Top eCommerce Platforms to Choose for a New Online Store

The eCommerce online shopping industry has been growing at a fast rate, and it’s only going upwards. Companies like Amazon have created a whole new standard when it comes to shopping online, and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the online shopping transition quicker than previously estimated.

According to Statista, eCommerce sales are forecasted to exceed $1.3 trillion by 2025. So no matter what you’re selling, having an eCommerce website is not only key to your success – but also to the survival of your business.

Thankfully, there are plenty of eCommerce platforms out there, website builders and plugins that can help you create an online store with all the basics from the comfort of your home or office.

There are solutions for all types of eCommerce businesses, from independent artists to multinational corporations. Depending on your needs and goals, if you want a really personalised eCommerce web design, you might want to consider a custom design made just for your organisation.

But let’s have a look at the best eCommerce platforms in 2023, and which one is right for your business.

Core features of eCommerce platforms

There are some core features that every eCommerce website builder needs to have, such as maps, forms, photo galleries, and check out. For our list, we chose the top eCommerce platforms that work particularly well for small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) and could be set up in-house.

The most important things we considered are pricing, features and ease of use.

• Pricing. While it’s obvious, we’re going to name it: running your store shouldn’t cost you more than what you make.
• Features. As we mentioned above, some features are essential to an eCommerce website. Depending on the platform and your own level of experience, you can get more features that enhance the user experience on your website.
• Ease of use. Not everyone can code (or wants to learn), and you should be able to make small changes yourself, without the need to call a developer every time.

Without further ado, here are the best eCommerce platforms in 2023.

WooCommerce (versatile & best for existing WordPress site)

WooCommerce is a plugin that transforms WordPress – which is a Content Management System or CMS – into an eCommerce site. With WooCommerce you can build an eCommerce store from scratch or add the shopping cart functionality to an existing WordPress website.

WooCommerce has a wide range of extensions that are highly configurable and depending on what you need, the pricing starts at $0 and can go up to roughly $250 each. To use WooCommerce you do need WordPress – which is also free – but you will need to buy a domain name, an SSL certificate and web hosting separately.

Some of WooCommerce’s most attractive features are:

• Seamless integration with WordPress
• Built-in payment
• Lots of extensions
• SEO
• Analytics

WooCommerce is best for establishing online stores that need a versatile, customisable and reliable solution.

Magento (powerful and comprehensive self-hosted eCommerce solution)

When it comes to self-hosted solutions, Magento is probably the most popular eCommerce platform. It is used by nearly 200,000 websites. Magento was released in 2008. The ability to handle millions of customers without breaking a sweat made it a go-to eCommerce solution for enterprises and large brands.

While the Magento platform contains all the features and functions needed to run a successful eCommerce store, you can also add new functionalities using extensions. To design the store, there is a large library of Magento themes. If you get into any issue, a large and highly active Magento community is always present.

Some of Magento’s most attractive features are:

• Analytics and Reporting
• Product Browsing
• Catalog management
• Customer accounts
• Order management
• Payment & shipping
• Search engine optimization

Magento is most suited for scalable stores. It can manage thousands of products, millions of transactions, and high concurrent traffic. However, you will need powerful Magento hosting to set up your infrastructure.

Shopify (easy to use and fairly automated)

Shopify offers a pricing model that starts at $29/month, with a 2-week free trial. It’s a popular solution because of its very easy, step-by-step set up, a wide range of themes and a fairly automated experience for business owners.

Some of Shopify’s most attractive features are:

• A lot of dropshipping integrations
• POS access
• Abandoned cart recovery

Shopify is a good option for small to medium sized businesses, and especially for those that want to build a dropshipping business.

Squarespace (easy to set up and has a professional look)

The pricing of Squarespace starts at $23/month for a Business Plan (if paid yearly). It has a wide range of modern, professional-looking templates, anything from catalogue pages to product sell sheets, and a lot of them are free.

It’s very easy to use because of its drag and drop functionality that allows you to add elements in “content blocks?"

Some of Squarespace’s most attractive features are:

• Integration with G Suite, social accounts and other tools
• Mobile-optimised
• SSL security
• Follows SEO best practices
• 24/7 support

Overall, Squarespace is a great option for new stores because it’s an all-in-one solution that can work without coding and additional plugins.

BigCommerce (best for large-volume sellers)

With a price starting at $29.9/month, BigCommerce makes it easy to build an online store, as most of it is quite intuitive (similar to Squarespace and Shopify).

Some of BigCommerce’s most attractive features are:

• Flexible selling with multiple currencies and payment options
• Built-in marketing tools
• Inventory management

BigCommerce is best for those businesses that handle large volumes of stock and need to foster sales leads.

Wix (beginner-friendly and all-in-one)

Wix pricing starts at $27/month and, at its core, it’s a good eCommerce platform because it’s a highly customisable all-in-all solution, with a very easy-to-use drag-and-drop feature.

The basic plan covers 50GB, so if you have a huge inventory or a large photo gallery, you will need to upgrade.

Some of Wix’s most attractive features are:

• Ability to sell unlimited products
• Recurring payments
• Abandoned cart recovery

Wix is great for businesses that want an easy-to-build online website on a budget.

Final words