Digital Marketing Agency – TIS India Blog

“If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business.” – Bill Gates.

These simple words of wisdom are quite enough to set the tone for your E-Commerce venture. As a matter of fact, being on the internet is not quite enough; the virtual world is pretty much like the real world, you could be anywhere and no one might ever find you.

So, the idea is to be where you can be seen and to make sure that people adore you when they see you. The internet of things is not an affair of the millennial crowd. Yes, your business might not cater to the Gen Y but that doesn’t mean that you should not have an eCommerce website.

Even if you are running successful offline retail units, the situation may soon implore that you move online because the consumers are becoming more comfortable shopping online day-by-day and you do not want to disappoint them.

There are plenty of E-commerce platforms that can help you launch your business on the web but as it is said earlier, it is not enough just to be on the web. Your choice should be in accordance with your requirements and should help you create the desired experience for your existing customer base and also to expand it. Here are some top E-commerce platforms that offer you a wide range of themes and the flexibility to build a great experience for your consumers.

Top 6 E-Commerce Platforms

1. Magento

Magento has come up as a popular e-commerce solution for big and small enterprises alike. You can download and install it to your server for free. Magento is pretty intense on features, so much so that you need to host it continuously. It is for this reason that Magento is chosen by various massive retailers including Musikshopen.com, Shoprite.com.au and Petsworld.in. If you can use it to effect, your products will roll.

• Perfect for novices with no technical knowledge and experts alike
• User-friendly admin area to set the basic store easily
• Highly scalable, and thus allows you to scale your store from 100 products to 1,00,000 on the go.
• Provides you with built in SEO support and newsletter management.
• Allows you to receive payment through multiple gateways.
• Optimize your site for mobile viewing.
• Handles customer service, coupons, gifts and more…
• It manages your inventory and handles shipping charges.

Being loaded with so many features, Magento has certain cons too. The backend development of Magento is pretty complex and takes real expertise to manage this particular platform. Fixing things may further demand professional technical assistance.

This user-friendly e-commerce site comes for free but you can, of course, buy the enterprise version for around $15,000 per year and Magento packed with all the support you may ever need comes at roughly $50,000 per year.

2. BigCommerce

BigCommerce empowers your business with plenty of great e-commerce store management features along with easy online payment facilities. All you need to do is sign up and set up your e-commerce store to your heart’s content with the countless customization features on offer.

• Taking care of orders, managing and adding products, tracking analytics – this all is fairly easy in BigCommerce.
• It secures your web store with top of the grid security features.
• Offers you an in-depth insight on analytics and statistics.
• BigCommerce is well equipped to deal with sudden spikes in your traffic.
• It integrates with PayPal and allows credit and debit card transaction and customer privacy is ensured as the checkout is done via SSL.

BigCommerce offers Standard, Plus, and Pro packages for $29.5, $79.5 and $199.5 per month respectively. While the Standard and Plus packages are fit for growing business, the Pro level subscription is great for big enterprises that deal with a lot of traffic and a large number of products. For the top features, you can go for the Enterprise package that is custom priced according to your requirements.

3. Shopify

Shopify is a one-stop e-commerce solution for beginners and veterans alike. The best part is the simplicity and cost-effectiveness it offers you. It is truly multipurpose and allows you to set up a store real time fast. You can start selling an unlimited number of products online through Shopify in a matter of a weekend. Let us take a deeper look –

• You get a working core platform straight away; you can obviously twist and tweak it to your liking, yet you get a well-structured shop effortlessly.
• The platform optimizes your store for viewing on mobile or tablet.
• Shopify integrates with Paypal; allows you to receive online and offline payment from multiple gateways. Bank transfer, cash on delivery, credit and debit card payments- you can allow your customers complete freedom if it suits you.
• Just change the color to match your company colors, edit the texts, put the pictures and prices; you are all set to fly.

Buying a platform on Shopify does not drain your resources. You can avail the basic facilities to start off with for $29, for intermediate and advanced features you need to spend $79 and $299 respectively. Most importantly, it is completely worth the expenses.

4. Volusion

Volusion is an ideal e-commerce solution to help your company with all the technical support needed to scale and grow. It has an easy to use interface that does not require loads of experience building e-commerce sites to get the most out of it. If you are just starting out, Volusion can be a worthy friend.

• Volusion is pretty easy to handle and works fine even for those who have no ecommerce experience.
• It has an amazing inventory management system.
• Volusion helps you build a complete website, integrating both e-commerce and non-commerce parts.
• You can choose from more than 300 responsive designs.
• You get 24/7 support, dedicated account managers and built-in marketing & SEO tools.
• You can manage your store on the go through iOS, Android and smartwatch apps.
• It accepts payment through debit and credit cards, PayPal and Amazon Payments.
• With advanced inventory management, secure hosting, security and easy order processing, Volusion is quite a superstar when it comes to e-commerce development services.

The only drawback is you cannot sell unlimited products through all the subscription packages. Only the premium pack worth $135/mo allows you to sell unlimited products.

Other packages are Mini worth $15/mo Plus $35/mo and Pro worth $75/mo.

5. 3dcart

3dcart gives you access to an advanced structured store that can handle thousands of products without any experience or site building skills. This feature-rich e-commerce platform has powered more than 23,000 stores around the globe and offers you its services without making you spend a fortune.

• Its unlimited storage allows you to handle massive catalog on the go.
• Hundreds of designs to choose from and all designs optimize for mobiles and tablets.
• It handles order management and processing.
• It is marketing and SEO friendly and also supports customer reviews.

You can avail the services through Mini, Starter, Professional, Professional plus and Power plan packages worth $19.99, $35.99, $65.99, $99.99 and $129.99 per month respectively.

6. Big Cartel

Big Cartel is a great platform for the creatives like musicians, artists, and designers to sell their goods directly to the fans. It is way easier to use than most e-commerce platforms and you can get it running in a very short amount of time. While being super simple and user-friendly, Big Cartel is not as high on features like other platforms, but if it is perfect for your niche, it indeed is a great tool.

• Big Cartel is perfect for those who are looking for a simple ecommerce store without much functionality. This works in favor of small ecommerce store owners, but might be frustrating if you are looking to base your store with 1 million products on it.
• It tracks your inventory and manages your orders.
• The feature-light approach of the platform is otherwise well-supported by in-built automation tools including time-sensitive discounts, pre-orders and other functions.
• It lets you sell in person and sell on Facebook.

You can avail Big Cartel for free forever, provided it limits you to 5 products and cancels some features. The paid packs are expectedly cheap. You can buy the Platinum, Diamond and Titanium platforms for $9.99, $19.99 and $29.99 respectively.

Time for the conclusion and some borrowed wisdom

The ‘E’ in e-commerce is for anything but Easy. So, you should be willing to handle your online business venture with patience, care and love. Understand what you need and create a vision of your desired destination and put the strong foot ahead. In short – choose your Ecommerce development services well and pour your heart into beautifying your store and perfecting your services.

Way to go entrepreneur!!!