Which platform to choose for an E-commerce: the comparisons
The e-commerce platform is the ideal solution if you intend to start your business, open an online store or create an e-commerce site.
It is not simply a site where you can sell products and get online payments but it is a real management center from which you can control the entire commercial and business activity: from inventory to marketing.
If you still have no idea which platform to choose and which could be ideal for your business, in this article we find out what it is, what the advantages are and which platforms you can choose from.
E-commerce platform: what is it?
The e-commerce platform is a software application that allows a company to manage its business, product sales, commercial and marketing operations and much more.
It also offers all the tools to create, manage the site, products and daily activities.
Some e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify, are a sort of control center that allow you to:
- Buy a domain name
- Create a mobile e-commerce site
- Customize your site with different themes
- Add apps
- Sell physical, digital and services
- Sell through social channels like Facebook or Instagram
- Promote offers, discounts and promotions
- Use different payment methods
- Manage orders and returns
- Translate your site into multiple languages
- Manage large volumes of sales and traffic to your site
- Automate taxes and ensure online security
There are several reasons, like those listed above, to use an e-commerce platform, but the most important ones are:
- The ease of being used by everyone, even those who do not have particular IT skills.
- The affordability because some of them offer basic services for free or at least at negligible costs.
- The simplicity of being able to delegate the management of some parts of the site, for example security and updates.
What are the advantages
The advantages of creating and managing an e-commerce platform are:
Global store
Unlike a physical store that geographically limits the sale of products, an online store allows you to sell to anyone, anywhere in the world.
We can talk about multi-channel sales precisely because it allows you to fulfill orders globally.
No opening hours
Another advantage of an e-commerce is that the opening of the online store is guaranteed 24 hours a day, seven days a week and all year round.
A convenient aspect both for the seller who can see their turnover grow and for the customer who can buy at any time of the day.
Independent location
No physical location keeps the e-commerce entrepreneur tied down who can manage their business from anywhere.
What is needed is a laptop, a connection or a smartphone to manage the various activities.
Cost savings and cost-effectiveness
A very advantageous aspect is that of being able to manage the work completely online, which means lower costs compared to a physical store.
Also, most platforms are not particularly expensive, some services may involve additional costs but allow you to entrust the management of the site to experts.
Automated inventory management
By using online services and third-party distribution, you can manage the stock of products on multiple online channels more easily.
In this sense, you can sell and monitor items in your online and physical store, on sites like eBay and Amazon.
Targeted marketing strategies
Thanks to online commerce, you can collect a lot of data on consumers and create marketing strategies aimed at certain groups of users who have the same interests, age and geographic area in common.
Customer service
Any problem such as an e-commerce block, a malfunction of the site, or bugs, customer service assistance is active 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Types of e-commerce platforms
E-commerce platforms can be of different types:
SaaS Platform
An e-commerce solution operated by third-party providers, which can be used and managed via a subscription.
This also allows users with little experience in coding and platform development to manage an e-commerce without having to give up the plurality of functions provided.
Open Source Platform
The open source platform is a software with “open” source code. In fact, anyone can use it, access and modify the code.
At the base of the management there are expert developers who guarantee a complete software with total customization by the users.
Self-hosted Platform
Self-hosted platforms are platforms that must be installed on your own server and require more advanced management and configuration.
It allows complete access to the work: upload files, edit the code, add different plugins, optimize content in SEO and much more.
Hosted Platform
They are platforms that offer many features typical of the online store, they do not require any installation or configuration by the user.
They offer various additional services such as technical assistance or transaction management.
Which e-commerce platform to choose?
Here are some examples of e-commerce platforms, from which to choose the one that best suits your needs.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the most used e-commerce platforms. It has many features that allow you to start earning online and create a truly successful online business.
With Shopify you have the possibility of selling your products on the main sales channels, Facebook and Amazon, receiving assistance via email and telephone in case of problems or doubts about using the platform.
To enhance your e-commerce, sales, and marketing strategy, you can add more than 6,000 apps, integrate online and offline operations.
Woocommerce
Woocommerce is one of the best e-commerce platforms for WordPress sites. More than a real platform, it is a WordPress plugin and is ideal for those who already have a site and want to start selling a product or service.
It is open source, flexible, easily integrated with any service and is suitable for people with programming skills.
Magento
Magento is a self-hosted ecommerce platform suitable for large businesses.
It is ideal for those looking for a flexible system and want to have total control over the platform. It requires a lot of advanced programming skills.
Big cartel
Ecommerce platform suitable for small businesses, designed for creators and artists.
It has essential functions such as domain registration, customizable template and basic tools, but unlike other platforms, it offers features with limits, for example for each product you can upload a maximum of 5 images.
Wix
Best e-commerce platform, despite being a web builder with drag-and-drop editor, to create sites with modern design and essential functions.
It offers essential features typical of an ecommerce platform, for example: online payments, selling through multiple channels, order tracking and creating campaigns for abandoning the cart. However, many features such as out of stock alerts are missing.
BigCommerce
Intuitive and easy to use, it is a platform for businesses that use third-party integrations.
BigCommerce offers essential features such as marketing tools and multi-channel selling on social media and third-party marketplaces.
The features are extended by the numerous partnerships that BigCommerce has, for example it integrates with five POS solutions.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a very intuitive drag-and-drop web builder that makes it easy to create and maintain websites.
Like Wix, Squarespace has fairly limited, but important and essential features for an e-commerce platform.
It also integrates with several services such as Stripe, PayPal, FedEx and USPS.
Weebly
Weebly is an e-commerce platform that includes tools for starting a small online business.
The ecommerce version, however, requires a subscription.
It has a user-friendly interface and a drag-and-drop editor that make it very intuitive and simple for creating the site.
Prestashop
Prestashop is among the most popular open source ecommerce platforms in Italy. Simple to use, with an easy-to-manage interface, it has 75 different languages and has a back office system.
Open cart
Open cart allows you to manage products from the warehouse to the sale. There are no large notice costs and some themes of the software are free.
It is quite intuitive and simple to use but is especially suitable for small businesses.
OsCommerce
OsCommerce is a complete open source that allows you to manage products, sales, catalog and community of users who give advice on any problems.
It is suitable for those who are still beginners and want to create a small online store before trying other applications.
