Best E-commerce Solution Platforms For 2018

According to the recent statistics, the retail e-commerce sales worldwide were around 1.86 trillion US dollars in 2016 and e-retail revenues are predicted to rise to 4.48 trillion US dollars in 2021. Also, in 2018, it is said that the online trade market will take 11.5%.

Due to the escalating competition and the rising demands of eCommerce solutions and services, e-commerce development companies keep on innovating and delivering gradually more powerful features with their platforms. You are fortunate enough, if you are going to start an E-commerce business in 2018, as you will be having a number of choices for selecting an e-commerce platform.

However it is the toughest and concern task to pick an appropriate e-commerce platform among this crowd since it will be the bedrock of your online business. Your selected e-commerce platform will decide certain aspects of your online store like how your store will appear, the level of security features it will have, what payment methods you can offer the customers, etc. Thus, while choosing the e-commerce platform ensure its compatibility with each eCommerce solutions services.

Here we are listing some most applicable and prominent e-commerce platforms along with their pros and cons to help you out for making an accurate selection.

Top E-commerce Platforms For Your Virtual Store:

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is introduced in 2008. Along with 34,914,750 downloads, it powers over 28% of all the online stores. eCommerce Website Development using WooCommerce is the finest choice for you if you have an existing store in WordPress or desire to build a new one with it. It’s a free, open source plugin that works specifically with WordPress sites. With WooCommerce development you can build an amazing store, sell digital and physical products at ease, and manage customers and orders. WooCommerce plugin is free to use and download, however, the extensions are generally on a monthly or yearly subscription.

WooCommerce Pros

• A Huge Extension Store To Add Extra Features And Functionality To Your Store
• Excellent Inventory And Product Management Features
• Large Community Of Agencies And Developers Who Build Extensions
• Built-In Marketing Functions Including Social Media Integrations, SEO, Coupons, and Analytics.
• Best For Content Marketing Using Customizable Blogging Tools
• Works With Any Wordpress Theme

WooCommerce Cons

• As It Doesn’t Come With Hosting, You Have To Take Care Of Setup, Maintenance And Hosting Yourself.
• It Could Get Expensive If More Extensions Are Added To Your Store
• Works Specifically With Wordpress Sites
• Difficult To Customize For New Users

Magento

Launched in 2008, Magento which is a PHP based e-commerce platform now taken by the eBay group. It powers around 250,000 merchants worldwide and handles every year $100 billion in gross merchandise volume. Magento eCommerce development leads the e-commerce platform space having over 25% of market share. Some popular brands like Pepe, Jeans, Huawei, Liverpool F.C. and Burger King, & etc employ Magento for their online stores. Magento Commerce Starter plan starts at $1,988 per month, after which a costly ‘Magento Commerce Pro’ comes priced at $3,399 per month.

Magento Pros

• With Magento, You Have Access And Ownership To The Hosting
• 1000s Of Extensions And Plugins To Power Your Business
• Extra Functionality And Feature Can Be Added From Magento Extension Marketplace
• The Magento Community Edition (CE) Is Free For Medium And Small Businesses
• A Large Community Of More Than 150,000 Specialists And Developers Who Work On The Core Extensions And Software
• Targeted Promotions, Customer Segmentation, & Merchandising
• Advanced Attribute Management Perk Up Marketing And Sales

Magento Cons

• Less Agile Compared To Other Platforms
• Time-Consuming And Difficult To Customize
• Needs Tech Support To Run The Complex System
• Much Expensive Than Other Competing Ecommerce Platforms

Shopify

Shopify is one of the popular e-commerce platforms in the world. Founded in 2006, it presently powers about 500,000 active stores making over $46 billion in sales. Shopify lets you build a beautiful store, manage inventories and products easily. The basic Shopify package is for $29 and the advanced Shopify package is at $299. Also, there will be extra fees for transactions and credit cards.

Shopify Pros

• Best Theme Library Collection With 10 Free And 51 Paid Themes.
• Includes A Variety Of Payment Methods Like Paypal, Credit Cards, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, And Bitcoin
• Provides 24 Hr Support Including Live Chat, Phone Support, And Email Support.
• No Need To Worry About Hosting Or Maintenance.
• Brings Extra Features And Functionalities With App Store Having About 2000 Apps
• Built-In Blogging Engine

Shopify Cons

• Expensive Plans For Most Of The Reports
• Menu Creation Needs Some Learning And Is Little Different
• Customers Who Don’t Use Shopify Payments Are Charged A 0.5% – 2% Transaction Fee
• Even As Most Of The Apps Are Free, Several Charges As Much As $49 A Month

Opencart

Founded in 1998 as a Perl-based eCommerce tool, Opencart is known for its intuitive user interface and easy setup. Opencart now powers 342,000 online stores. It is free to download and use, however, extensions charge extra.

Opencart Pros

• Easy To Navigate Admin Interface
• Dashboard Gives a Clear Overview of the Store’s Significant Stats
• Easy To Download And Install
• More Than 14,000 Extensions Available

Opencart Cons

• Fails To Offer SEO Terms
• Difficult To Customize The Store
• Does Not Provide Caching And Need To Be Added Using An Extension

Joomla

Founded in 2005, Joomla is leading as one of the best CMS platforms, leveraged by millions of websites around the world. Joomla has thousands of free themes and plugins facilitating users to create an extensive variety of different e-commerce and other websites.

Joomla Pros

• Extremely Easy To Edit
• Number Of Support Tools Available
• Strong SEO Capabilities
• Great Content Management Capabilities
• Open-Source Platform

Joomla Cons

• Slightly Complicated
• Limited Marketplace For Extra Modules And Add-Ons
• Chances To Face Some Compatibility Issues
• Limited Access Control List Support

Conclusion

Above listed are the best E-commerce platforms we have picked from a number of platforms available in the marketplace.

If you own a large business and has enough resources to pay for expert developers then Magento e-commerce development is the right choice for you. If you have an existing WordPress website and need to focus on content marketing to boost up an online business, select WooCommerce. Shopify is good if you need an effortless way to get an online store up and running quickly. Moreover, the choice of e-commerce platform completely depends on your particular needs as per the business.

Need any of the eCommerce Solutions or eCommerce website development services ? Contact us to get built your amazing online store on the precise platform.