterest, and Walmart.
- Mobile App Features: Allows adding products, managing orders, and viewing analytics.
- Point of Sale: Available.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a simple and user-friendly website builder that offers ecommerce capabilities for higher-priced plans. With Squarespace, you can easily turn your website into an online store and integrate a checkout system that accepts payments via Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Afterpay.
By upgrading to a higher plan, you can access inventory tracking and management features, including the ability to print shipping labels.
Additionally, Squarespace provides an option to sell subscription products.
- Pricing: $27 per month with annual payment.
- Integrated Sales Channels: Use the Shopping Feed extension to sell an unlimited number of products on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Google Actions.
- Mobile App Features: The mobile app enables website editing, scanning of shipping labels, order, and inventory management, as well as customer communication.
- Point of Sale (POS): Accessible via the mobile app.
Big Cartel
Big Cartel is an all-inclusive ecommerce platform and website builder customizable for makers and artists. It offers a basic free plan featuring a customizable theme, payment processing, and real-time sales tracking.
Though Big Cartel’s free plan exceeds other options on this list in terms of features, its paid plans may have limitations. Merchants are restricted to adding only five images per product listing, and the platform supports only a limited number of payment gateways.
- Pricing: $9.99 per month.
- Integrated Sales Channels: Not available.
- Mobile App Features: Access store analytics, add/edit products, track order shipping, manage discounts, and print packing slips.
- Point of Sale (POS): Requires integration with third-party services.
Square Online
Square Online is a straightforward ecommerce platform designed for small businesses. It enables merchants to seamlessly integrate online and in-store sales using Square’s payment processing solutions.
With Square Online, you can create a store for free. However, certain limitations apply, such as the inability to use your domain name or remove in-app advertisements until you upgrade to the paid eCommerce plan.
- Pricing: Free + $29 per month with annual payment.
- Integrated Sales Channels: Not available.
- Mobile App Features: Includes a drag-and-drop builder, order fulfillment, inventory management, payment processing, and analytics.
- Point of Sale (POS): Integrated with Square Point-of-Sale (POS) system.
Shift4Shop
Shift4Shop is a straightforward tool for building an online store. While it may not offer a range of features, it is easy to set up and works well for mobile users. Additionally, the platform provides integration capabilities with other applications through its API.
If you process a minimum of $500 monthly using Shift4Shop’s native payment system, you won’t incur additional charges for using the ecommerce platform. However, if your earnings fall below this threshold or if you prefer to use PayPal for payment processing, plans start at $29 per month.
- Pricing: $29 per month.
- Integrated Sales Channels: eBay, Amazon, Facebook.
- Mobile App Features: No.
- Point of Sale (POS): Available for purchase.
OpenCart
OpenCart is a free and open-source ecommerce platform known for its user-friendly setup process. It enables users to establish and oversee multiple stores, offering a dashboard that provides essential metrics such as sales data and repeat customer statistics.
With OpenCart, you gain access to over 13,000 modules and free themes, providing customization options to prepare your unique website. Furthermore, the platform offers multiple integrations to connect your preferred tools and enhance functionality.
- Pricing: Free
- Integrated Sales Channels: No
- Mobile App Features: Varies
- Point of Sale (POS): Yes
We hope this article helps to find the best ecommerce platform for your business.
