16 Best Ecommerce Platforms Compared & Analyzed for 2021

Global ecommerce sales growth will exceed $6.5 trillion by 2023, and ecommerce platforms are a crucial component of this new marketplace.

Without an ecommerce platform to power your online sales machine, it will difficult for your business to compete effectively online.

When I think of an ecommerce platform, the word “engine” comes to mind.

An engine is a machine tasked with converting a given form of energy into another form of energy. 

In most circumstances, the converted energy is mechanical energy vis-a-vis motion.

Now, you’ll agree with me that most of today’s enterprises’ future lies in the ability to conduct trade over electronic channels.

If you didn’t believe this singular truism in January 2020, I’m sure you believe that now – thanks to the COVID-19 experience we’ve all faced.

The ecommerce platform is that engine that determines how well and fast your ecommerce business grows.

First, your ecommerce platform enables you to present and educate your target audience on your product offerings.

Second, with an ecommerce platform, you can take orders and accept payments real-time online.

And third, an ecommerce platform supports other business functions such as customer relationship management, marketing and analytics, and dashboards.

In other words, an ecommerce platform is the core engine that supports any ecommerce business.  

And having the right ecommerce platform for your business will establish a solid sustainable foundation for successful ecommerce operations.

In this guide, we’re going to learn what exactly constitutes an ecommerce platform.

Furthermore, we will understand the different types of ecommerce platforms and the leading ecommerce platforms available for your business.

You’ll gain insights into the features, pros, cons, and much more details on each platform.

So without further delay, buckle up, and let’s get started.

Should you pay attention and trust these reviews?

Yes, you should. These reviews are coming from 20 years of experience:

• Our ecommerce journey started back in 2001, running a 6-figure online niche movie store supported by PPC advertising on Overture (the pioneer of PPC) before Google. We’ve been fascinated with ecommerce ever since.
• We’ve designed and executed Ecommerce Operational Action Plans (EDOPs) for 8-figure per year companies, doubling and in some instances quadrupling their ecommerce sales year-over-year.
• Our experience with ecommerce platforms is vast and spans WooCommerce, Shopify, OpenCart, Magento, BigCommerce, and Volusion.

Ecommerce Platforms – The Core Engine of Every E-Business

Ecommerce involves buying and selling goods and services over the Internet.  

And ecommerce platforms enable the discovery, shopping experience, transactions, and support processes around the buying and selling activities.

So what is an ecommerce platform?

What Is an Ecommerce Platform?

An ecommerce platform makes ecommerce happen.  

It is the core-engine for your business and a software ecosystem that supports your ability to run a competitive, successful, and profitable ecommerce business.

First, an ecommerce platform does this by making product and information discovery possible through the website, landing pages, and forms.

Next, an ecommerce platform enables buyers (customers) to browse, add items to a shopping cart, checkout, and pay for products and services.

Lastly, the ecommerce platform supports an ecommerce business’s sales and marketing, customer service, returns management, and other business processes.

If you’re still running your ecommerce website on custom-built software code, that is so 2000-2010.

We’re in 2021. Wake up before the train leaves you behind.

The days of building an ecommerce platform from the ground up are long gone.  

And the reason is quite simple.

Several third-party ecommerce platform providers are bringing more advanced, sophisticated, tried, and test ecommerce software products to the marketplace under the software as a service (SaaS) model.

These new ecommerce platforms enable you to sell online and form the backbone (engine) for your ecommerce operations.

They support business functions across customer relationship management, inventory management, reporting and analytics, multi-channel integrations, conversion optimization, and much more.

Unfortunately, having so many options means that you’re going to face a challenge when choosing the right ecommerce platform for your business.

As the core-engine of your business, the ecommerce platform you choose is the most crucial decision you’ll make.

Importance of an Ecommerce Platform

Selecting the right ecommerce platform is important for a successful ecommerce operation.

Why?

For one thing, an ecommerce operation goes beyond putting up products on an online store for purchase.

As such, you need a software platform that provides an end-to-end ecosystem for ecommerce operational excellence across vital business processes.

For instance, your ecommerce platform needs to communicate with other platforms via application programming interfaces (APIs) to achieve set business objectives.

You need to target marketing communications to users who add an item to their shopping cart but did not complete the purchase.

If your ecommerce platform cannot communicate with advertising platforms such as Google, Facebook, etc., then you won’t achieve this business objective.

Furthermore, this same principle applies when getting shipping rates from shipping provides such as UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, etc.

If your ecommerce platform cannot communicate with these third-party companies’ systems, you will be unable to charge accurate shipping fees.

Once you’ve chosen the right ecommerce platform, you can streamline and automate processes across vital business functions.

To emphasize:

• When your ecommerce processes are streamlined and automated, you can achieve consistent growth via your sales and marketing funnels.
• Likewise, you’re able to better engage your customers with the right product offers and marketing communications.
• And your total cost of ownership across your development and maintenance operations are predictable and under control.

Overall, having the right ecommerce platform enables you to meet business objectives across sales, marketing, customer service, inventory, etc.

Why Use an Ecommerce Platform?

Your chosen ecommerce platform will have a significant impact on your business.

This impact will affect the following business dimensions: growth and profitability, operational and running costs, customer insight and engagement, and objectives and key results (OKRs).

Hence, this makes your ecommerce platform a vital component of your business DNA when selling online.

Gone are the days when you hire a web developer or firm to build a custom shopping cart system for you to take orders online.

With the advent of big data, artificial intelligence, and advanced insights and metrics across platforms such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, etc. – ecommerce is now a sophisticated and more complicated process than you think.

Therefore, it’s now more important than ever to select, evaluate, and use an ecommerce platform instead of building from scratch.

Doing so will enable you to achieve the four dimensions stated above to drive your business forward and keep you competitive in the marketplace.

Types of Ecommerce Platforms

There are different types of ecommerce platforms, and they are all divided into three major categories: Open-source, Licensed and Self-Hosted, and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Let’s take a look a look at each type of ecommerce platform for a better understanding.

1. Open Source Ecommerce Platforms

In general, open source software is a software type whose source code can be accessed and used by anyone for free. 

Open source software is different from proprietary software whose sourced code is closed, encrypted, and not free for access and use.

Therefore, an open source ecommerce platform allows you to modify and improve the code according to your business needs.

This freedom to adapt the platform’s code makes open source ecommerce platforms appealing to both businesses and developers.

With its open source nature, developers can create extensions and plugins to improve the ecommerce platform’s features.

Likewise, businesses can customize and tailor the ecommerce platform to mimick and suit their existing standard operating procedures (SOPs).

If you need control to change an ecommerce platform’s functional features, an open source ecommerce application is ideal.

However, using an open source system for your ecommerce operation means more responsibility on your part.

You’ll be responsible for ensuring your ecommerce platform is PCI compliant. PCI compliance is an important set of data security standards for ecommerce operations.

And depending on the open source ecommerce platform, you may be responsible for hosting it and connecting it to the Internet.

All in all, you are 100% responsible when using an open source ecommerce platform and must have the required technical competence to manage the platform in-house or outsourced.

So ensure you have the skills to run maintenance, quality assurance, and security operations for an open source ecommerce platform’s optimal performance.

2. Licensed and Self-Hosted Ecommerce Platforms

While open source ecommerce platforms are self-hosted, there are licensed (i.e., proprietary) ecommerce platforms that are also self-hosted.

Self-hosting an ecommerce platform requires the ecommerce business to secure a web hosting environment, install, configure and maintain the platform.

And the web hosting environment can be in-house or with a third-party web hosting solutions provider.

However, many ecommerce platform providers offer their software under a software as a service (SaaS) model.

One major benefit of self-hosting an ecommerce platform is that you get to configure the hosting environment.

Doing so in some instances can help you achieve cost savings across server hardware, storage, memory, etc.

For example, a provider-hosted ecommerce platform might charge you $49.00 per month with a storage limit of 50Gb.

However, if you go the self-hosted route by purchasing a dedicated server with 1 TB of storage for $99.00 per month, you’ll have more space for your ecommerce website.

Overall, with a licensed and self-hosted ecommerce platform, you buy the software license and proceed to set it up on your hosting environment.

As you can see, there are some similarities between open source and licensed/self-hosted ecommerce platforms.

Both options require that you set up a web hosting environment to house the software instance.

With both options, you will also be the one to run the installation, configuration, and maintenance tasks.

Then again, the main difference is that you pay for the licensed ecommerce platform and do not have access to adapt its source code.

Whereas the open source platform is free, and you can access and adapt its source code.

Managing both open source and licensed and self-hosted ecommerce platforms can be time-consuming.

And this because you’re responsible for set up, configuration, updates, security hardening, maintenance, etc.

Software as a Service (SaaS) Cloud Hosted Ecommerce Platforms

Software as a Service (SaaS) ecommerce platforms are cloud-hosted (by the software provider) and can make life a little easier for you.

Indeed, they take away the complexity and hassle of running and managing an ecommerce platform. 

Rather than installing, configuring, maintaining, and hosting an open-source or a licensed self-hosted solution, the SaaS model allows you to rent the ecommerce platform.

Depending on your situation and business requirement, most cloud-hosted ecommerce platforms will meet your needs.

Once you’ve subscribed to a cloud-hosted platform for your ecommerce website, the SaaS provider takes care of security, update, hosting, PCI compliance, etc.

As such, this affords you more time to time on those things that matter most to growing your ecommerce business.

Another benefit of cloud-hosted solutions is that you achieve your time-to-market more quickly.

Similarly, you don’t need to be tech-savvy to run your ecommerce business on cloud-hosted platforms.

The SaaS provider in charge of the platform handles all technicalities.

However, if you need specific customizations to suit your business operations, cloud-hosted solutions can be limiting.

You or your developers cannot access, modify, or change the code of the software.

But some SaaS providers allow you to extend the functionality of their ecommerce platform via plugins and extensions.

Must-Have Features of Every Ecommerce Platform

Ecommerce platforms provide features that make ecommerce possible, with some platforms offering more features than others.

However, there are some vital features all ecommerce platforms must have to be practically useful for serious ecommerce operations.

Here are some key features every ecommerce platform must have:

1. Mobile-Friendliness

Google estimates that mobile devices deliver over 50% of web traffic, and about 63% of smartphone users will most likely purchase if a website is mobile-friendly.

So it’s a no-brainer that ecommerce platforms must be mobile-friendly to achieve optimal conversion rates.

As an ecommerce business, you need an ecommerce platform that is highly responsive and fit seamlessly into the display of different mobile phones. 

When the platform is responsive, the content will automatically adjust to the screen size the customer is using, providing them with a super user-friendly experience.

If your ecommerce platform is mobile-friendly, it will encourage shopping and improve site-wide conversions. 

Customers can browse through your store without any issues. They will be able to find what they want without having to zoom in to view individual items. 

Providing your customers with a great mobile-friendly shopping experience will improve sales and search engine ranking. 

Take Walmart, for example. The company saw a 98% sales increase after making its ecommerce platform mobile-friendly.

2. Ease of Use

An ecommerce platform must be easy to use across all devices – mobile, desktop, and future IoT-compliant devices.

In addition to being mobile-friendly, the platform should be easily accessible. 

Shoppers should be able to find their way around your ecommerce website without any difficulties. 

The design goal of every ecommerce platform should be simplicity along with elegance.

In a recent study, 76 percent of consumers said that ease of use is the most important feature of an online platform.

When an ecommerce website is easy to use, the shopper can navigate the site effortlessly. 

Shoppers should be able to locate products and information they want quickly without going through some complex paths.

In ecommerce, you have just a couple of minutes (if not seconds) to make a sale. 

Hence, you should provide your shopper (by choosing the right ecommerce platform) with a great user experience while shopping on your website. 

All your products should be well-categorized. And the different categories of items should be easily accessible.

Likewise, the color and text of the platform should be appealing to the eyes. The text should be large enough for users to see and read. 

The colors should not be contradictory, and the text, images should be bright and clear.

3. Scalability

Ecommerce platforms should be scalable. Scalability is the ability of the platform to scale (grow) on demand and when needed.

The platform achieves scalability by providing you everything you need to run the business successfully now and in the future.

There must be room for growth across resources, capacity, features, performance, and security.

As your ecommerce business starts growing and gaining more customers, chances are you would want to offer more products to more customers. 

Therefore, you want to make sure the platform you choose can handle the additional number of shoppers without crashing or slowing. 

Your ecommerce platform should also allow you to make changes to your business as you begin to grow and move closer to your goals.

The right platform will provide you with all these and more. 

For instance, some ecommerce platforms such as Shopify provide their users’ plans with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited products, and unlimited file storage. 

Such configuration options mean you can store as much data, and you can upload as many product photos and videos as you want. 

As your business grows, these features will become very useful, as they will allow you to scale and develop your business with ease.

4. Payment Processing Options

Your customers must be able to pay for purchases on your website in real-time.

There are many payment gateways today that make the online shopping experience great for shoppers.

The best ecommerce platforms are those that provide their shoppers with a variety of payment options. 

Some of the top payment options for ecommerce platforms are Credit Card, Debit Card or Visa, PayPal, Payoneer, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, eChecks, and digital currencies such as Bitcoin (BTC).

Giving your shoppers different payment options is one of the best ways to run and grow your business.

When you give customers options for payment, you achieve better conversion rates.

As such, you want an ecommerce platform that provides multiple payment integration options as one of its key features. 

When an ecommerce platform offers limited payment options or a payment option that a shopper does not have, the shopper cannot make any purchase.

Hence, the platform should have a flexible payment system that any shopper from any part of the world can make payment through.

5. Extendability

An ecommerce platform should be extendable via apps, plugins, add-ons, and extensions.

An extendable ecommerce platform is a flexible ecommerce platform.

Having flexibility means that the ecommerce platform is adaptable to emulate business processes and achieve business objectives.

Most ecommerce platforms have built sustainable ecosystems of third-party developers who design programs to extend the platforms.

These programs (apps, plugins, add-ons, extensions, etc.) enhance and improve the functionality and features of the ecommerce platform.

Leading ecommerce platforms such as WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce have marketplaces that allow you to access and install these programs.

Indeed, you’ll find a wide range of programs to improves features across shipping and fulfillment, sales and marketing, customer service, inventory, order management, reporting and analysis, accounts, etc.

And these please extension programs come in handy, as they solve and improve many issues that are not part of the platform’s core features. 

Hence, choosing an e-commerce platform that provides you with a wide range of applications and add-on is essential.

Top ECommerce Platforms

As you can imagine, every e-commerce platforms have their pros and cons. 

And what might serve as an advantage to one ecommerce business might be a disadvantage to another. 

When looking for an ecommerce platform for your ecommerce business, it is essential to thoroughly evaluate the platform to make sure it is ideal for your business type. 

Let’s take a look at the top ecommerce platforms available in the marketplace:

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the best and most popular open source ecommerce platform.  

According to BuiltWith, WooCommerce, about 30% of ecommerce websites worldwide run on WooCommerce.

Although an ecommerce platform, WooCommerce is a plugin that runs on a WordPress content management system.

As an open source platform, WooCommerce is available free to use.  

However, to get the most out of the platform, you’ll need to purchase plugin extensions that improve the platform’s functional features.

Likewise, you might also need to purchase some pretty expensive WordPress themes.

While there are several free designs to achieve your designed look and feel, you might have to design (or purchase) a custom theme to get the look and feel you want.

If you’re familiar with WordPress, then you’ll have little or no challenge setting up WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is great for small businesses and new ecommerce startups on a tight budget.  

It’s a flexible ecommerce platform, and you can optimize it to be mobile and search engine friendly.

WooCommerce Pros:

• Very easy to set up
• It works with the best SEO content management system – WordPress
• You can customize it to suit your business needs
• Allows for easy integration of different payment gateways, third-party services, social media, and more via API
• 1-click selling application available

WooCommerce Cons

• Poor support (open source community)
• Good and useful add-ons are not free
• You need many add-ons to get your store highly functional

WooCommerce Plans and Pricing

WooCommerce is free of charge and free to download. 

However, you will have to purchase add-on plugins if you have custom requirements.

WooCommerce Site Building Features

With the free download, some of the site-building features you will get include:

• Geo-location support
• Discounts and coupons
• Catalog management
• Mobile-friendly design
• Inventory management
• SEO
• Shipping options and calculator
• Product reviews

WooCommerce Level of Support

As with any open source software, this platform’s support level is not impressive, as they lack email or phone support. 

If you have any issues, you have to submit a support ticket and wait for a response, which can take 24 hours or more. 

You will get a response via email or live chat. 

The platform also has online help guides and community forums where you can find quick solutions to your problems.

WooCommerce Usability

WooCommerce is easy to set up, but you might need a little help from its online help guides and community forums. 

After setting up and installing the plugin, you can customize and operate it with ease. 

2. Shopify

Shopify is another popular ecommerce platform in the market with about 18% of the market share.

According to BuiltWith, over 3.5 million websites run on Shopify – that’s hundreds of billions of dollars in transactions yearly.

Shopify has its payment processing systems and delivers to its customers huge discounts on shipping rates. 

As a mobile-friendly ecommerce platform, Shopify provides multiple mobile-optimized themes – both free and paid options are available.

Shopify is great for dropshipping businesses or those that rely on Facebook/Instagram advertising for sales generation.

You can add a wide range of products to your store – it is almost unlimited. 

Nevertheless, if you want to process subscription services, you will have to purchase a plugin. 

Shopify’s service plans start at $29 per month.  

However, they offer a Shopify Lite plan that allows you to add products to any website or blog for $9.95 per month.

With the Shopify platform, you can offer custom discount codes, gift cards, shopping cart recovery, and integrated marketing tools like email marketing. 

Furthermore, the platform’s drag and drop interface allows you to easily and quickly set up your online store. 

And once you have a little knowledge of web development, you can complete the entire process in a few hours.

Notwithstanding, Shopify’s Achilles heel is that it lacks the SEO-friendliness of WooCommerce.

However, several third-party apps (i.e., plugins and extensions) are available to address this situation.

Shopify Pros

• Very easy to set up
• Allows social selling and multiple channels
• Lots of amazing themes
• Loads quickly with a user-friendly design
• 1-click selling
• Many certified partners to help you

Shopify Cons

• Poor SEO ratings
• Very few free themes
• The paid themes are costly
• The advanced features are for tech savvies
• The checkout process is not customizable

Shopify Plans and Pricing

This platform offers a 14-day free trial, and you do not need to put in your credit card to use it. 

Shopify offers three major plans, which are:

• Basic Shopify – $29 per month
• Shopify – $79 per month
• Advanced Shopify – $299 per month

Shopify Site Building Features

• Inventory tracking
• Custom domains
• No limits to product listings
• Real-time sales statistics
• Over 90 templates and themes
• Artificial intelligence and personalization

Shopify Level of Support

The support level of Shopify is excellent. The platform offers phone, email, and 24 hours live chat support. 

Moreover, they also have an online help center and community forums.

Shopify Usability

Shopify makes it easy to build and set up an online store for your ecommerce business.

You have access to an easy-to-use, intuitive, and codeless store builder that allows you to create, edit, and customer your online store with ease.

While the platform gives you easy-to-use tools and resources, you’ll need to be a little bit tech-savvy to use its advanced features.

3. Wix eCommerce

Over the years Wix eCommerce platform has proven to be reliable and efficient.

It’s a leading platform for startups and solopreneurs because of its great offering and simplicity.

Wix eCommerce currently powers over 500 thousand businesses worldwide with its user-friendly store builder.

For one thing, users respond positively to Wix eCommerce’s highly flexible and customizable ecommerce tools and services. 

While providing over 500 free mobile-friendly ecommerce themes to select from, Wix eCommerce allows its users to create stores in over 90 different languages.

As a result, anyone from part of the world can access and purchase your products in their local language.

Furthermore, Wix eCommerce is punching above its weight with essential features for successful ecommerce operations.

Such features include but not limited to instant purchase buttons, abandoned cart recovery, discount codes, custom accounts, loyalty programs, wishlists, customizable checkout page, and add to cart from a gallery, etc.

Also, the platform offers some helpful online marketing tools and advertising credit worth $300 to new sign-ups.

Wix eCommerce has different plans, so you need to crosscheck and make sure the plan you choose aligns with your business needs.

Wix eCommerce Pros

• Loads of free amazing themes
• On-page support for different needs
• Easy and straightforward to set up and use
• Ideal for large, medium, and small businesses
• Supports almost all types of products and payment options

Wix eCommerce Cons

• Issues with security
• The templates are not fully customizable
• Lacks advanced automation and upselling features
• Not the best search engine optimization rankings

Wix eCommerce Plans and Pricing

• Basic – $23 per month
• Unlimited – $27 per month
• VIP – $35 per month
• Enterprise – Starting at $500 per month

Different plans have different pricing with different features.

With the Business and eCommerce plans, you can create an online store for your ecommerce business. 

However, you can only process and collect payments from the Business Basic plan and upward. 

Once you subscribe to any plan, Wix eCommerce does not charge transaction fees for sales you generate on your store.

Wix eCommerce Site Building Features

With the lowest plan, you can get the following features:

• Shipping options
• Product galleries
• Digital products
• Discount codes
• Payment options
• Mobile-friendly themes
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Inventory management

Wix eCommerce Level of Support

You can expect an adequate level of support from the Wix team across social media, phone, or email.

They also have a comprehensive online help center and active community forums. 

Customers that subscribe to Business VIP and above have priority support tickets and phone status.

Wix eCommerce Usability

Arguably, the number one selling point of this e-commerce platform is its ease of use. 

Wix eCommerce is known for its user-friendliness. As such, the platform will work correctly to meet your needs.

4. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a trusted and reliable ecommerce platform that has been in the business for over a decade.

The platform’s strategic objective is to serve as the integrated platform of choice for your ecommerce business.

While BigCommerce mainly targets larger enterprises with their product offering, small and mid-sized businesses can equally use the platform.

Many brick-and-mortar retail stores are finding success with BigCommerce as the platform does an excellent job at integrating with external systems.

From an SEO perspective, BigCommerce provides many features to ensure your product listings and website content performs well on organic search results.

Likewise, the platform’s robust product search engine ensures your customers can find products with ease.

With the ecommerce industry promoting the concept of headless commerce, BigCommerce is one of the top platforms adopting this new industry trend.

BigCommerce provides tools and features that can support ecommerce businesses in any industry or niche.

You don’t need to be a web developer to set up and configure your BigCommerce store. The platform is pretty straightforward to set up and provides lots of guidance.

When setting up your store on BigCommerce, you can customize any template to suit your personal and business needs. 

However, with a little knowledge of HTML and CSS, you can do a lot of tweaking on this platform to give you a more customized look and feel. 

BigCommerce provides many great themes – both paid and free.  

While the free themes are limited, you can access a plethora of reasonably priced paid themes to meet your design goals.

BigCommerce Pros

• Highly scalable
• Allows for easy customization
• Lots of amazing themes
• Excellent SEO performance
• Functions with multi-channel selling

BigCommerce Cons

• The high volume stores are expensive
• No 1-click upsells or cross-selling
• The entry plan does not have a cart abandonment

BigCommerce Plans and Pricing

The four plans of this platform are:

• Standard – $29.95 per month
• Plus – 79.95 per month
• Pro – $299.95 per month
• Enterprise pricing is available only on request.

If you pay annually for the Pro or Plus plans, you will get a discount of 10 percent.

BigCommerce Site Building Feature

BigCommerce has some great site-building features. 

Interestingly, even the Standard plan has many outstanding features to offer. 

Here are the site-building features of BigCommerce, starting from their Standard plan:

• Unlimited file storage
• No bandwidth limitation
• Unlimited product listings
• Custom domains
• Rating and reviews
• Page builder
• POS software and shipping integration
• Gift cards
• Multi-currency sales
• More than 160 paid themes
• 12 free themes to customize your store

BigCommerce Level of Support

In addition to the fantastic features this platform offer, you can also get excellent support from their technical support team. 

BigCommerce has many support channels through which you can communicate with them. 

You can contact them through phone, email, and 24 hours live chat. 

Best of all, these support channels are available for all plans and trial periods too. 

They also have community forums and an online help center.

BigCommerce Usability

If you are new to the ecommerce space, you can use this platform without any issues. 

It has a user-friendly design, and you start with the basic standard version and upgrade as you grow.

However, with so many features, you will have a lot to learn. So I suggest you make out time to learn how to use the platform.

5. SamCart

As a relatively new entrant in the ecommerce platform space (compared to the others), SamCart is taking a slightly different approach.

Founded by Brian Moran and Scott Moran, SamCart comes with many excellent features to help you set up your online store and boost sales significantly. 

SamCart’s focus is to enable ecommerce business owners and operators to optimize their conversion rate.

And when done correctly, the net result is increases in sales and the average order value of each customer.

To support this, SamCart provides you with 1-click upsell and cross-sell capabilities, A/B testing features, different checkout process flow libraries, and integration with third-party apps.

It is a simple and straightforward ecommerce platform designed to help you make the most out of every sale. 

Fortunately, SamCart gives a free 14-day trial for users to test the platform. So you can test out the platform without any financial commitment.

If you do not like its services after 14 days, you can cancel your account.

One thing I like about SamCart is the beautiful yet straightforward check pages and process flow.  

With different templates to choose from, the checkout process’s look, feel, and flow is simply elegant.

SamCart also allows for a great deal of customization, as you can present your desired colors across your online store.

Furthermore, you can choose your checkout pages button text, toggle different fields, add custom content, including testimonials, and more.

Another fascinating thing about this platform is that it is effortless to use, given the advanced features it offers.

You can connect SamCart’s ecommerce platform with different payment processors and integrate it with other online tools.  

SamCart Pros

• Very easy to set up
• Allows for customization
• Features an amazing design
• A free 14-day trial to test the platform
• Safe and secure
• A wide range of free themes to choose from
• Link with different payment processors

SamCart Cons

• A little issue with scalability
• Not the best SEO rankings
• It is expensive

SamCart Plans and Pricing

SamCart is not cheap. In fact, it is one of the most expensive on our list. 

The platform offers three plan options:

• Launch $49 per month
• Grow – $99 per month
• Scale – $199 percent month

The Premium plan contains all the Pro plan features and three additional features: the subscription saver, the affiliate center, and the dedicated training and support. 

The subscription saver helps to recover failed subscription payments automatically, and it is for subscription products. 

The affiliate center allows you to create and manage your affiliate system sales.

SamCart Site Building Features

This platform has many great site-building features. Here are some of the features you will get:

• Over 18 checkout templates
• Use checkout pages everywhere
• No limits on product listing
• Built-in credit card process
• One-time payments, trials, subscription, and payment plans
• Advanced statistics and reports
• Webhooks
• Prospects (cart abandonment)
• 1-click upsells
• Priority support
• A/B split testing

SamCart Level of Support

The support level of SamCart is quite impressive. They have an in-app chat support team to help you with the setup process and any issues.

SamCart Usability

The setup process is quite simple and straightforward. However, if you are new to this space, you might need to contact support for help. 

It comes with many great features that you will learn to use over time.

6. Weebly

What started as a basic website builder is now a leading force in the website builder space, with over 50 million websites running on its platform.

To not be outdone by online store builders, Weebly acquired Square in 2018 and made its entry into the online store builder space as an ecommerce platform.

So Weebly now provides professional ecommerce tools for online businesses in all niches and categories. 

If you are looking for a simple online store with built-in marketing automation, this is one of the best platforms to consider.

The platform’s top-notch and easy-to-use online store builder endears it to many ecommerce businesses.

With an intuitive drag and drop, user-friendly interface, novice users will learn how to use the platform in little or no time.

The drag and drop interface of Weebly enables you to create a stylish, simple online store. 

Weebly is also great for building small business portfolios and websites.  

So if you’re not launching your ecommerce business right away but want a business website up and running, consider Weebly.

The platform’s ease of use makes it popular as you do not need to write a single line of code to get your ecommerce business up and running.

You have full control over your ecommerce website and can customize it to your taste.

Furthermore, Weebly’s app center gives you access to apps (from Weebly and third-party vendors) that extend the platform’s functionality.

Weebly Pros

• Great tools for building small business websites and online stores
• It comes with many great templates for easy customization
• Mobile-friendly and highly responsive
• Helpful SEO guides
• Very easy to use, even for beginners
• It has a mobile application
• Powerful email tools
• Free designs at meager costs

Weebly Cons

• No Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) option
• It lacks a personal restore option
• Limited drag and drop customization
• Charges additional transaction fees
• Basic inventory management

Weebly Plans and Pricing

Weebly has a 100 percent free plan, which you can use to create and publish your store, and start selling. 

Interestingly, the free plan does not have a time limit, neither does it have any hidden charges. 

Aside from the free plan, the platform has three paid plans, starting from as low as $6 per month:

• Personal plan – $6 per month
• Professional plan – $12 per month
• Performance plan – $26 per month

Weebly Site Building Features

• Huge app center
• A solid suite of eCommerce features
• Strong blogging tools
• Helpful SEO guides
• Marketing and analytics tools
• Inbuilt site security
• Mobile application

Weebly Level of Support

If you get stuck while creating your online store or building your site, you have nothing to worry about, as you can always rely on Weebly’s support team. 

You can contact them via email, and the support is available 24/7. 

Weebly also has many guides in its support center that come in handy when you run into challenges.

Weebly Usability

When it comes to usability, you can count on Weebly. 

Creating your store or website is very easy with this platform, thanks to its drag and drop builder. 

It also has many intuitive features that make it very easy to use.

7. Squarespace

Squarespace is is an ecommerce platform as well as a website builder.

You can use it to build portfolio websites, picture galleries, and online blogs.

And you can enable the ecommerce aspect of the platform and sell across any of those surfaces – i.e., website, gallery, or blog.

With hundreds of mobile-friendly design themes, you have many themes to choose from to bring your ecommerce business to life.

You can customize these themes to suit your needs and as you see fit.  

If you have basic knowledge of CSS and JavaScript, you can further tweak the templates to create complex versions.

Moreover, their customer service is not lacking either with the real-time live chat support that is just one-click away.

Squarespace’s mobile app is available for iOS and Android devices, making it easy for you to carry your ecommerce business with you on the go.

If you’re using content marketing as part of your digital marketing mix, then you’ll be happy with Squarespace’s blogging features.

One good thing about Squarespace is that it puts no limit on the number of physical products you can see.  

However, if you want to sell subscriptions, you’ll have to subscribe to their Advanced Commerce plan.

Squarespace Pros

• Setting it up is very easy and straightforward
• Amazing designs and templates
• Great for simple websites and stores
• High-performance SEO tools
• Integrates with ShipBob and ShipStation
• Low starting price
• Free domain for the first year
• Unlimited accounts and products

Squarespace Cons

• The support experience is weak
• The cheapest plan attracts a commission of 3 percent
• No drop shipping support
• Cannot integrate with amazon
• No marketing automation integration

Squarespace Plans and Pricing

This platform has four different plans with different packages. 

However, it offers a free 14-day trial for you to have a taste of what it has to offer. 

The four pricing tiers it has are:

• Personal – $16 per month
• Business – $26 per month
• Basic Commerce – $30 per month
• Advanced Commerce $46 per month

With the personal plan, every purchase made in the store attracts a commission of 3 percent. 

The Business plan and above are free from this transaction fee.

Squarespace Site Building Features

• SEO tools
• Digital products
• Abandon cart auto-recovery
• Real-time shipping rates and tracking
• Import and export of products
• Limited integration options
• Automatic discounts
• Gift cards
• Personalized products
• Upselling and cross-selling

Squarespace Level of Support

This platform’s support could use some improvements, but it is still better than most ecommerce platforms out there. 

They have 24/7 email and Twitter support. You can contact them via live chat from Monday through Friday. 

They also have community forums and an online help center.

Squarespace Usability

Squarespace is one of the easiest e-commerce platforms to use. With its drag and drop interface, you can create and customize your store with ease.

8. Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop (formerly called 3dcart) has been in the ecommerce space as a leading platform since 1997.

Since its inception, this e-commerce platform has served more than 22k ecommerce businesses. 

Some of the key features of this platform include zero transaction fees and unlimited storage. 

And this means that you can sell as many products are you see fit with no restrictions.

Shift4Shop supports multi-channel selling, and you can use their POS. 

The platform provides hundreds of templates that you can use to enhance your online store’s look and feel. 

But it does not have the easy-to-use drag and drop feature, so only experienced users can handle the customization with ease.

Fortunately, the platform has an active developers’ community that can help you modify and develop themes. 

One of the major selling points of this platform is its shipping. Shift4Shop offers advanced shipping solutions that do not require API. 

Its third-party software integrations with eBay, QuickBook, Amazon, and DOBA make it an ideal platform if you use any of those services.

Shift4Shop Pros

• Allows for almost any integration
• It has better blog features
• Excellent business user management tools
• Flexibility
• Scalability
• Real-time electronic payment authorization and reporting
• Mobile-friendly design

Shift4Shop Cons

• Not the best option for beginners
• Customer support is not impressive
• The templates are difficult to customize, except for experienced users
• Potential upgrade issues

Shift4Shop Plans and Prices

Shift4Shop’s pricing is slightly different from other ecommerce platforms.

They offer two pricing models – free and paid.  

With the free pricing option (i.e., their End-to-End Ecommerce plan), you’ll have to use their payment processing.

However, if you have better payment processing rates and don’t want to use their payment processing, you can opt for the paid option.

The plans and prices are as follows:

• Basic Store – $29 per month
• Plus Store – $79 per month
• Pro Store – $229 per month
• End-to-End Ecommerce – $0 per month, but you have to use their payment processing.

Shift4Shop Site Building Features

• Unlimited products
• No limits to data bandwidth
• Unlimited users
• More than 100 free themes
• Migration assistance
• Loads of widgets and add-ons
• Support for digital wallets such as Google Pay and Apple Pay
• PCI compliant security with advanced tokenization

Shift4Shop Level of Support

Several users have complained about Shift4Shop’s customer support responsiveness.

However, this platform provides you with your own dedicated US-based e-commerce support team that is available 24/7.

You can access their support team via phone, email, and live chat.

Besides, you can access hundreds of video tutorials, guides, and resources to learn how to use the platform and find solutions to issues you may experience.

Shift4Shop Usability

The platform is somewhat easy to use, but it is best for those with web development knowledge. 

Shift4Shop’s customer support is also there to assist you with setup.

9. GoDaddy

You’ve most likely seen GoDaddy’s blockbuster super-bowl commercials.  

Most people associate the GoDaddy brand primarily with domain names and web hosting.

GoDaddy is undoubtedly one of the best brands in the internet business world. 

However, GoDaddy is a major player in the ecommerce space with its GoDaddy Ecommerce product offering and its Website + Marketing product suit.

You can quickly and conveniently build your online store in as little or no time with GoDaddy.

GoDaddy’s ecommerce platform comes with a modern interface that looks great with a beginner-friendly design.

The platform’s design also adapts for mobile devices, a vital optimization feature you need to look for in any ecommerce platform. 

GoDaddy’s team surely put in a lot of effort to provide ecommerce businesses with a comprehensive solution, especially for marketing. 

You get a content creator for creating social media posts, a nice blogging feature, an email marketing tool, and an SEO wizard to boost your search engine ranking.

GoDaddy Pros

• Optimized for different mobile devices
• Very easy to use
• Provides all-around solution
• Great marketing tools
• Advanced blogging features
• Free plan with many great features

GoDaddy Cons

• The SEO options for the lower plans are limited
• It does not have an app store to download more extensions to boost the functionality of your site
• The new platforms are not compatible with the old ones

GoDaddy Plans and Pricing

GoDaddy has a free plan that you can use to create a simple website. 

However, you will not have access to many features, and the platform will display ads at the top of all pages. 

Here are the paid plans:

• Basic – $9.99 per month
• Standard – $14.99 per month
• Premium – $19.99 per month
• E-commerce – $24.99 per month

The Basic plan does not include Advanced SEO optimization, but it allows for limited email marketing and social media posts. 

Whereas the Standard plan comes with Advanced SEO features, but it allows for only 20 social media posts, and 500 email sends. 

On the other hand, the Premium plan allows for up to 25,000 email sends.  

And the E-commerce plan comes with additional features such as abandoned cart recovery and credit card payment processors.

GoDaddy Site Building Features

• Unlimited storage space
• Newsletter tools
• Visitor statistics
• SEO
• Monetization
• A variety of widgets to increase the functionality of your site

GoDaddy Level of Support

GoDaddy’s ecommerce platform has some videos to guide you through the process of setting up your website or online store. 

They also have 24/7 live chat support, which is a bit slow. This platform also has phone support, a blog, and a community forum.

GoDaddy Usability

GoDaddy is one of the easiest ecommerce platforms. It has excellent design layout options, fantastic content sections, and more. 

This latest version is much convenient and easier to use than previous versions.

10. PinnacleCart

PinnacleCart is another all-in-one ecommerce platform solution you can consider for your ecommerce business.

So if you are looking for an ecommerce platform that provides an all-in-one solution, this is one of the top platforms to consider. 

As a platform designed for business owners with little to no technical knowledge, you can quickly create an online store with PinnacleCart.

With the platform’s all-inclusive features, you’re able to build a custom online store with product catalog management capabilities.

It allows you to add products easily, manage orders, customize your store, and more.

Likewise, you’ll have access to features that support your marketing communications, analytics, reporting, dashboards, and much more.

PinnacleCart is a SaaS ecommerce platform, which means the platform handles everything while you focus on running your business.

Hence, you do not need to be a techie to build and manage your ecommerce business on the PinnacleCart platform.

The PinnacleCart ecommerce platform is suitable for any business operating in any ecommerce niche hence why thousands of companies use it.

The company has been around for a very long time, and they have an excellent reputation for providing their customers with what they want. 

PinnacleCart Pros

• It offers a 14-day free trial
• Intuitive and user-friendly dashboard
• It allows for more than one admin access to one account
• Robust SEO and email marketing tools
• Beautifully designed templates (mobile-friendly and highly responsive)
• Super easy to use (the platform is in charge of the setup, installation, updates, and more)

PinnacleCart Cons

• It does not have a free shared SSL certificate
• Limited bandwidth and storage
• Lacks an inbuilt POS system

PinnacleCart Plans and Pricing

PinnacleCart gives you the option to host their software on your web hosting servers.  

With this option, you can purchase a perpetual license from them.

However, they are not transparent about the perpetual license’s pricing, so you’ll have to reach out to them for that information.

However, they do offer the cloud-hosted option at the following price points:

• Standard – $79.95
• Advanced – $199.95
• Enterprise – Call for pricing

PinnacleCart Site Building Features

• 30 mobile-friendly design templates
• Integration and add-ons
• Payment processing
• Built-in marketing
• Customer service and tech support
• Product inventory and management

PinnacleCart Level of Support

PinnacleCart provides support via phone, email, and live chat options. Their support team is available 24/7 to answer your questions and provide assistance.

They also have an extensive array of support content (video and article tutorials) and an active community forum.

PinnacleCart Usability

PinnacleCart is very easy to set up. It comes with many great features that allow you to customize your website or store to suit your needs. 

The support team is accommodating too, and they can guide you through the process.

11. Magento

Over 250,000 ecommerce businesses use Magento to power their ecommerce operations.

Leading global brands such as Nike, Cisco, and Procter & Gamble trust this platform.

The company started in 2007 and has gone through a series of acquisitions until acquired by Adobe in 2018.

Magento’s ecommerce platform is available in two flavors:

Magento Community Edition: – this is open source, free to download, and use flavor.

Magento Enterprise Edition: – this is the expensive paid version for big enterprises with advanced needs.

If you are looking for an advanced and customizable ecommerce platform, then Magento one of the best options to consider. 

All in all, Magento is a powerful platform for ecommerce, but it’s not for novices who lack a solid technical foundation.

If you have the technical resources to run an advanced ecommerce platform, then Magento is undoubtedly for you.

With Magento, you have an outstanding level of freedom to customize and adapt the platform to your business requirements, provided you know what you are doing. 

Magento Community Edition has a vast developer community to help you set up your store for a fee and provide useful answers to your questions.

And for the Enterprise Edition, you have access to a top-notch support team to assist with your implementation effort.

You can also get themes and add-ons from the marketplace to enhance the functionality of your online store.

Magento Pros

• 1-clicking selling
• Advanced SEO
• Robust and amazing features
• Highly customizable and scalable
• A large community

Magento Cons

• On the higher end of the price spectrum
• Required web development skills
• Requires a lot of memory, space, and server resources

Magento Plans and Pricing

As stated earlier, Magento has two primary flavors:

• Magneto has an open source platform that you can download and use. You have to pay for everything you need to use the store, such as themes, hosting, extensions, development, and more.
• The other option is the Magento Enterprise (formerly known as Magento Commerce). This version is an excellent option for big businesses. There is no fixed price here, but you can spend between $15,000 and $50,000 annually.

Magento Site Building Features

• Mobile-optimized shopping
• Integrated payment, checkout, and shipping
• Global selling
• Extended functionality through an app marketplace
• Site and product search
• Advanced catalog management
• Instant purchase
• Customizable options

Magento Level of Support

Like most open source systems, Magento Community Edition’s support (i.e., the open source version) lacks the level of responsiveness you’ll get from paid platforms such as Shopify.

However, you do have access to a developer community that can assist you with issues. The only snag is that you’ll have to wait longer to find solutions.

On the other hand, the Enterprise Edition users get better support since they pay for the platform.

It’s interesting to see how Adobe’s acquisition will change things in the long-term as they redefine and position the Magento ecommerce platform suite.

Magento Usability

Magento is not an easy platform to use. And this understandable as the platform is more suited for large enterprises.

You need basic knowledge of web development to use Magento, or you might need to hire a developer (or a team of developers).

12. Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus is the high-end version of Shopify for big enterprises and brands with high growth and volume.

With thousands of companies using the Shopify Plus ecommerce platform, they have access to extend, integrate, and customize the platform as they see fit.

The ability to design local experiences for customers makes Shopify Plus the global storefront sell to many worldwide markets.

Shopify Plus’s custom automation and customizable checkout sequences make it a powerful ecommerce platform in an age of global convergence of trade.

As a result, multi-national companies are finding Shopify Plus as a reliable ecommerce platform provider.

With this platform, you can lineup different products in hundreds of ecommerce niches across different channels. 

And the onboarding support and technology of Shopify Plus are exceptional, thus streamlining and reducing your time to market.

You can use Shopify Plus for a variety of ecommerce industries ranging from food & beverage, consumer electronics, beautify & cosmetics, fashion & apparel, and home decoration.

Shopify Plus Pros

• Ideal for large businesses
• It comes with many great features
• Highly functional
• Great automation tools
• High level of technical and onboarding support

Shopify Plus Cons

• No free account
• The pricing is only available upon request
• Similar SEO performance with the Shopify platform

Shopify Plus Plan and Pricing

Shopify Plus does not offer different plans and pricing like other platforms. 

You can get a trial, but it is only available upon request. The starting price of the platform is $2,000 per month. 

However, the total amount you will be paying every month will depend on the options you choose. 

You can contact support to know how much you will need to spend to get your business up and running on this platform.

Shopify Plus Site Building Features

• Real-time sales statistics
• Custom domains
• No limit to how many products you can sell
• Unlimited storage
• Inventory tracking
• More than 70 templates and themes

Shopify Plus Level of Support

The support level of this platform is excellent. Every account has a dedicated manager. 

They also have phone support and 24/7 chat support. So this means you can contact the support team whenever you want. 

With the availability of an online help center and community forums, you can ask questions and find answers to any problem you encounter on the platform.

Shopify Plus Usability

Shopify Plus is for enterprise-level businesses, and it is a bit complex when it comes to customization and features. 

To customize this platform to suit your business needs, you will need web development knowledge, or you can outsource the process to a third-party agency.

13. Volusion

Volusion is another ecommerce platform solutions provider that has been in the market since 2002.

This platform is an ideal option for businesses selling physical and digital products.

Volusion is very easy to use, as it comes with an in-page editor and drag-and-drop feature that allows you to build your store with ease.

It also provides you with free access to several themes and tons of paid theme options. 

One downside of this platform is that you have to buy an SSL certificate, which several (not all) platforms offer for free.

Another drawback is that this platform lacks blogging capabilities, affecting your SEO ranking if content marketing is part of your digital marketing mix. 

However, you can get it by using third parties such as WordPress for your content marketing.

One thing I like about Volusion is its user-friendly design options. 

It has a simple navigation menu that also allows you to manage inventory and marketing with ease. 

The platform has marketing options such as sell on Google, Amazon, eBay, SEO, rewards, couples, and social selling.

Volusion Pros

• Super friendly design
• Easy marketing and inventory system
• The platform is straightforward to navigate
• Amazing help center and onboarding support
• Inbuilt subscription/recurring payments
• Highly flexible

Volusion Cons

• It lacks an inbuilt blogging functionality
• The look and layout of the site could use some improvements
• It does not have cross/up-selling features

Volusion Plans and Pricing

The pricing tiers of this platform are:

• Personal – $29 per month
• Professional – $79 per month
• Startup – $179 per month
• Business – $299 per month
• Custom – Contact Support

You do not have to worry about commissions with Volusion. And you can get started with the free-trial period without putting in your credit card details. 

The higher the plan you choose, the more benefits and features you get to run your ecommerce venture.

Volusion Site Building Features

• Inventory management
• Secure payment system
• Paid and free themes
• Drag-and-drop interfaces
• Secure checkout
• SEO tools
• Automatic tax calculator
• Coupons and discounts
• Abandoned cart reporting
• SKU export and important
• Reviews and ranking

Volusion Level of Support

Past customers have left many positive feedbacks regarding Volusion’s support.

You can contact the support via phone and live chat. And they also provide an online help center and community forums.

Volusion Usability

Volusion’s ecommerce platform is relatively easy to use, thanks to its drag and drop feature. 

It’s an easy-to-set-up platform, and it integrates with third-party software such as Salesforce and Google Analytics.

14. Ecwid

If you are using WordPress and looking for a worthy alternative to WooCommerce, you should consider ECwid. 

This platform is not as popular as WooCommerce, but it provides many outstanding features. 

Equally, it offers a variety of benefits to help get your online store up and running. 

One such benefit is selling your products on multiple platforms such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

In fact, ECwid’s significant advantage is that it is compatible with a variety of platforms. 

In addition to being compatible with WordPress, you can add Ecwid to Weebly, Wix, Joomla, Adobe Muse, Tumblr, Blogger, and Squarespace.

As such, with Ecwid, you can convert almost any website to an ecommerce platform. 

This platform also provides an all-in-one solution to selling on Amazon’s top leading marketplace.

You can also integrate Ecwid with CRMs such as Salesforce.

Another great feature of Ecwid is that they offer a free forever plan. The plan is entirely free, but you can only sell ten products with it. 

However, the free plan does not allow for integration with other platforms and the Amazon marketplace.  

So this means you have to be on the paid plans to integrate your online store with other platforms.

Ecwid Pros

• It offers a forever free plan
• You can integrate your online store with other marketplaces
• Very easy to set up
• It allows you to turn virtually any site into an eCommerce platform
• The paid plans are reasonable
• Easy to scale
• Compatible with popular website builders and CMS platforms

Ecwid Cons

• The free plan is limited to only ten products
• Integrating your online store with other platforms is not free

Ecwid Plans and Pricing

In addition to the free plan, this platform has three other plans. The three paid tiers are:

• Venture – $15/month
• Business – $35/month
• Unlimited – $99/month

For the venture plan, you can list up to 100 products, while the Business plan allows you to list up to 2,500 products. 

Whereas the Unlimited plan, as the name implies, has no limitation.  

As usual, the benefits and features only get better as the plan goes up. 

You will get to enjoy everything the platform has to offer when you opt for the highest plan. 

This is a positive thing as it allows you to start small and opt for a higher plan as your business grows.

Ecwid Site Building Features

Here are some of the features on the free plan, which are all included in the paid plans:

• Sell on Google, Instagram, and Facebook
• Mobile app for managing your store
• Advanced SEO tools
• App Market for enhancing the functionality of your store
• Set up discounts

Ecwid Level of Support

Ecwid has a help center where you can learn more about the platform. There is also live chat support to attend to your immediate needs.

Ecwid Usability

Ecwid does not come with a drag and drop interface like other platforms discussed. 

However, the platform is still a bit easy to set up. It is easy to navigate and set up your store.

15. OpenCart

OpenCart also made it to the list because it has several great features, and it is effortless to use. 

It is an open source ecommerce platform and currently the home to over 400,000 ecommerce stores worldwide. 

OpenCart has a wide range of free extensions and many useful inbuilt features.

This platform also has many free and paid themes. The themes are also mobile-friendly and highly responsive. 

Design themes are available in OpenCart’s marketplace, and you can find more than 13,000 themes and templates. 

However, one of the drawbacks of this platform is that its marketplace is a bit messy and lacks organization.

OpenCart allows you to sell unlimited digital and physical products. 

You can also choose between subscription and one-time selling options.

Interestingly, this platform has over 30 integrated payment gateways such as Authorize.NET, PayPal, Amazon Payments, SagePay, LiqPay, First Data, Skrill, and more.

Are you looking for a convenient and easy-to-manage ecommerce platform? OpenCart allows for easy management of your online store. 

The platform makes it easy for you to manage customers, products, tax rules, orders, and promo codes. 

With OpenCart’s admin dashboard, you can easily view the performance of your online store.

OpenCart Pros

• 36 integrated payment gateways
• Over 13,000 themes and templates
• You can add unlimited digital and physical products
• Free community support with forums
• Allows for easy store management
• Integrated shipping methods

OpenCart Cons

• The marketplace of this platform is a bit messy
• Need additional tweaking for SEO
• A bit difficult to customize
• It can be slow if not correctly configured

OpenCart Plans and Pricing

OpenCart’s ecommerce platform is entirely free, which means you can download and use it free of charge. 

However, you will come across some additional costs, such as a web hosting plan, which costs about $10 per month and up (depending on your hosting provider). 

You will have to purchase a domain name, which will cost you about $15 to $20 per year. 

Lastly, the numerous themes, templates, and add-ons are not free, and you have to purchase them.

OpenCart Site Building Features

• Unlimited categories
• Sell digital products
• Unlimited manufacturers and products
• Ratings and reviews
• Over 36 payment gateway
• Multiple shipping methods
• Discount couple system
• Printing invoices
• Multiple tax rates
• Shipping calculation
• Sales reports

OpenCart Level of Support

For an open source platform, the support level you get from OpenCart is sufficient with industry standards. 

They have many good positive feedbacks, and they are readily available to help you resolve any issue your experiencing. 

However, the support on this platform is limited mostly to documentation and forums.

OpenCart Usability

As a free ecommerce platform, OpenCart has an effortless and straightforward design. 

It has a demo that will guide you through the installation and setting up process. 

However, you might need external help, as the demo is somewhat limited.

16. Zyro

The last on the list is Zyro, and it is another reliable ecommerce platform option available for your consideration. 

Zyro’s web builder has simple features, making it easy to use for the novice and less tech-savvy.

You can use Zyro to create a website or build an online store in a matter of minutes.

This platform is excellent for creating a portfolio, ecommerce website, or a simple blog. 

Especially, Zyro comes with many beautiful and unique themes and templates that you can use to customize your online store.

It also allows for easy and seamless customization, thanks to its drag-and-drop feature. 

The platform is highly responsive and mobile-friendly, so your online store can display correctly mobile devices.

One of the most remarkable features of this platform is its Artificial Intelligence tool. In just a few seconds, this AI tool can generate text for your store. 

From a cost perspective, the pricing of Zyro’s ecommerce platform is competitive among its peers.

Zyro Pros

• Easy-to-use website builder
• Advanced AI tool
• Highly responsive and mobile-friendly design
• Allows for easy customization
• Many beautiful themes and templates to choose from
• Highly functional eCommerce service

Zyro Cons

• The free account lack add-ons
• You cannot switch templates
• You cannot schedule blog posts

Zyro Plans and Pricing

• Ecommerce Plan – $22.99 per month or $8.99 per month if you prepay for four years
• Ecommerce Plus Plan – $29.99 per month or $14.99 per month if you prepay for four years

Zyro Site Building Features

• About 50 different payment options
• Complete order tracking
• Inventory management
• Shipping and tax management
• Gift cards and discount coupons
• Unlimited product listings
• Multiple languages
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Multi-channel selling

Zyro Level of Support

The support team of this platform is available for you 24/7. However, the only limitation is that you can reach them via email.

Zyro Usability

Zyro is very easy to use. It has a drag-and-drop store builder that makes it easy, quick, and stress-free to create your online store. 

The user interface is great, and you can navigate and move around the platform without any issues.

Final Thoughts

Generally speaking, your ability to conduct trade over electronic channels is the future of all entrepreneurial endeavors.

An ecommerce platform is an engine that facilitates that trade over electronic channels.

When you start your ecommerce journey, your chosen ecommerce platform can make all the difference between success and failure.

Without an ecommerce platform, you or your business will be unable to seamlessly generate revenue and deliver goods and services to your customers online.

As an ecommerce entrepreneur, owner, manager, or operator, you should be thinking long-term and want a platform that can scale.

Likewise, you should want a platform that doesn’t bind you into proprietary systems and processes.

And you should seek an agile platform for adaptability and extendability.

You should desire a platform that talks with multiple channels across sales, support, vendor relations, marketplaces, plugins, etc.

Having the right ecommerce platform determines how well and fast your ecommerce business grows.

How is your current ecommerce platform delivering results for your ecommerce business?  

If you’re starting, what ecommerce platforms are you considering for your new ecommerce venture?

Comment below – let’s talk!