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The e-commerce world is vast. Current estimates place the e-commerce market cap at $5.55 trillion in 2022. That’s trillion with a t. Additionally, experts believe e-commerce sales will account for 24.5% of total retail sales by 2025. This figure means that a quarter of all sales will occur online.
Now, more than ever is the best time to jump into the e-commerce world. However, finding the best way to enter the e-commerce market may cause some uncertainty. With so many options, sites, platforms, apps, etc., finding a good place to start may become quite confusing.
In this article, we’re going to discuss the ten best e-commerce platforms in 2023. We’ll be going through an e-commerce platform comparison to help you choose the best e-commerce platform for your needs and goals.
An e-commerce platform allows merchants to sell goods online. In the past, e-commerce companies (or companies wishing to start selling online) needed to build their own digital platforms. This situation proved quite difficult and prohibitively expensive. Moreover, the amount of coding, development, and testing needed made it quite difficult for small businesses and entrepreneurs to enter the e-commerce market.
Shopping sites such as Amazon and eBay allowed third-party sellers to offer their goods online. However, both Amazon and eBay get a cut of the proceeds from every sale. For most sellers, building their own e-commerce sites became a necessity.
This entire situation changed with the rise of e-commerce platforms. E-commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento have enabled virtually anyone to set up an online store. Gone are the days when startups needed to build an online shop from scratch.
Small businesses and entrepreneurs can now leverage these platforms to build a fully functional e-commerce site. Plus, building an e-commerce site on a shoestring budget is now possible.
So, the question is, “which is the best e-commerce platform?”. That’s where our e-commerce platform comparison comes into the picture.
Not all e-commerce platforms are created equally. Some offer better features and capabilities than others. Ultimately, it boils down to which options and functionalities work best with your needs and goals.
Let’s take a look at the features to look for when searching for the best e-commerce platforms, and what we based this e-commerce platform comparison guide on:
Unified capabilities. The best e-commerce platforms for beginners offer a unified solution. In other words, novice users will find everything they need in a single platform solution. There is no need for additional coding or development. The platform is ready to go straight from the box.
Deliver a good customer experience. A good customer experience is crucial in the best e-commerce platforms. Thus, it’s important to be free of as many glitches as possible. Payment processing and loading times are all critical to a great customer experience.
Robust customer interaction. Along with customer experience, interactions are key to a successful e-commerce site. The best e-commerce platforms deliver great customer interaction tools. These tools allow you to use targeted marketing, provide customer service, and boost features such as upselling and cross-selling.
Effective order management. A great e-commerce platform will make order management easy, especially when you utilize multiple channels. Ideally, you want to get an e-commerce platform that enables you to centralize multiple channels in a single order management system.
Boost growth and scalability. The best e-commerce platforms grow with you. They allow for seamless growth and scale. Additional features such as currency conversions, multi-language support, and international shipping options are great tools to expand your business.
Site security. This feature goes without saying. Site security is critical, especially when processing payment information. The best e-commerce platforms take site security seriously. So, be sure to look for features such as “PCI compliance” and “e-commerce SSL certificates.”
Easy to use. A no-brainer, right? The best e-commerce platforms for beginners don’t require extensive coding or web development experience. They are so easy to use that anyone with moderate computer skills can build a fully functional e-commerce site.
Dedicated support. The best e-commerce platforms strive to offer dedicated support. They provide 24/7 support across various channels. In doing so, you can be certain that someone will help you when you need it most.
These features will help you separate the wheat from the chaff. Based on these points, we have built an e-commerce platform comparison for 2023.
Here’s our e-commerce platform comparison guide for 2023. We have provided each platform’s pros and cons to help you decide the right option for your needs.
Shopify tops the list as the best e-commerce platform. There are nearly four million merchants running on the Shopify platform. Shopify gets our vote for the best e-commerce platform for beginners due to its all-in-one approach. Moreover, it takes hours to get a fully functioning e-commerce site running on Shopify.
Shopify’s various pricing plans range from $9 a month to roughly $200. Plus, Shopify offers thousands of themes (templates) and apps (features) that you can use to run your shop. Most are paid, but the free themes and apps are a great alternative.
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BigCommerce is a big player in the e-commerce platform world. It’s an open-source platform meaning that it’s highly customizable beyond the obvious front-end feature like Shopify does.
BigCommerce offers a balanced approach, allowing businesses to adapt the platform to their needs. This feature is especially important for growing and scaling businesses. Its best feature is the ability to handle large catalog shops. This feature is ideal for large enterprises that need flexibility and customization options from the best e-commerce platforms.
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Magento ranks highly in our e-commerce platform comparison thanks to its high-end solutions for large enterprises. This platform is known to be quite complex to use. So, it’s not the most beginner-friendly.
However, its overall upside places Magento near the top of our e-commerce platform comparison. You can easily get started free with Magento. If you have the tech know-how, scaling your business with Magento is a great path to take. Suppose you find it difficult and don’t have your technical team. In that case, Magento experts with many years of experience will always be ready to help you to audit your Magento website and many other services so that you will have more time to focus on other essential things.
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WooCommerce is not an e-commerce platform in the traditional sense. It is a plug-in for WordPress that allows you to transform any WordPress site into an e-commerce site. As such, WooCommerce is one of the best e-commerce platforms for small businesses, especially if they already have a WordPress-based website.
WooCommerce is a great alternative for small businesses that want to get into e-commerce but cannot afford to build a new site or would rather not start from scratch on another e-commerce platform such as Shopify. Please note that WooCommerce does require coding experience.
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Wix is a great alternative to Shopify for those looking to start from scratch. Wix allows you to get started easily without the need for coding or web development. It comes with 72 themes you can use straight out of the box.
Plus, the themes are fully customizable, thus allowing you to build your brand any way you want. Ultimately, Wix is one of the best e-commerce platforms for beginners since it’s easy to use and affordable.
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Elementor is one of the best e-commerce platforms for beginners. We have included Elementor in this e-commerce platform comparison as it’s a great alternative to WooCommerce.
Like WooCommerce, it’s a WordPress plug-in that allows you to turn any WordPress site into an e-commerce one. However, the big difference is that Elementor does not require any coding. This difference makes it a beginner-friendly alternative.
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Salesforce is best known for its CRM and sales software solutions. As part of its enterprise software, Salesforce offers its Commerce Cloud as one of the best e-commerce platforms for large enterprises.
Please bear in mind Salesforce Commerce Cloud is not suitable for newcomers or small brands. It’s better suited for brands that already work with Salesforce’s solutions.
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Squarespace makes the list as one of the best e-commerce platforms for clothing, as it’s built for small and large businesses alike. Squarespace offers great designs perfectly suited for fashion brands. Also, it’s an all-in-one e-commerce platform that doesn’t require any coding experience.
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Volusion ranks high on our e-commerce platform comparison due to its track record. Volusion has been in the market for two decades providing fully functional e-commerce site solutions.
This e-commerce platform is great for beginners and veterans alike. Create great-looking sites using its templates while adding all of the basic functionalities of any professional e-commerce site.
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Prestashop makes the cut on this e-commerce platform comparison due to its ease of use and affordability. This e-commerce platform is easily accessible and downloadable. As such, it doesn’t come with any subscriptions or packages.
All you need to take care of are your domain, hosting, and SSL certificate costs. Since it’s an open-source platform, you’re free to tinker around with it.
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Once you’ve chosen the best e-commerce platform to suit your needs, it’s time to think strategically about how to grow your business. One of the most cost-effective tactics to employ is focusing on generating as much revenue as possible from every visitor to your e-commerce store.
With PickyStory, this is made easier. PickyStory lets you set up product deals, promotions, and bundles that can be displayed across your store. Sold as single products, or add-ons to existing products, these upselling and cross-selling tactics make it easier for your customers to find relevant products, add more items to their cart, and spend more each time they visit your store.
Add PickyStory to your store to grow your sales, and your business.
PickyStory helps e-commerce merchants to collect hidden revenue by selling products together. PickyStory offers a variety of deals like Bundle Products, Combo Products, Bundle Builder, Kits, Looks, and Coupons.
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