Best Ecommerce Platform for Startups for 2020

For the longest time, the eCommerce industry has been a significant part of all popular trends. This is primarily why more and more new businesses are going online. You may be asking yourself what the best eCommerce platform for startups is, and the following article will quench your query.

As there have been forecasts about a $4.5 trillion increase in e-commerce sales by 2021, all kinds of startups are trying to get a hold of the top e-commerce platforms. So, how can you make this happen?

The Ecommerce Industry: An Introduction

It is well established that all companies come with their differences and needs. Therefore, your startup needs to accurately identify the main requirements before deciding on a platform that works. This entails a full analysis of the market you are in and assessing your processes head-on. But before we can even get into the logistics of it, we need to have a proper understanding of what these systems actually are.

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What is an eCommerce Platform?

An e-commerce platform is an example of a retail management system on the internet. It is similar to the way companies use content management systems (CMS) to keep all their orders in check. For businesses that want to manage their websites online, ecommerce software is preferred and used. All in one suites are generally implemented so that a company has all of its digital storage in one place for maximum convenience. This data will include everything from stock reports to order processing and specific refunding for a proper management site and location.

Are all Ecommerce Sites Equal?

Even though the idea of an e-commerce platform gives you a great package of ease and convenience, this is not the case at all. You have to remember that not all e-commerce platforms are built equally to provide you with a one-size-fits-all solution. If you want to avail an online software that manages all the aspects of your storage, you will have to do some extensive digging and research. It is highly unlikely that one digital platform will give you everything you need. The best e-commerce platforms are only worth the trouble if the functionality is assessed, and it delivers on its promise.

What is the Importance of Ecommerce Platforms?

When you look at it from a business perspective, you will be able to note that ecommerce platforms are quite significant. This is not only true for more prominent corporations, but also for startups. In fact, when you consider the best eCommerce platform for small businesses, they will have more than a general reference to meet specific needs. When it comes to your company, you will no doubt, focus on different marketing strategies and customer experiences to ensure that all processes run smoothly. But there is also the case of dealing with pricings, user reviews, value, and setbacks. What ecommerce does for traditional retail is to provide organization and direction to multiple problems.

Ecommerce Platforms and their Analysis

Before we actually get into the best and topmost ecommerce platforms, we will correlate them with your dedication to the business and other considerations to provide the opportunity for long term success. From the evolution of most platforms to their comparisons and their basic features, everything needs to be evaluated so that the customer is engaged and satisfied. But this is easier said than done as the criteria for choosing the right kind of ecommerce platform is high. Therefore, when we are selecting the best ecommerce platform for startups, there are some factors the need to be met.

The Set Criteria for Choosing the Right Platform

Only the top and best performing platforms should be mentioned and considered, which means that the selection process is quite specific. The following are some primary concerns that need to be addressed:

1. The platform needs to be easy to use for new and old customers and visitors without a high price on it
2. There needs to be support for all kinds of drop-shipping plugins
3. Management has to be made simple and efficient so that customers have a seamless experience with your business
4. The customer support needs to be available 24/7 without any issues

Ecommerce Investments

When you are in the initial stages of business growth and development, investing in anything seems risky and brash. To ensure that your decision is well thought out and will not result in any losses, you will have to determine whether this kind of ecommerce investment will be the right step for your startup.

There are many ways you can conduct your business online, even with a budget. Whether you are trying to access a functional site where your products can be sold, or want to cater to merchants and drop shipping, you will have a range of methods to choose from. Deciding first and foremost, what your business goals are is necessary before you finally select a model that suits you. Even though different business models come with their own pros and cons, the initial market research will be crucial in allowing you to make the right choice.

After you have actually created a proper business plan and want to look at sites where you will be able to run your product line, the tricky bit starts. The eventual decision will reflect the kind of business you are and how memorable you have been to a particular audience. Therefore, when you are in the middle of these procedures, you will have to ensure scrutiny when it comes to shopper experience. After all, the best ecommerce platforms are always those that know their customers.

How Can You Do Niche Research?

As you do a critical overview of what the customer likes and dislikes in an ecommerce platform, you will be entering the realm of niche research and its vitality. It is not a perfect way to figure out where to make the right investment, but it definitely solved major challenges that you face on a day to day basis as a new business. Where shopping behavior is fickle and cannot be trusted, you can take into account probabilities and prior data to make sure you stay on top of things.

Doing research will allow you to save yourself from some basic mistakes that most entrepreneurs get into. This includes having an overdone platform filled with products and categories to the point where they are too much for the customer to handle. Ultimately, the choice that most small business owners have is niche-ing (yes that is the word for it) down to run a profitable company.

The Selection of Ecommerce Niches for Businesses

The major part of your role as a business owner is choosing the right niche for your company. Not only will this determine the overall success of your business in the long run, but it will also help you identify the prosperous areas where you thrive as a startup or new brand. Here are a few pointers which will help you get a good start on the process:

• Ensuring that the area of business you are working in is competitive and has other competitors, which is an identifying factor of a growing market.
• Staying away from overly crowded or saturated niches, especially when it comes to ecommerce platforms, in order to avoid a lack of revenue coming in each year.
• Skip the areas that bigger brands have dominated and instead drill down your choices to only the most specific decision.

Running Your Ecommerce Platform: How it Works

Before we get into an analysis of the best ecommerce platform for startups, you will have to know how to work with any sort of online portal where you are selling your products to a broad audience. After you have a clear idea of how the initial procedures help your startup thrive and prosper, you can move on to selecting your preferred platform.

Running Advanced Analytics

Analytics used to refer to tracking how a site’s daily visits are going and how long they last. But today, with the advent of new technology and means of online shopping, this is a different process. For the purpose of staying true to ecommerce, advanced analytics are responsible for tracking each customer and their individual shopping journey. The traffic sources and other data that is collected each time a customer clicks on a mouse is compiled and assessed. This is how startups and small business owners can get better insights regarding their main customer base and how site performances go.

Customer Support 2.0

Poor customer service is what usually disservices a business. Even if you become a part of major digital channels, that does not mean that you have to take away the needed human element of your business. Thus, when you make your decision regarding a system, you have to be sure of the fact that it will cater to your customers. To connect with the consumer base directly, the support you provide will often come as chat widgets, email lists and, messaging systems, all of which need to have live agents at all times. Although chatbots are pretty useful for resolving smaller issues, they cannot compete with the personalization of real interactions.

Inexpensive Solutions

Ecommerce platforms are generally known for giving economical solutions to all kinds of businesses for both big and small problems. As such, they are not that costly, which bodes well for startups and their limited budgets. Running your online shop through a reliable platform will give you a means of convenience while still providing technical answers.

An Overview of the Best Ecommerce Platforms for Startups

Shopify

This platform is a household name in the ecommerce industry. The best aspects of its use are that it is straightforward in the functions it provides and will give startups exactly what they need to cater to their new business. Ease of use is the main factor that drives the site and its capabilities and, thus it is an ideal solution for all online entrepreneurs. With its robust nature and hosting, the site will take into account mobile-friendliness and loading speed to meet the needs of your customers.

Pros

• Quick load times
• Simple and easy to set up
• Certified partners for maximum assistance
• Multiple channels work together to improve social selling
• Varying designs and themes for personalization

Cons

• Poor SEO according to recent studies
• Checkout process fails to be customized for customer preference
• Different apps can bulk up overall costs
• Developers are needed to set up advanced features

BigCommerce

When we make an ecommerce platform comparison, BigCommerce is one of the top choices for your new company. It is a private website which is providing ecommerce solutions as a SaaS platform. This means that BigCommerce sells different kinds of software in the form of service and has been doing so successfully since 2009. They have been powering thousands of sites and will give personalized solutions to all customers upon request.

Pros

• A solution that meets all kinds of industry needs
• Lack of transaction fees
• Adjusted to support different languages and currencies

Cons

• Themes are quite expensive, especially if you are searching for something specific
• Existence of an annual sales threshold
• High pricing when compared to other sites

WooCommerce

This is a WordPress plugin that is free for all businesses. It gives ecommerce sellers the chance to turn their regular sites into high functioning stores. If you are a newer and smaller brand, you will be able to take advantage of this open-source platform and its development resources on hand. Considered to be one of the best ecommerce platforms for developers, WooCommerce is completely free if you do not include the additional cost for the shopping cart integration.

Pros

• Easy to drag and drop items on the store setup
• Fully customizable to meet your needs
• A big collection of themes and plugins for customization
• Secure and reliable transactions
• SEO friendly content management as well as WordPress support

Cons

• You need to pay for extensions

Squarespace

This is a website building site that essentially provides easy hosting for businesses. Not only does it come with themes and tools dedicated to your purpose and niche, but it has also been around for the longest time. Since 2003, Squarespace has been an established mode for online businesses to sell their best products. Even if you have limited knowledge as a startup owner, you will be able to build up a simple store with a few clicks with great themes and images to boot.

Pros

• Simple to use even with restricted technical knowledge
• Fantastic designs that make you think outside the box
• Built-in SEO capabilities that work well for you
• Easy integration with shipping plugins, like ShipBob

Cons

• The only transaction support offered is for Paypal or Stripe
• Least competitive pricing

Wix

Wix stores are affordable and straightforward in their function and also look fantastic for maximum user appeal. Even though Wix started off as a website builder that aided you through drag and drop, today, it is being used to create online stores for startups and small businesses. For those who have no technical knowledge, this is the best way to start.

Pros

• Best user interface when compared to other ecommerce platforms
• Quick to set up and simple to use
• No coding needed
• User-friendly editors available
• More than 500 templates are featured for specific needs
• Fully hosted service

Cons

• Not purely created for ecommerce
• Basic capabilities at best
• Cannot change your site template once it is published

Volusion

Even though Volusion came into being in 1999, it did become a household name in the ecommerce arena. Therefore, to this day, the platform host more than forty thousand online stores and caters to all kinds of markets. It works exceptionally well for startup businesses, given the comprehensive built-in features it supports. Its functionalities allow it to be one of the best options for less technical business owners overall.

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Pros

• Customizable templates in accordance with the editor you are using
• Lack of transaction fees on sales
• Hassle-free and secure sync of your stores with Facebook and Amazon as well as sites similar to those
• Detailed guides and tutorials for appropriate set up and full-fledged live support

Cons

• There is a limitation on the free themes you can avail
• Overpricing of premium themes and specifications
• Some editors are not competent at personalization of store themes in general

Magento

Since its conception in 2008, Magneto has been a go-to site for ecommerce services. It is an open-source site which is known for its dependability and versatility in regards to function. The reason Magento tends to stand out is that it deals with all mainstream processes effectively and efficiently.

Pros

• No limit to customization themes and alternatives
• Open source and easy to use
• Simple convenience and management
• Thousands of plugins and extensions so that all businesses are able to adapt
• Social media additions available for free
• Sophisticated store set up and specialized

Cons

• Cannot be managed by everyone, especially those without proper knowledge of development or engineering
• Besides the free base version, the enterprise version is very costly

Weebly

Weebly came to the online world in 2006, and since then, it has gathered more than forty million customers from all over the world. Not only is this an excellent platform for experts to delve into business and sales online, but it also does wonders for most startups and beginners. The drag and drop features will let you assemble a store in no time, and the templates offered will allow you full customization without any issues. Besides, the pricing and interesting features make it very simple to use on the daily.

Pros

• Great looking designs and themes
• Competitive pricing options
• Simple interfaces for the best user experience
• Great marketing tools for the promotion of your company

Cons

• Not very SEO friendly
• Limited features for blogging purposes
• Not suitable for content-driven websites and systems

OpenCart

This is a free ecommerce platform that anyone can set up to begin their online store. You will have to be slightly tech-savvy to properly set up your store, but, the free plugins and themes will make your job easier. Besides this, you can easily use dropshipping options to have a fully functional and welcoming platform.

Pros

• User-friendly with full features for analytics, payments, and orders
• Simple point and click interface
• Ticket and email support for all customers
• Free to use
• Forum set up for dealing with issues
• Easier to manage your store

Cons

• Creation of canonization issues for SEO
• Challenging to import inventory lists
• Too lightweight as a system for some users

Prestashop

This is another open-source platform that became popular in the early 2000s. Considered to be part of the best ecommerce platform for startups, Prestashop is cloud-hosted and will give users great value overall. The software can be downloaded to customize it according to your needs, and you can even go for a free version. This works well for anyone who does not have a lot of technical skills and will give you the full online store experience you need.

Pros

• Free downloads available for full use
• Open code access
• Full integration with warehouses and gateways
• Them customizer for specifications
• Access to sixteen trials for the premium version

Cons

• You will have to hire a developer to understand the technical side properly
• Payments for web hosting and SSL certification
• Need additional knowledge of HTML and other languages
• Limited scalability

It can be noted from the facts and details given above that the ecommerce industry is booming in the global marketplace. As such, these platforms and their usage proves quite fruitful to startups and their operations when they are trying to generate profits. No matter what the product or service is, these ecommerce sites will allow your brand to establish itself as a secure and dependable company and thus lead to its growth in the coming year.