5 Best Ecommerce Platforms Compared (2019)

Nowadays, with our busy lifestyles, online shopping has gained the attention of the buyers. People have become more interested in online shopping in recent years, because of the resources available. You just have to do some scrolling to find out your desired product, choose a payment method and your product will be delivered to you at your doorstep. That’s how online stores are making our lives easier. According to a recent study:

“It is estimated that the number of online buyers is going up to 1.92 Billion this year (2019) ”.

This suggests that e-commerce websites are going to play an integral role in business growth in the future. For almost every business, their online presence is becoming important with every passing year. And if you are looking for the best e-commerce platform for your website, then you have come to the right place!

In this article, we are going to compare five of the most popular eCommerce platforms. Which are:

1. Woocommerce
2. Magento
3. Shopify
4. Bigcommerce
5. Squarespace

WOOCOMMERCE:

Woocommerce is a free WordPress plugin which allows website owners to convert their website into an eCommerce website with ease. Woocommerce comes with a secure payment gateway and a smooth shopping cart. The open source nature of Woocommerce encourages developers to extend the functionality according to their requirements. Woocommerce is currently one of the most popular eCommerce platforms. Its popularity can be determined by a study stating:

“WooCommerce is powering about 22% of the world’s online stores.”

Pricing:

Woocommerce is a free e-commerce plugin with free updates. However, its extensions are paid, starting from $49.

Templates:

There are thousands of free themes available at different platforms like Themeforest and Template Monster. You can also find paid themes with an average price of $40 – $60. With the introduction of page builders like Elementor in WordPress, customization of Woocommerce templates has become easier in the last couple of years.

Ease of Use:

Woocommerce itself is very much easy to use. But as it works as a plugin with WordPress, this can be a difficult task for a non-technical person.

Customer Service:

Woocommerce has a large community on the internet, so any kind of help can be obtained from the community or well-written official documentation.

Security:

Woocommerce is not a service-based platform, therefore, its security depends mainly on WordPress and Hosts. To ensure the security of Woocommerce, you need to have SSL enabled for your website. This SSL may be availed from your hosting providers or you can buy them from a third party and integrate to your website. This can cost you from $200 – $400. You need to have strong passwords and some security plugins like iTheme Security or Limit Login Attempts for better security of WordPress CMS.

Pros:

• It is completely FREE.
• Highly customizable and extendable opensource platform.
• Good product and order management.
• Discount and Coupons are easy to handle.
• Availability of thousands of theme templates.
• Smooth integration Paypal and Cash on Delivery.
• Built-in analytics and reporting.
• SEO friendly.
• Unlimited products.
• User-Friendly.

Cons:

• You should have sound knowledge of WordPress.
• Performance issues. Loading time increases with an increase in entries of the database.
• Customer management can be an issue.

MAGENTO:

One of the best eCommerce platforms, released in early 2008. Magento is becoming more popular with every passing year. It is an enterprise level platform which compromises on one click plug-and-play functionality like Shopify but still is highly rated among developers. Many popular brands like Burger King. Pepe Jeans and Liverpool F.C. have developed their websites using Magento.

Pricing:

Magento has two editions. One is the Magento Community Edition which is completely free. But the other one Magento Enterprise Edition is paid. Its Gold Support package can cost you around $22,000 a year. Platinum Support package can cost you even more plus the commission depending on website traffic.

Templates:

Magento Connect provides us a wide range of free themes as well as paid themes with average price from $80 – $100.

Ease of Use:

Magento is not that easy to use as one would have liked. Getting your store up on Magento can be problematic. For the starters, you will have to choose between two versions of Magento. Secondly, Magento installation is difficult to handle compared to other e-commerce platforms.

Customer Service:

Magento does not have a Customer Support service at all but you can ask for help from the growing developer’s community.

Security:

Magento is also like Woocommerce in this regard. You need to purchase an SSL certificate from hosting providers or third parties.

Pros:

• Subscription model.
• Product management.
• Order management.
• Discount and coupon codes are easy to handle.
• Customer management.
• Multiple payment methods.
• Mobile friendly.
• Great report system.
• 100+ themes are available to use.
• Unlimited bandwidth.

Cons:

• Need to have developers to maintain the store.
• The basic version is free, but the Enterprise version costs you around $20,000/year.

SHOPIFY

Shopify is one of the top eCommerce platforms because it is very simple to start an online store using Shopify has been helping store owners to showcase their products since 2004. Shopify has evolved with time to meet the needs of a complete eCommerce platform. Its user base has grown in recent years. Due to its ease of use, entrepreneurs with less knowledge of the eCommerce world, prefer using Shopify.

Pricing:

Shopify offers you Basic package at $29.00 and Shopify Plus at $2,000 with a 14 days free trial.

 

Templates:

Shopify gives us the option to use 10 free themes and 60 paid themes at the moment. Paid themes start from $140.

Ease of Use:

Shopify is most probably the most user-friendly e-commerce nowadays. From signing up on Shopify to building a store every step is as easy as it could be. Every step is properly defined with very easy to use interface.

Customer Service:

Shopify offers you a 24/7 Customer Support facility which can be availed by using different mediums like email, phone, or live chat. They are very responsive and would not let you down in helping you.

Security:

Shopify is subscription based platform and it comes with embedded SSL, without any additional cost. All you need is to set up a strong password.

Pros:

• Subscription model.
• Social selling on websites like Facebook and Amazon.
• Product management.
• Order management.
• Discount and coupon codes are easy to handle.
• Customer management.
• Multiple payment methods.
• Mobile friendly.
• Reports system is flawless.
• 100+ themes are available to use.
• Third party themes are allowed.
• Unlimited bandwidth.

Cons:

• Additional transaction fee if you don’t use Shopify payment.
• Extensions are highly paid.
• Customization in code is not easy and need extra investments when availing this from Shopify.

BIGCOMMERCE

Since its introduction, BigCommerce has become one of the top eCommerce platforms. It has emerged to 55,000 online stores in no time compared to others. Big brands like Martha Stewart and Toyota have shown interest in BigCommerce when it comes to their online stores. For entrepreneurs, who lack programming knowledge and want to keep things simple, BigCommerce is a go-to option.

Pricing:

BigCommerce can cost you between $29.95 and $249.95. You can choose between monthly and annual plan. Themes cost you between $150 – $240. Offers 15 days free trial.

Templates:

You can find templates both free and paid templates for BigCommerce. BigCommerce lags big time here as it only offers 7 free themes. You can buy any theme but you have to pay an average of $150 – $240 for a template.

Ease of Use:

For the website owner, Bigcommerce is very much easy to use. With fluent steps of sign up in subscription-based Bigcommerce, the dashboard has almost everything that is needed to be there.

Customer Service:

BigCommerce offers us the best customer service. They are available 24/7 on live chat, Email or phone as well as very well compiled documentation and wide knowledge-base.

Security:

Just like Shopify, BigCommerce is subscription based platform and it comes with embedded SSL, without any additional cost. All you need is to set up a strong password.

Pros:

• Subscription model.
• Social selling on websites like Facebook, eBay, and Amazon.
• Product management.
• Order management.
• Discount and coupon codes are easy to handle.
• Customer management.
• Multiple payment methods.
• Mobile friendly.
• Great report system.
• Customizable and flexible.

Cons:

• Lack of free templates.
• Price of paid templates is too high.
• Advanced features are very expansive.

SQUARESPACE

Squarespace initially, launched as just a website builder has evolved into one of the top eCommerce platforms in recent years. Squarespace is considered to be the best choice for building a store when you consider the design of your website as your main priority due to its wide range of elegant and responsive templates.

Pricing:

The basic plan for Squarespace e-commerce costs from $26/month. The advanced version costs you $40/month.

 

Templates:

Templates available on Squarespace are usually rated as elegant, modern and responsive for different screen sizes. These attributes make Squarespace desireable when a user wants to build a store with high-resolution images.

Ease of Use:

Squarespace is rated highly in terms of the ease of use. Setting up the store is very easy as well as making changes to the store.

Customer Service:

Squarespace offers us the best customer service. They are available 24/7 on live chat, Email or phone as well as very well compiled documentation and wide knowledge-base.

Security:

Squarespace comes with an SSL compatibility making it one of the safest eCommerce platforms to use.

Pros:

• Modern and elegant designs.
• Product management.
• Order management.
• Discount and coupon codes are easy to handle.
• Customer management.
• Multiple payment methods.
• Mobile friendly.
• User-friendly.
• SEO Friendly

Cons:

• Limited file storage
• Limited payment options
• Less third-party integrations

Final Words:

With all of these features in modern e-commerce platforms, ruling anyone out of competition will be the toughest choice. Choosing an e-commerce platform may depend on the type and scope of your online store.

• If you are a beginner in eCommerce and don’t have any kind of experience then you should opt woocommerce for your store because of its easy to develop and maintain architecture.
• If you want to have the luxury of apps, add-ons, and plugins as well as great design templates Shopify is the place for you to go.
• Magento is a go to when you want to build a store at the enterprise level. It can be helpful for multi-currency and multi-lingual websites.
• If you want to build a fully functional online store with a number of plugins and add-ons then you should definitely choose Bigcommerce as your platform. It may be expansive but it will certainly justify that pricing too.
• If you want to have a better user interface with great design and template you should go for Squarespace but having said this for Squarespace you may have to bear some extra cost.

This comparison by WP inCare is very helpful to figure out your next eCommerce platform.Click To Tweet

If you are interested in building an online store, WP inCare is here to help you with this. Let it be Woocommerce, Magento or Shopify we have the experts, who can make your life easier in terms of your online presence. Contact us today for the discussion.