What is e-commerce?
E-commerce is the act of buying and selling products and services through the internet. E-commerce can do this through a series of technologies such as electronic funds transfer, internet marketing, mobile commerce, supply chain management, electronic data interchange (EDI), and automated data collection systems.
Best e-commerce platform
An E-commerce platform provides you with the avenue to build an online profile that lets you make sales and fulfill orders. A regular e-commerce platform lets you list your goods and accept payment online. But the best platforms for e-commerce allow you to not only process payments but also give you easy access to all the equipment needed to market your product online. But you need not worry about how to find the best platforms for e-commerce because we already got that covered for you
BigCommerce provides all you need to sell online. It supports sales to all platforms like eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook. It accepts other payment options like Square and PayPal. BigCommerce offers all forms of customer care support. It does this through email, chat, and phone. You can also find a lot of videos and articles on their site to help you with e-commerce. Better still, you get access to their team of experts to provide counsel and guidance on how to sell online. Bigcommerce provides lots of themes and templates. It also utilized a full feature CMS. The full feature CMS enables users to run an entire website. The shipping detail can be customized to suit the business requirement. Payments are accepted through 40+ pre-integrated gateways.
BigCommerce starts with a 15 days trial, after which you’re requested to pay to continue using.
BigCommerce payment plan is as follows:
- $29.95/month – Standard
- $79.95/month – Plus
- $299.95/month – Pro
BigCommerce regulates and increases its charges. This depends on whether or not you can hit a certain milestone at the end of the year
When it comes to e-commerce, there are not many platforms as popular as Shopify. As of the time of writing this article, Shopify is currently trusted by more than 1.7 million businesses worldwide. It has one of the best user interfaces and it’s a great option for business just starting. Shopify is considered by many as the best e-commerce platform. For example, it is the platform Kylie Jenner used to build her billion-dollar empire. She did that while selling lips Kits from Kylie Cosmetics. However, small businesses can start-up as well. Shopify comes with tools and features for multi-channel sales. This allows you to sell directly through your website, social media, retail store, and third-party marketplace. Shopify takes care of all of your business. Their business tools contain a best-in-class suite that can be used to build a complete business command center. The payment processing is handle by Shop Pay. An in-person sale is administered by Shopify POS, and you can get products into customer’s hands through Shopify Fulfillment.
Shopify integrated pay channels include Instagram, Facebook, eBay, Marketplace, Amazon, and Walmart.
Shopify’s amazing features mean that you don’t need any expert knowledge and a high budget to set up your business and scale your brand to an international audience.
Shopify offers a 14-day trial
Shopify Payment Plan is as follows.
- $29/month – Basic Shopify
- $79/month – Shopify
- $299/month – Advanced Shopify
It is important to know that these are just the base rates. Processing of payments, adding of apps and some other features will cost you.
Our list of best e-commerce platforms cannot be complete without Wix. Wix is a simple drag-and-drop website builder. It offers web hosting, customizable templates, and name registration. You have to have a paid plan to be able to use Wix e-commerce features but you can be able to build a basic website for free. Wix’s integrated sales channels include Ecwid (require third-party app), and Facebook. Wix store manager, simplify the process of tracking orders, managing inventory, and communicating with your customers.
Wix is one of the best free e-commerce platforms but unfortunately, unlike the others on this list, Wix doesn’t have a free trial.
Wix payment plan is as follows:
- $23/month – Business Basic
- $27/month – Business Unlimited
- $49/month – Business VIP
- $500/month – Enterprise
WooCommerce is not just one of the best e-commerce platforms but it’s also the most popular. As at the time of writing this article, powers 30% of the online store in the world. It has also be downloaded about 80 million times. WooCommerce is not like the other best e-commerce platform on our list. It is more of a plug-in and it is made for WordPress rather than an all-in-one e-commerce platform. The advantage that WooCommerce gives you is that you can use it to turn any site running on WordPress into e-commerce. You can download and install WooCommerce easily but you have to first have your domain and WordPress account. After that, you just simply install it like any other plug-ins. WooCommerce remains one of the best e-commerce platforms but we can only recommend it to content-based websites. If you are planning to build a website from scratch and sell hundreds of diverse items, you should check out the rest of this article
WooCommerce integrated sales channels include Esty, Pinterest, eBay, Google Shopping, Amazon, Facebook, and Walmart
WooCommerce doesn’t have a free trial but interestingly, it offers a money-back guarantee within 30days. if you’re not pleased with it
WooCommerce payment plans are as follows:
- The average monthly fee is up to $30
WooCommerce estimates costs to be:
- $120/year – Hosting
- $15/year – Domain name
- Up to $100/year for your site theme
- Up to $108/year – shipping
- 2.9% plus $0.30 per sale
- Up to $348/year – communications and marketing
- Up to $79/year – SEO
- Up to $65/year – SSL certificate
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