What Are the Best Ecommerce Solutions Out There?
In 2017, US shoppers spent $453.46 billion online, which is a significant increase from previous years. With the help of ecommerce software solutions, you can get in on that trend and start making the most out of your business at the smallest cost.
An ecommerce software is what powers an online store and assists you with selling online without the need of having strong technical skills. However, you won’t have to spend money on getting designers or developers either. The only thing that you have to worry about is selecting the ecommerce software that will work the best for what your business wants and needs.
It’s both a blessing and a curse that there is so much software available. On one hand, it’s great that there’s such a wide selection, but at the same time, it’s difficult to pinpoint which one would be the best since as you go through all of the technicalities, you get more and more confused the longer you search.
However, in the end, you’ll be able to sell your items from your own store without the need of any major expertise, so all of the sweat and tears poured out during the search will be paid off. Thankfully, though, we were once in your position, so we can actually help guide you in the right direction and help you steer clear from the many obstacles that we had faced ourselves, that way you don’t have to go through them.
First of all, before even beginning your search, you should figure out which kind you’re willing to invest in; a hosted or self-hosted ecommerce solution. Since hosted software is typically cheaper and easier to work with, we’ll immediately cross off all of the self-hosted software from the list. Having narrowed down the amount of platforms out there, let’s take a look at some of the top ones to figure out which features that you can and can’t live without.
Ecommerce Software Solutions
Shopify
This ecommerce platform is one that is known by many as it works well with both starting and growing businesses. In other words, they’re scalable. They’ve got over 100 themes that are transferable to mobile devices. You have the freedom of moving parts around in the themes to customize them. They’ve also got more than 1,400 applications that way you can increase the functionality of your website. Additionally, they offer support every single day and hour, regardless of the day of the week, while offering qualified experts for hire as well if you want to take your site up a notch. However, they do have a “drag and drop” functionality, that way if you don’t have the funds to hire someone to help, you can easily figure out on your own how to edit your webpage without the need of knowing how to code. Keep in mind, though, that although it’s fairly simple, it doesn’t mean that it can’t handle bigger stores.
However, you can’t expect them to be perfect. For instance, yes they do offer many applications but that’s because they heavily rely on those third-party applications. This means that on top of the platform, you also have to pay for the applications. They’ve also got content and shipping limitations, just to name a few.
BigCommerce
This one is less known, but it’s still quite reputable. You can also easily create your own store without getting all caught up and confused in the technology. Again, it’s also scalable, so there’s no need to worry about the sizing of your business. With this software, you receive a set of “out-of-the-box” ecommerce tools that are useful for constructing your store, it takes advantage of various social channels in order to boost your sales, they offer many advanced tools in their app store, and they also offer support all day every day. However, they do offer a few more tools in their basic package in comparison to Shopify.
As we learned earlier, though, there’s no such thing as the perfect ecommerce solution. BigCommerce is no different. For one, their selection of free themes could use improvement. You’ve got to upgrade to a pricier package if you end up going over the annual sales threshold that’s associated with that package. Also, a few of the features are only available to those in the United States.
Shopping Cart Elite
Just as the other two do, this platform offers many great templates, is scalable, and it offers support 24/7. However, in addition to all of that, SCE has many more useful features.
This complete ecommerce software offers customized graphic design as well as unlimited products, storage, and bandwidth just to name a few. In addition, they’ve got a number of great tools that are very useful for search engine optimization and marketing. On top of that, they’ve got a strong bandwidth that is integrated with the applications necessary for handling anything in the backend such as order management, CRM, ERP, shipping, as well as inventory.
This platform can really take your business to the next level by automating each aspect of the business from the start to the end. Marketing automation is also simple since their staff helped create the marketing systems. Also, your store would be completely optimized for search engine crawlers since the white hat SEO strategies are also automated. In addition to all of this, you can sell on many channels at a time such as eBay, Amazon, Google Shopping, and so much more. The great part is that you wouldn’t need to purchase or download any other application in order for that to work. On top of all of that, you are able to make the right business decisions based on predictive analytics that is based off of collected reliable data.
Conclusion
Use these three platforms as a starting point to find the best solution for you. The best ones out there may not mean that they’re the best for you. However, these have worked for many. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages, so figure out which one has everything, or close to everything that you need and you’re good to go!