Best Ecommerce Platforms to Start an Online Store in 2024
It can be hard to navigate the variety of different ecommerce solutions out there that can help you build your online store quickly and efficiently.
The best ecommerce platforms provide you with an easy way to create, maintain and grow your business online. Have security features and payment gateways built-in, with the addition of add-ons or integrations to help you easily expand and scale your online store.
Ecommerce website builders like Shopify provide you with a majority of the tools you need to succeed online. These include drag and drop editors (no coding needed), search engine tools, and content creation software to help boost the performance of your online website.
But which is the best ecommerce platform for your store?
Are you looking to create a boutique store with a small inventory? Or perhaps you’re looking to make a huge store with thousands of products, each with its own customizable features?
With up to 95% of sales expected to be done via ecommerce platforms by 2040, there’s no better time than now to start an online store.
Here you’ll find the best options you have to pick from when looking to create your first online store or move away from your current platform.
- 1. Shopify – large amount of integrations and apps, easy to scale
- 2. Zyro – limited by inventory, limited integrations
- 3. BigCommerce – unlimited user accounts, social media channels integrated
- 4. Adobe Commerce – formerly Magento – can choose hosting
1. Shopify for ecommerce – easy store setup and great for growth
When it comes time for you to create ecommerce websites, Shopify will no doubt be one platform that will show up time and time again in your research.
Why? Because the Shopify online store builder gives you everything you need to build your store the way you want.
Their drag and drop store builder lets you choose from over 70 professionally designed themes in a variety of different areas of business.
You’ll be able to change text, images, colors, add your branding, fonts, and more all at the click of a button, without learning how to build a website first.
Store themes are not only created for desktop users but also come in mobile-friendly formats that will let your customers browse your store wherever they are and whenever they want.
Shopify payments make getting paid easy with the ability to pick which common payment methods you allow people to buy from your store with or integrate with a third party.
With Visa, Apple Pay, Google Pay, American Express, and more accepted, you’ll be able to let your customer choose how they pay, and often in their local currencies, too, helping improve your sales conversions.
Whether you’re on your desktop or your mobile, Shopify makes it easy to track inventory, orders, cash flow, visitors, and the performance of your website with built-in analytics.
Apply discount codes, accept gift cards, create manual orders and add popular locally supported shipping methods to your store.
You can also expand on what Shopify offers using the Shopify App Store, where you’ll find over 6,000 apps you could integrate into your online shop. These apps cover areas from online marketing through to popular social media channels, to drop shipping apps, to landing page builders, email marketing software, SEO software and more.
Overall, Shopify is easy to use, will get your online store set up quickly, and let your scale your business as and when it’s needed.
When it comes to pricing, Shopify costs come in two forms, a monthly fee for letting you create and host your website and payment fees for credit or debit card payments. You’ll also find transaction fees if not using a Shopify payment gateway.
Best for: those looking to start a business that will grow to have lots of inventory and international sales.
2. Zyro ecommerce website builder
Zyro by Hostinger are already featured in our best website builders online article for being able to create a professional looking website with ease.
And they appear again on this list cause the Zyro ecommerce platform provides you with the tools you need to set up and run an online store without any technical skills required.
A drag & drop editor lets you style and create your web pages quickly and add, edit, and manage your product listings all through the ecommerce business platform, available on desktop or through the Zyro mobile app.
Zyro makes it easy to sell from the online shop you build and across social media channels like Facebook and Instagram, including popular marketplaces like Amazon.
You’ll be able to promote your products to your targeted audience to help drive more sales and integrate with Amazon. You can synchronize your store inventory and manage it all within your Zyro account.
Set on secure cloud hosting, Zyro offers 99.9% guaranteed uptime and free SSL certificates to help secure your site and provide secure transactions too for over 70 popular payment options like Visa, PayPal, and Mastercard. With no hidden transaction or application fees.
Depending on how many items you want to sell will determine which price plan you pick from:
- Online Store: up to 100 products
- Advanced Store: up to 2500 products
Zyro might not have as many integrations or access to as many payment methods as Shopify, but if you’re looking to set up a small store for relatively cheap monthly prices with no hidden extra costs, then it’s a good option.
Best for: small stores with limited inventory that need ease of use and common payment methods.
3. BigCommerce ecommerce solution
BigCommerce is a WooCommerce alternative that delivers an all-round ecommerce platform that integrates ease of use with powerful features, helping you build, run and sell your products across multiple channels and marketplaces.
An easy-to-use visual page builder lets you drag and drop components and edit text and colors without any coding. The no-code website builder provides you with a variety of customizable, mobile-responsive shop themes to pick from to get your new store up and running in no time.
Create SEO-friendly URLs and add metadata to your product listings and pages to help drive more organic traffic.
You’ll be able to make changes in a local development environment before pushing live to ensure all is working without any downtime, saving you time and potential sales.
When it comes to promoting your products and managing your product inventory, you’ll be able to create, change, add discounts, and provide the needed information to help convert a browser into a customer.
Your website’s infrastructure is built on the Google Cloud Platform will help make your store faster than many, reducing page load speeds, decreasing bounce rates, and increasing your performance metrics.
What makes BigCommerce ideal for those looking to promote across multiple sales channels is its cross-channel commerce.
You’ll be able to integrate your products into established marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping. On top of that, you can target your customers on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and more. These features provide you with an omnichannel sales presence with more opportunities to create more sales.
Automatically calculate sales tax, get competitive shipping prices, scale your product catalog, letting your customers request refunds and returns are just some of the extra features BigCommerce offers.
You can further expand your store with extra free and paid integrations, including accounting software, email marketing software, shipping software, CRM, analytics, payments, security, and more.
With 0% transaction fees, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, unlimited staff accounts, multi-currency for local payments, and real-time shipping quotes, Big Commerce ecommerce Essentials and Enterprise offers a valuable resource for anyone looking to build an online store.
Best for: small and growing online stores with the need to scale.
4. Adobe Commerce – formerly Magento
Whether you’re looking to create a B2B or B2C online store, the Adobe Commerce platform which has been rebranded from Magento provides you with the features and tools you need.
With an intuitive and easy-to-use site builder, you’ll be able to create pages by dragging and dropping elements you need into place. Saving you time, and there’s no need for coding skills, meaning anyone on your team can do it with limited training.
You can create tailored content for your different audiences by segmenting your customers and helping improve conversions. Add product recommendations into the mix along with an intelligent AI-driven live search feature that helps get the products your customers are looking for in front of them quicker.
Customize and manage your product catalog across multiple ecommerce channels delivering what you need to your customers when they want it—all of this from a single account.
A centralized database of your customers’ information helps your team manage orders and deal with customers efficiently, having the details you need about payments, order status, and more to hand.
Built-in business intelligence features help analyze how your business is performing, providing you with feedback on where you could do better in customer lifetime, customer retention rates, and more.
Couple this with analytics and reporting, and you’ll be able to get a complete overview of each aspect of your online business.
With PCI compliance built-in, Adobe Commerce is certified as a Level 1 Solution Provider, you won’t have to worry about taking customers’ payments online, and neither will your customers.
Built upon the Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud-based hosting environment, Adobe Commerce offers a reliable system with scalability of services for enhanced performance as your online store grows.
By utilizing CDN tools and page caching to help deliver your website to your customers faster, helping provide your customers with a better user experience, helping reduce cart abandonments, and improving sales.
Overall, Adobe Commerce can be a little more difficult to use than some of the other biggest ecommerce platforms. Still, it comes packed with features like the AI-driven search and recommendations that many small businesses can benefit from.
Best for: business looking for a scalable solution for a growing or bigger store.
Which is the best ecommerce platform for you?
There are no one-size-fits-all ecommerce solutions out there. What’s right for one online store might not be right for another.
Depending on your skills, team size, and growth will determine which of the top ecommerce platforms you want to build your store on is best.
When running a small business online, it’s best to figure out what it is you need right now and where you hope your business is going to be in the future.
Then you’ll be able to research and find a solution that fits your needs right now and one that can grow as your business does.
Doing this can save you time, money, and many headaches in the future from switching your current online store to a different online shopping platform later.
My best advice: read reviews, ask customer support questions, watch the product tours, take advantage of the product demos, and use the free trials.
A little bit of research now can save you a whole lot of frustration in the future.
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