Top 10 Ecommerce Platforms To Know In 2021

  Solace  Infotech    February 17, 2021    409

 

To sell any product online, you need an ecommerce platform. A regular website provides everything you need to promote your business but people can’t pay for products, as it needs integrations with shipping providers and payment processors. A solution for this is an ecommerce platform that includes basic features like shopping cart tools, web hosting and payment processing. Depending upon your budget, sales volume, or industry, you may need extra features, like bulk upload or real-time stock inventory tools. When selecting an ecommerce platform, ensure that it suits your tech skills, provides features to improve customer experience and offers customization options. There are variety of ecommerce platforms available in the market, so it is important to consider the basic features that an ecommerce platform should provide you. Let us see the features that you can rely on, to choose a winning online shopping platform.

Important Features Of Ecommerce Platform-

  • Run on a unified and single platform- ecommerce platform that you choose should offer unified ecommerce, order management, financial, accounting, POS, customer service, inventory, and marketing, merchandising on a single cloud-based eCommerce platform.
  • Customer view- Ecommerce platforms must provide good customer service, targeted marketing, and deliver consistent experiences. All customer communication should be in single view across all channels and touchpoints.
  • Good customer experience- You should choose an online business platform that creates personalized, friendly and responsive, and rewarding mobile, web and in-store experiences for customers for your store to stand out customers’ expectations. 
  • Content creation- Creation of smooth and easy content creation on new or existing pages is important as it provides a convenient interface to create and publish content on the stores. 
  • Support of bottomless expansion- Ecommerce platforms should fully support various business models, channels, brands, currencies, locations and languages on the same platform.
  • Dedicated support and document- Best ecommerce platform should provide the support wherever you need. For instance, Shopify often provides support through various channels like email, phone calls, live chat etc.

Top 10 Best Ecommerce Platforms of 2021-

1. 3DCart-

It is a secure and powerful ecommerce platform that has served 22,000+ online businesses in 20 years of its service. This platform has helped online merchants to build online stores for ranking higher and selling more. It includes 200+ built-in features, highly rated SEO options, 50 free themes and support of more than 100 payment processors. 3Dcart is one of the top ecommerce platforms to provide intuitive features, mobile-friendly themes and marketing ecommerce tools to your store for higher conversion rate. It is a great platform for advanced ecommerce users. Some of the notable features of 3DCart are-

  • built-in SEO tools.
  • offers 24/7 expert eCommerce support.
  • Customer-friendly
  • Secure and scalable
  • mobile-ready themes
  • No transaction fees
  • Free domain for one year

2. Bigcommerce-

BigCommerce was founded in 2009 and is a leading open SaaS solution, that provides merchants sophisticated enterprise-grade functionality, customization and performance with ease of use. Nearly ten thousand companies across 150 countries and various industries use BigCommerce to create attractive and engaging online stores. It is best suited for SMBs & MM who need more from their ecommerce platform with large or complex catalogs. Like other platforms, it allows the platform to be extended with third-party applications. It also supports both B2C and B2B businesses on the same platform. 

This platform is easy to use for beginners. BigCommerce makes it easy to edit and modify SEO-related features like custom URLs, page titles and like. It’s multi-currency feature allows merchants to set prices in multiple currencies. BigCommerce also supports various Headless Commerce capabilities, CMS’s and DXP’s for merchants and agencies to build unique shopping experiences. Here’s the list of features available from BigCommerce standard plan- 

  • Unlimited product listings
  • Unlimited bandwidth & file storage
  • Multi-currency sales
  • Reporting 
  • Custom domains
  • 12 free themes and 160+ paid themes
  • Gift cards
  • Integrations with shipping and POS software
  • Page builder
  • Ratings and reviews

3. Square Space-

It is a popular platform for online business that is completely integrated with a built-in for each plan except for the entry-level option. With Squarespace, it is easy to build a beautiful website. You can install multiple templates,and switch between them any time. It works well with new ecommerce shops that are not sure what it looks like in future. This is because, squarespace helps its users to scale or pivot the direction of their sales strategy. One of the main drawback of using Squarespace is that they don’t have app store where you can add any other integrations or extensions. You can find useful and popular built-in applications, but one should check the complete list of features if they want something specific. 

Here’s a list of squarespace benefits. 

  • Unlimited products
  • Sell physical & digital products
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Built-in applications

4. Magento-

It is one of the most popular open-source ecommerce platform released in 2009. In 2018, it was purchased by Adobe and now available in two versions: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.  Magneto is a best ecommerce platform for small-to-medium businesses having library of more than 5000 extensions.

Prices in Magento are in two tiers:

  • Magento Open Source is free to download and use. But, expect to pay for everything else associated with the site like hosting, themes, development, add-ons, etc. 
  • Magento Commerce is the enterprise-level solution. Prices are quoted by a sales rep, and are reported to run anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000 annually. 

Some of the popular site building features of magento are:

  • Mobile-optimized shopping
  • Integrated checkout, payment and shipping
  • Global selling
  • Instant purchase
  • Catalog management
  • Extended Functionality via App marketplace
  • Site search
  • Customization options available

5. WooCommerce-

It is a free, open-source WordPress shopping cart plugin developed by WordPress.  It is one of the most popular ecommerce options in the market and runs on 30% of all the stores on the internet. Woocommerce is a best suited platform for small businesses that already have site on WordPress, or for those who operate on a tight budget but need robust online store. It includes thousands of third party themes, plugins and offers a great deal of flexibility to fulfill most needs. Some of the notable features are-

  • Mobile-optimized shopping
  • Geo-location support
  • Catalog management
  • Inventory management
  • Shipping options and calculator
  • Search engine optimization
  • Coupons and discounts
  • Product reviews

WooCommerce has a steep learning curve for beginners. Though Woocommerce plugin is straightforward to set up and install, users should develop their own expertise using community forums and online help guides. Once you are familiar with it, it becomes easier to customize and operate.

6. Big Cartel-

Big Cartel platform is by artists, for artists. This ecommerce platform is a SaaS site builder started in 2005, and focuses on creators who need a place to sell artwork, clothing, jewelry and photo prints. It is a best ecommerce platform for those who are looking for an alternative to Etsy. Big Cartel is a easy to manage and its setup wizard does an excellent job of guiding you and you can get up and runs faster than other platforms. Some of the site building features of Big Cartel are as follows-

  • Dashboard
  • Product options with different price points
  • Various selling channels
  • Online checkout
  • Plugins available
  • Limited tax calculation
  • Inventory management
  • Discount codes
  • SEO tools

7. Salesforce Commerce Cloud-

Salesforce is famous because of its CRM solutions. It helps you to reinforce the relationship with clients. This platform is best fitted to both B2C and B2B merchants. As it is apart of Salesforce product suite, it includes many other CRM and marketing services, that helps you to develop business and good client relationships all at a time. It offers some of the great features like, request board and order management, trade personalization with AI, globalization solutions for worldwide organizations and more arrangements classified by business type, requirements, industry and role.  You can deal with high volumes of traffics and sales with Salesforce Commerce Cloud. But it is not best fitted for small brands or starters in selling online as its high price and complex technical requirements. Some of the important benefits of Salesforce Commerce Cloud are as follows:

  • Custom pricing
  • Leverage AI to drive sales
  • Ideal for B2B companies
  • Ecommerce and CRM platform

8. Wix-

Wix.com is a cloud-based website builder that allows you to create online stores with drag-and-drop tools.  It is best suited for small businesses that don’t have access to dedicated web designer. It comes with a wide range of templates and designs to make it easy for beginners and resource-strapped business owners to build a functional website. Plugins can help to extend the functionality, but businesses with complex product lines may be better off with dedicated ecommerce platform. Website builder is very user-friendly, as it is ecommerce component. There are various templates available that can fit to your business.

Some of the notable features of Wix.com are as follows-

  • Shipping options
  • Mobile-optimized
  • Payment options
  • Digital products
  • Product galleries
  • Discount codes
  • Inventory management
  • Abandoned cart recovery
  • Other functionalities available via extensions

9. Weebly-

Weebly platform and mobile app helps you to create and manage your online presence without taking time away from your in-person business. It is free and low cost paid plans that make it best option for brick and mortar companies that want to go online rapidly. Some of the important features are as follows-

  • Inventory management
  • Automatic tax calculator
  • Integrations with over 300 ecommerce apps
  • Unlimited products
  • Coupons and gift cards
  • Stripe or Square payment processors
  • A mobile app to manage your ecommerce site

10. Smoolis-

Smoolies platform is used to create a multilingual site and accepts international currencies without use of plugins. It supports 58 languages from search bar to shopping cart, translates into the language your customers choose.  It’s out-of-the box language capabilities and affordable price makes it best for international sales. Multilingual capabilities of Smoolis include- 

  • Search tool that works for all activated languages
  • Currency converter built into your checkout
  • Capability to use text or flag icons to show customers language options
  • Easy activation of languages and switches as needed
  • Tax rates for various countries
  • Multiple international currencies for checkout

You can also know- Key Steps To Convert E-Commerce Store Into M-Commerce App


 Article keywords:
ecommerce, computer, technology, mobile apps, business apps

 


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