2021 was the year of the boom in online sales, and if you too have decided to open your first e-commerce , now is the time to choose together which is the best platform to start.
Today there are many alternatives, some more valid than others, and building an online shop has become much easier than a couple of years ago. However, inquiring and studying which are the best e-commerce platforms is always an excellent choice, to avoid making the wrong investments and finding yourself with a different product than what you imagined.
In this article we will see together the most popular e-commerce platforms , and what is the best choice to open your first e-commerce .
How to choose the right e-commerce platform
Today, opening an e-commerce and starting to sell online is easier than ever, but you have to be careful to choose the right platform based on individual needs.
There are many on the market and each has interesting features and different functionalities, ranging from loading speed to ease of use.
In this article we will explain some best e-commerce platforms on the market and what features they must have to allow you to have a successful online store.
First of all, you must know that each platform has different characteristics that can increase the sales of your e-commerce .
But let’s see what are the characteristics to be evaluated :
- e-commerce site loading speed;
- integrated marketing tools (free or paid);
- ease of use;
- support availability;
- presence of the user community;
- available plug-ins and integrations;
- scalability;
- possibility of integrating the site with marketplaces;
- mobile optimization.
There are many elements to be evaluated and each of them is essential to create a good e-commerce.
The best e-commerce platforms compared
We are going to analyze the best e-commerce platforms together, so by the end of this article you will know exactly which one you should choose to build your first online store.
As already mentioned, this is the best time to create an e-commerce: online sales have generated a turnover of 800 billion dollars in the last year and do not seem destined to stop.
And the even more interesting thing is that there is still a lot of room for everyone and therefore also for new e-commerce.
But let’s get straight to the point and see the best e-commerce platforms on the market compared.
Magento
Magento is one of the best platforms for creating websites and e-commerce because it offers many features and different customization options, in fact it is chosen by big brands such as Nike.
One of the reasons why Magento is so popular as a platform for building e-commerce is because it gives the possibility to access a series of unique features and solutions that allow you to build a customized e-commerce that fully meets the main needs. business.
A great strength of Magento is the community , made up of developers willing to work on your paid store or answer some of your questions for free. There is also a marketplace where you can install extensions and themes to increase the functionality of your store.
Magento is an e-commerce platform based on an open source technology that provides those who need to sell online a flexible checkout system, as well as control over themes and plugins, as well as lots of exclusive content and features.
Woocommerce
WooCommerce is a plugin for creating an e-commerce with WordPress. This platform is one of the most popular in the world, thanks to its ease of use.
Its structure is modular, that is, it has a huge availability of additional plugins . Among the most interesting features you have available there is certainly the possibility of managing products, payments and shipments in a single panel.
WooCommerce is a platform suitable for selling any product or service, from physical to digital products and is suitable for both small and very large shops.
This plugin also allows you to monitor the performance of your site in a very detailed way, thanks to the wide set of analyzes it offers.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the platforms that has grown the most in recent years, thanks to its simplicity and the many plugins made available to customize each store and create a personalized shopping experience.
It is probably not the best or the most popular platform, however more and more online stores are born on Shopify. There are several good reasons for this, such as being able to quickly get the shop you want.
Unlike other platforms that we will talk about later, Shopify was born as a platform for the sale of physical products , and thanks to third-party plugins and integrations it is very easy to connect your e-commerce to CRM and external platforms.
There are many integrations, templates and hundreds of plugins and apps that can be installed on your store to meet the main needs of each business, however the lack of customization and the difficulty of technical interventions make it difficult to work with brands and companies that sell tens or thousands of products.
Wix
Born as a system for the rapid creation of websites , today Wix also offers a platform for the creation of e-commerce. However , Wix features are very limited , and there are decidedly more valid alternatives that can guarantee better performance than those generated by a store built with Wix.
In fact, even though the e-commerce features offered by Wix have drastically evolved in a few years, and now offer multi-channel integration, abandoned cart recovery, dropship and print on demand functionality, we are not yet at the level of other platforms.
One of Wix’s downsides is SEO : there have been several significant problems in previous years, and while today most of them have been solved, there are still a few that still hurt a store’s performance. Furthermore, the basic options are limited, the initial storage is only 20GB and often it may not be enough.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is among the longest-running ecommerce platforms. Its features make it ideal for larger retail brands , however it can also be a good choice for those with a simple physical store and want to expand their user base by starting to sell online.
The interface allows the creation of an online store even for those unfamiliar with any programming language, thanks to the many customizable and ready-to-use templates. BigCommerce is ideal for anyone looking for advanced themes that can provide a great shopping experience for customers. However, there are only seven free themes, and all others are paid.
