By: Jonathan Chan
These days, if you want to sell something, anything, you can be selling it online in a matter of hours, sometimes for free. There’s more opportunity than ever to create a successful ecommerce business. But there’s also a dizzying selection of ecommerce platforms.
That’s why we did the work for you, and took a deep dive into the five leading ecommerce platforms, outlining what each one has to offer and which one might be right for you.
One that will become immediately apparent to anyone looking to get into ecommerce is that it is impossible to find a one-size-fits-all ecommerce platform.
You have some platforms that are better for entrepreneurs who are just starting out, and other platforms better suited to small-to-mid-sized businesses. Some platforms are easier for beginners, but might seem too simple for those who like having more options.
Each one has its own pros and cons, so there’s truly no one best choice, but finding the right one for you is a whole different matter entirely.
As part of the release of our newest online course, Start and Scale, where we teach you everything you need to know about starting your own ecommerce business, we spent several hours picking apart the ecommerce platforms on the market to see how they compare.
In the end, we came up with our top five favorite tools for today’s ecommerce entrepreneur, and put together the following in-depth reviews of each one. Again, because your needs and skills may vary, this isn’t a ranking—more like a handbook for selecting the right ecommerce platform just for you.
Listed in no particular order, here’s the Foundr review of the five best ecommerce platforms.
Best Ecommerce Platforms
Note: Full disclosure, there are affiliate links within this post. However, the opinions and reviews I give are based on my own personal experiences and research.
Shopify
If you’ve been searching for an ecommerce platform to run your store, you’ve no doubt seen the name Shopify before. Out of all the current players on the market, Shopify is by far the most popular, with over 400,000 merchants using it in 175 countries.
It’s the preferred ecommerce platform of Gretta Rose van Riel, head instructor of the Start and Scale course. Gretta is the founder of SkinnyMe Tea, The 5th, and Drop Bottle, along with brands like Tesla and Black Milk Clothing.
With all that in mind, let’s see what makes Shopify the preferred choice for so many different ecommerce businesses.
Shopify: Short and Sweet
Pros
1. Intuitive and straightforward to get your online store up and running in a short amount of time;
2. Over 100 well-designed themes and templates to pick and choose from;
3. All the essential features an entrepreneur needs to run an online store, already natively integrated within the Shopify platform;
4. An impressive app store for added customization and features for your site;
5. Incredible customer support;
6. Multiple payment plan options, depending on your own needs;
7. Shopify POS, for those who want a brick-and-mortar business as well, which allows you to update inventory, orders, and customers from any device.
Cons
1. Shopify does charge you for every transaction, unless you sign up for Shopify Plus;
2 .Costs can very easily snowball, as extra features, apps, and themes all have their own individual payments from one-off, to monthly, to annual;
3. Even if you already have a background with HTML or CSS, you will need to understand Shopify’s own coding language “Liquid” if you want extra customization;
4. All the native features offered by Shopify are incredibly bare bones. You can work with them, but you will need to go to the app store for extra functionality.
Shopify Pricing
There are four basic payment plan options when it comes to Shopify, with the lowest starting at $9 a month and their most expensive plan at $299 a month. For enterprise-level businesses, though, you can also sign up to Shopify Plus.
Shopify does also offer a 14-day trial for you to test out its various features before committing to anything.
With their basic plan, at $29 a month, you have access to the core Shopify features like being able to create discount codes, host a blog, and access their app store. However, purchasing their higher-tiered plans also gives you access to other features like the ability to generate gift cards and calculate shipping rates of third parties, and abandoned cart recovery.
While Shopify’s pricing does make sense, and it is indeed competitive in comparison with other ecommerce platforms, I should also point out that it is incredibly easy to find your costs snowballing if you’re not careful.
Shopify places a transaction fee on all orders on your store unless you’re on Shopify Plus or your customers are using Shopify Payments. The basic plan charges you an additional 2% fee per transaction, and their advanced plan only charging you an extra 0.5% per transaction.
Also, not all of Shopify’s apps are free. Depending on what kind of functionality and features you want for your online store, you will need to purchase these apps, which can add up.
For example, to integrate your Shopify store with the CRM tool Infusionsoft, you’ll need to purchase the app for $55 a month, on top of whatever you’re already paying on your Shopify plan.
While this is by no means a deal breaker, since these features can end up saving you a lot of time and money in the long run, you have to be careful with your budgeting. You can find out more about Shopify’s payment plans and pricing here.
Ease of Use of Shopify
Where Shopify really shines is how easy it is to use. This is by far the most intuitive ecommerce platform I’ve experienced, and I managed to set up a functioning store in around 50 minutes.
The layout of Shopify’s backend is fairly straightforward, allowing you to quickly add new products quickly. Everything you might need to customize about your product, including tracking inventory, adding variants, and even SEO, is all on one page.
While all of Shopify’s features do seem intimidating at first, I was pleasantly surprised by how they onboard new users with a simple checklist for you to follow, even suggesting different apps you can use to expand your store’s functionality.
Even when you dive in deeper with your Shopify store, it’s fairly easy to manage and track your orders and customers. I didn’t find myself experiencing any major problems when I began “scaling up” my store and started adding in extra features. Even when I did encounter a problem, Shopify’s support team were very quick to help me out.
I can’t see anyone having problems setting up a Shopify, especially for beginners who have never used this type of tool before.
Shopify Design
Shopify offers over a hundred different themes and templates you can choose from for the design of your store. Each theme is professional designed and visually appealing, and they all look very sleek and modern. While there are free themes for you to choose from, you can visit their theme store and purchase one with extra features for $160, on average.
When it comes to customizing the look of your store, Shopify has a straightforward drag-and-drop feature, and it’s easy to make basic design changes like picking new color schemes and fonts. Something I was pleasantly surprised by was that Shopify also offers one complimentary hour of free design support to whoever wants it. And, for those looking to make extensive changes to their theme, you can hire a “Shopify Expert” to handle it for you.
One caveat, though, is that while you can upload your own themes and templates to Shopify, for one reason or another, they end up being very difficult to edit.
I also encountered problems when I tried to customize the code myself, and ended up scrapping it and starting again because of Shopify’s unique coding language.
Shopify Features
On the bright side, Shopify’s native features offer essentially everything you need to get your store up and running as soon as possible.
The SEO features are all built in and automated, so you can customize your own target keywords, URLs, and other details quite easily on your product pages. If you already have a paid ad campaign going, with Google Adwords or Facebook advertising, for example, all you need is the code to immediately integrate it into your Shopify store.
Even using their basic plan, you can create discount codes for any item in your store. Upgrading to their other plans also gives you built-in features for marketing like gift cards, and abandoned cart recovery, which is always useful for any ecommerce entrepreneur.
But, and this is a big but, all the native features are stripped down to their most basic form. This means if you want more functionality, you have no choice but to head over to their apps marketplace.
For example, while you can set up a blog with Shopify, it only has the most basic of features. You can do text, add in images, and all the other basics. But for someone used to the robust nature of WordPress, it was definitely a step back from what I was used to.
Read More at: https://foundr.com/ecommerce-platforms/
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