Online shopping has become the new trend. As we go through this pandemic, more and more people like to buy products over the internet. Around 80% of the people in the US like to shop online. More than 50% of them prefer to buy things on the internet rather than in person. As we approach the end of 2021, online shopping seems to be growing into a trillion dollar industry.
This is actually good news for merchants. If they use the right tools, they can boost up their sales without having to open too many retail outlets. By using a decent ecommerce website builder, you can create a full fledged ecommerce store to list your products, accept payments, and take care of the shipping policies.
We went through a list of over 50 website builders to select the best eCommerce platforms in our research. These platforms offer solutions to every type of business. Whether you are an individual seller or a multinational corporation, you can choose from the top eCommerce platforms to build your site.
There are many ways to sell products online these days. You can either use one of the top eCommerce websites to showcase your products there or build an eCommerce website of your own. Either way, you can create a product page to upload your product photos and write your product descriptions.
If you are one of those who wants to explore the world of selling online, you have come to the right place. In this post, we will discuss the best eCommerce platforms that fit the needs of small and medium enterprises for selling products online.
Characteristics of a Great Ecommerce Business Website
Before we move to our list of the best eCommerce platforms, we need to know what makes an excellent eCommerce business website. For small businesses and merchants looking to make some sales online, we figured out the following features that their ecommerce business website should have.
1. Responsiveness
The eCommerce business website should be responsive. This means customers can browse it properly and neatly from all devices. The text should not overlap, and the images should load clearly, whether the user opens the site from a desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone.
A mobile-friendly web design is the best type of website design. If a site can be opened neatly from mobile phones, it can indeed be browsed conveniently from a desktop computer as well.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
2. Variety of Product Uploads
The numerous eCommerce platforms available in the market allow you to upload physical and non-physical products on your page. If you build an eCommerce website of your own, it should also give you the option to upload all types of products. For example, some companies or individuals like to sell digital products. Others sell physical goods. Some organizations even collect payments for their services through their eCommerce website.
A good eCommerce business website allows you to sell all types of products.
3. Full-Service
Ecommerce Platforms should give full service to the users. For example, if you sell through one of the top ecommerce websites, you can upload your product pictures, set up your prices, write product descriptions, provide a smooth checkout, accept payments, provide shipping options, track inventory, and deal with the admin of the store.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
If you cannot do any of the above, it would mean the platform you are using is not one of the best eCommerce platforms. Good eCommerce platforms provide you with the features to carry out these tasks.
4. Reasonable Pricing
You will be glad to know that the top eCommerce platforms are the most expensive ones. Good ecommerce platforms are those that offer reasonable price packages. Most of them have a trial version or a free plan, which you can use to get familiar with the tools and features.
The 4 Best Ecommerce Platforms
Here is our list of the 4 top eCommerce platforms.
1. Shopify
Shopify has been in the market for over 15 years now. It is among the giant eCommerce platforms and has more than two million online stores built on it. It is often considered the best option for small businesses and freelance merchants who want to quickly set up an online store to sell their products.
To use Shopify to sell products, you need to sign up for a 14 days trial without keying in your credit card details. You will see a wizard that will walk you through adding your products and customizing the appearance of your store. It will also show you how to connect to your domain and set up the payment mechanisms.
Even if you have never built a website before, you are not likely to get lost on Shopify. The process of using such giant eCommerce platforms is quite simple, as these are built keeping a layman’s experience in mind.
Once you fill in your product details, such as the product shots, price, description, shipping options, sizes and colors available, and quantity, you can change the status on that product to ‘Active’ to make it available on your online store selling.
2. Square
If you are looking for eCommerce platforms that give you the experience of being at a farmer’s market, Square is the best option for you. At Square, you can organize all your online and offline orders under the same dashboard. You don’t have to jump between two different apps to handle the two types of orders.
Square provides you with a neat and organized dashboard to track your customers and orders conveniently. You don’t have to run through random and complicated spreadsheets or enter things manually.
Square bought Weebly in 2018, another website among the growing eCommerce platforms. It now offers some of the best onboarding experiences around. You will be given a quick questionnaire to fill out when you register. This is to determine your business needs so that the platform can choose the web design and features to show you accordingly.
The thorough features of Square allow you to create a single booking page, a complete online store, simple checkout links, or comprehensive product pages. In other words, you can create your online store on Square with any level of complexity that you like. The theme can also be altered to match with the business or product category you choose.
Good eCommerce platforms offer several storefront customization options. Although these options are limited in Square, it does give you the option to make your own web design using its builder interface. You can also hire a web designer to build an online store for you on Square.
3. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is among those eCommerce platforms used by multinational companies like Ben & Jerry’s. The BigCommerce Essentials package is designed for smaller businesses with more affordable prices.
If you are looking to start your eSommerce business website, or even if you are already selling some products online, BigCommerce Essentials is a good option to consider. On this platform, you are prompted to set up automated shipping and sales taxes. This does not mean you will have to start paying hefty amounts of taxes on selling only 10 T-shirts a month. The platform’s features are just built in a way that gives you an easy path to growing your ecommerce business.
Your BigCommerce store can be integrated with multiple online payment systems, such as Paypal, Stripe, Amazon, and Braintree. You can also configure it to receive payments directly into your bank account.
The process to list your products on a BigCommerce store is super simple. Your customers will not be buying directly from your store. These eCommerce platforms automatically import the products you set up to sell them through different integrated channels.
4. Strikingly
Image taken from Strikingly
Strikingly is one of the fastest-growing eCommerce platforms, developed with the ease of use of small business owners in mind. It offers several eCommerce website templates that you can choose from. Once you select a template, you will get access to your Strikingly editor, where you can start adding your content.
Image taken from Strikingly
Strikingly gives you the tools to create attractive product pages. It allows you to select from the most popular payment gateways, such as Paypal, Square, and Stripe. It has an order management system, which will make it easier for you to track the details and status of each of your orders.
Image taken from Strikingly
If you build an eCommerce website on Strikingly, the outcome will be a fully professional site that will be both pleasing to the eyes and user-friendly in terms of browsing.
We regularly come up with new updates to make your experience of using Strikingly better. Our goal is to be among the most user-friendly eCommerce platforms and compete with the other giants that we discussed in this post.
