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E-Commerce is currently undergoing a massive shift from traditional retail to e-retail. This means that if you’re not an e-retailer, you will soon be obsolete. And if your e-business isn’t up to snuff yet, it’s time for some serious changes and upgrades before the world leaves you behind. There are many different e-commerce applications out there for e-commerce sellers to use depending on what they are looking for.
Here are five e-commerce applications that actually work:
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- BigCommerce
- Ecwid
- Magento
In this post, we’ll examine five e-commerce applications for effectively scaling your company. I’ll outline key elements of each to assist you in making a selection.
Table of Contents
1. Shopify
Shopify is an e-commerce platform provider that is most popular among small businesses with less than 100 SKUs. The program has been running for about 15 years and has an incredible user base of over 1 million.
Pricing
Shopify’s free trial is a great way to get your feet wet with their easy-to-use platform. You can start the 14 day free trial without providing any credit card information, and if you find that it doesn’t quite suit your needs for whatever reason, there’s no obligation whatsoever—just cancel before the end of the period! Once signed up on Shopify’s basic plan ($29 per month), transactions are processed at 2.9% plus $0.30 per sale. Alternatively, upgrade directly into one of two other plans: Advanced Shopify ($299/month) charges just 2.4% with $0.30 per sale, and the regular Shopify plan ($79/month) at 2.6% plus $0.30 per sale.
Key Features
Within a few minutes, you can have your store’s initial construction ready to go. A subdomain and hosting space are provided for your eCommerce business, or you can connect a domain name you own. Additionally, you can select from over 70 professional themes when constructing your storefront.
The onboarding wizard guides you through adding items, changing the layout of your shop, and setting up payment processing. You can receive payments in the following ways:
- JCB
- Visa
- PayPal
- Gift cards
- Discover
- Mastercard
- American Express
- Diners Club debit and credit cards
And maybe the most crucial characteristic of Shopify is its customization. If the feature you’re searching for isn’t built into Shopify, you can find it in the Shopify app store as an extension, plug-in, or service.
2. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a highly configurable, open-source e-commerce software on the WordPress platform. It is free to download, but you should note that this is a standalone software that requires you to have a hosting platform.
WooCommerce does not collect transaction fees or impose restrictions on bandwidth or storage, and best of all, you can use WooCommerce without having to learn to code. From the WordPress dashboard, users can manage orders, generate discounts, set up email marketing, and monitor sales figures with ease.
Best of all, WordPress experts are not required to learn a new platform. Adding new products is as straightforward as writing a standard WordPress post since WooCommerce uses the same interface.
Payments
WooCommerce enables the sale of real, virtual, and even downloadable items. It supports practically all types of payments, including:
- COD
- PayPal
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Amazon Pay
- Credit cards
- Bank transfers
Templates
Dozens of custom templates and designs are available, and Theme Forest offers over 1200 other WooCommerce themes if the provided ones aren’t to your liking.
If WooCommerce does not have all of the capabilities you want, an extension marketplace is available. And you can mix these extensions with any WordPress plug-in to further personalize your shop.
3. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a market-leading e-commerce platform that enables extraordinary scalability for online merchants.
Monthly fees for the Standard plan are $29.95, the Plus plan is $79.95, and the Pro plan is $299.95. When you exceed certain sales milestones on this platform, you will automatically advance to the next tier.
The advanced plans are capable of sustaining companies like Skullcandy and others, and there are several payment options available, including the following:
- Stripe
- Affirm
- PayPal
- Square
- Afterpay
- USAePay
- Amazon Pay
- Chase Integrated Payments
- Chase Merchant Services
Key Features
There are often no transaction costs or commissions associated with any plan, making it an excellent choice for new entrepreneurs. Only when using a PayPal credit card as a payment option will you be charged a fee of around 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.
Numerous elements that contribute to the success of an e-commerce online store are available. For example, the Abandoned Cart Saver enables you to contact consumers who abandoned the purchase process and encourage them to continue on to purchasing products and services, which is a great way to boost sales.
BigCommerce’s customer grouping feature is also helpful. You can section your audience to provide more tailored purchasing experiences that will improve your site’s chances of success by attracting the most fitting customers.
And if you’re currently selling on marketplaces or social media, BigCommerce integrates seamlessly across multiple channels. Furthermore, Website Builder Expert reports that the platform is well-known for its active SEO assistance for organic website growth.
4. Ecwid
Ecwid is the greatest place to start if you’re creating an online business but want to keep your first investment low.
The free plan allows you to sell up to ten physical goods, though a monthly fee of $15 is required to upgrade to the Standard plan. The monthly payment for the Essentials plan is $35, and the unlimited plan costs $99.
This is not a platform but a widget for users who want to integrate a shop into an existing website.
Key Features
Ecwid provides you the option of integrating your shop with an existing website when you join up. It is compatible with most platforms, including WordPress, Weebly, and Drupal.
You may make an Ecwid Instant Site with a custom domain, but having your own allows you to personalize and professionalize your online company. Additionally, buying a domain improves your website’s ranking in search engine results.
At the Dashboard, you’re given a to-do list that guides you through the process of setting up your site and selecting how you’d want to distribute products and get paid for them. Several payment options are available, including the following:
- Stripe
- Square
- PayPal
- PayOnline
- Bitray
- Afterpay
- American Express
Ecwid does not impose extra fees for transactions. And payment provider availability is location-dependent.
Wide Availability
It interacts with popular social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, enabling you to sell straight to your followers.
There is also an option for you to sell your things online via Amazon or eBay. Alternatively, you can accept payments in person. The program calculates tax, gives discounts, and keeps track of your inventory automatically.
Additionally, there is a convenient feature that allows you to get SMS notifications when someone puts in an order.
5. Magento
Magento can host up to 500,000 goods on a single site and process over 80,000 orders each hour.
There is a 30-day free trial available when you sign up for one of their plans.
Monthly pricing for the Magento Commerce Starter package starts at $1,999. It includes search engine optimization, DDoS protection, free website monitoring tools, live monitoring, and email assistance 24/7.
The $3,399 per month subscription includes 75 business intelligence reports, five business intelligence dashboards, and three backup servers for IaaS data.
Full-featured tiers also include a web hosting service, among other capabilities.
Magento is a convenient service that you can use practically anywhere in the globe since it takes payments in the following methods and more:
- PayPal
- Authorize.Net
- Amazon Pay
- 2CheckOut
- Cybersource
- Braintree
- Skrill
- WorldPay
- Quickpay
- Payza
Key Features
Most importantly, a professional technical account manager will assist you in supervising your site’s initial setup and launch.
Apart from point-of-sale integration and a guide for creating websites, related goods are automatically grouped depending on predefined business criteria. As a result, you’ll never have to alter suggested products manually which can save you a lot of time.
Thumbnails can be enhanced with a comprehensive Lightbox function to promote new deals or goods.
A nice feature that it shares with Ecwid is the ability to restrict certain items to registered customers.
Additionally, you may partition the website depending on the people that are logged in. As a result, you may show VIP clients the most popular goods.
Moreover, you have the option of customizing your website depending on the behavior of your customers. The software will analyze user activity and then display the things they are most likely to purchase, all with minimal work on your side.
Final Thoughts
E-commerce platforms are plentiful and e-commerce sellers have to decide which is best for them based on what they’re looking for. Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Ecwid and more e-commerce solutions offer a variety of features that may be attractive in different ways.
The e-commerce solutions discussed in this article are just a few examples of e-commerce platforms that e-commerce sellers can use to launch their stores and sell their products. If you’re interested in how to get started selling online, take some time to read E-Commerce Evolved (Amazon) and our guide on the 4 types of e-commerce business models.
