In this article we’ll take a look at the five best eCommerce software providers on the market today. But what is it that you should look for in an eCommerce platform? Regardless of whether you’re starting a new website from scratch, or re-platforming from an existing site, there are some key features that you need to look for. At Shopping Cart Elite, we feel that we have all of the necessary components and skills to be the very best provider for your website.

Customers looking for an eCommerce solution are now spoiled for choice when it comes to platforms. As well as the huge companies that power hundreds of thousands of websites, there are also smaller and more niche-based ones. Regardless of the size of your business though, you’re aiming to find eCommerce software that is comprehensive and intuitive, well-supported, and that can deliver a fast, fully-optimized site with minimum fuss. Below are our top choices:

Shopping Cart Elite: The Best eCommerce Software
Our platform was first release back in 2009. Our founder, Igor Soshkin, has a background in both eCommerce and B2B auto parts sales. After finding his love for software development, and seeing how internet companies were crying out for a powerful and all-encompassing platform, he founded Shopping Cart Elite. Since then, our team of experts has grown, and our platform has become better and better.

Our aim now is to deliver a comprehensive eCommerce solution. That means that we’re dedicated to proving our customers with everything they need for success, right out of the box. You won’t need to buy add-ons or extra software, and you won’t have to fumble in the dark looking for answers. We implement the most revolutionary software and designs into our sites, and roll them out to our entire user base free of charge. Furthermore, our team of expert customer advice reps is trained to help with all of your queries. Here are some of the features we’re most proud of:

Pros

• Add-on free: We guarantee that our sites will have lightning-quick load times on both mobile and desktop, and that your monthly fees won’t spiral out of control. We do this by ensuring your site has all the functionality it needs from the start. Whether it is payment gateways, site search, marketplace integration, SEO, marketing, or live chat, we offer the complete package.
• World-class customer service: With over 130 support staff members, and 24/7 critical incident monitoring, we offer the best possible customer service. Our staff are regularly trained and tested to be the best they can possibly be. What’s more, you’ll be given your own account manager who will take care of your issues to ensure they’re resolved quickly.
• B2B and B2C: Regardless of whether you sell direct to customers or other businesses, we can provide your company with an online store. We have specialist tools for B2B customers who need to deal with large inventories, multiple wholesale customers, and other B2B-specific requirements.
• Easy to use API: Our customers receive the same easy-to-use API that we use. It’s ready to use right out of the box and is wide open for literally any customization you can think of. You’ll have everything you need to implement your eCommerce store exactly how you want it.

All of these factors, in addition to many others, are why we think we’re the best eCommerce service provider on the market. But let’s see how similar companies compare.

The Best eCommerce Software Runner Up: BigCommerce

BigCommerce have a good reputation in the eCommerce market. They offer a strong service that is customizable and means you can create a site mostly to your own specifications. Their reputation is good, having established themselves in the market since 2009. They claim that the BigCommerce platform has process over $8 billion in sales over the years. However, they did unsettle their user base in 2016 when they suddenly changed their pricing and fees structure.

Pros

• A recognised name in the market that provides many businesses, large and small, with their websites.
• Good customisation in terms of design, with some intuitive built-in features. The platform gives you a fair amount of freedom to run your site the way you want to.
• They offer a good range of tutorials to get you started. This includes help videos, articles, and a fairly active forum. They’ve put a big focus on helping users educate themselves on how to use the BigCommerce platform.

Cons

• Pricing, aside from the controversy of 2016, still remains an issue for many customers. Although the initial monthly fees aren’t huge, there are many additional ones that soon mount up. Things like transaction fees, credit card fees, and add-on fees, can make your monthly payment increase quite a bit.
• The platform relies heavily on add-ons to get all of the functionality a good site requires. This can lead to a fairly bloated backend system that slows down site performance. Additionally, their app store isn’t quite as thorough as other sites on this list.

Shopify

Shopify boast a huge user base of over 377,000 websites on their platform. With numbers like this, it’s not hard to see that they’re a popular choice of provider. They do offer some really attractive options. For example, their range of plans takes into account businesses of all sizes, meaning you don’t have to pay over the odds if you’re a small trader. Their sites have some good features and are usually pretty fast and secure.

Pros

• The platform can build some beautiful-looking sites. Their basic themes are reasonably good, but their store is full of fantastic ones, available at an extra cost.
• Their in-built tools are good. Although not as extensive as some of the best eCommerce software providers, what they do have works well. There are some good marketing and SEO functions.

Cons

• Customization is quite hard with Shopify. Although you can create a theme that looks great, extra functionality is hard to achieve. The code base is quite difficult to work with, so you can’t really make minimal adjustments like you can with other providers.
• Once again, add-ons can be a real pain. Not only do they drive up the cost of your monthly plan, they can often conflict with each other. However, to achieve a functional site, you are forced to use them.

Volusion

Volusion is a company that has been around for quite a while. They were originally founded in 1999, making them the oldest company on our list. Despite their age, they haven’t quite reached the size of providers such as BigCommerce and Shopify in terms of total sites. They host a modest 40,000 eCommerce sites. However, sheer number of customers doesn’t necessarily make the best eCommerce software. They do offer a more comprehensive set of features out of the box than some of the other sites on this list, reducing the need for add-ons.

Pros

• They have made sure their customer support is of a good quality. Other bigger companies sometimes struggle to deal with the demand, but Volusion seem to offer a reliable service package.
• Their platform is fairly simple to use. You don’t need to know HTML or CSS to make a good job of creating a site. The interface is relatively user-friendly, and they cater to a wide range of industries.

Cons

• For the most part, Volusion don’t implement transaction fees. This seems like a great idea, until you realize that they do have a bandwidth limit. Unless you pay to be exempt from this limit, you’ll have to start paying anyway if you exceed their restrictions.
• In order to have a site that is secured with an SSL certificate, you’ll have to pay extra. Depending on how much extra security you want, you’ll have to pay between $89 and $1000 a year extra.

Wix

Last on our list of the best eCommerce software providers is Wix. They released the first iteration of their platform back in 2007 and have grown steadily ever since. They use a freemium model for website building, whereby users pay to access premium features and add-ons. Their platform has traditionally been fairly simple (sometimes overly so) meaning that newcomers fair quite well with it.

Pros

• They do offer a ‘free’ plan to their customers. If you’re new to eCommerce and want to try out building a web store, this is a good way to do it. However, there are quite a few restrictions with the free plan.
• Their interface is fairly intuitive yet still simple enough for inexperienced users. They have some good functionality built in, and provide tutorials and help articles demonstrating how to use it.

Cons

• For a provider that aims themselves at smaller businesses, their monthly pricing can soon add up. Add-ons, of course, cost extra and unfortunately none of the plans provide unlimited bandwidth or file storage.
• There’s no way to import or export data. This is an incredibly frustrating matter, particularly if you have a large product catalog. It means you can’t make mass changes to your site, but have to do each part by hand.

The Best eCommerce Software

From our reviews, it’s possible to see why we think Shopping Cart Elite is the best eCommerce software available. Because we know the industry and its many pitfalls, we can provide a complete solution that ticks all the boxes. We strive to be transparent about pricing, provide the best possible support, and deliver all the essential tools, and more, for your business to succeed.