Choosing the right eCommerce platform is crucial for the success of your online business. Here’s a detailed guide to help you make an informed decision based on essential criteria: price, features, scalability, security, ease of use, and support.
1. Price
Consider the cost of the platform, including setup fees, monthly fees, transaction fees, and any additional costs for features or integrations. Platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce have straightforward pricing, while Magento might involve higher costs due to hosting and development needs.
2. Features
Look for features that match your business needs, such as product management, payment gateways, SEO tools, and marketing capabilities. Shopify offers a wide range of built-in features, while WooCommerce provides extensive customization through plugins.
3. Scalability
Choose an eCommerce platform that can grow with your business. Magento and Shopify Plus are known for their scalability, making them suitable for businesses expecting significant growth. BigCommerce also offers robust scalability features, including multi-storefront functionality and advanced analytics.
4. Security
Ensure the platform offers robust security features, including SSL certificates, PCI compliance, and regular updates to protect against cyber threats. Magento and BigCommerce are noted for their strong security measures.
5. Ease of Use
The platform should be user-friendly, with an intuitive interface and easy setup process. Shopify and Wix are praised for their ease of use, making them ideal for beginners. Squarespace is also known for its user-friendly design and drag-and-drop functionality.
6. Support
Reliable customer support is essential. Look for platforms that offer 24/7 support through various channels like chat, email, and phone. Shopify and BigCommerce provide excellent support services, while Wix offers multi-language support.
Recommended Platforms
- Magento (Adobe Commerce)
- Price: Free (Open Source), Enterprise version costs vary
- Features: Highly customizable, extensive plugin marketplace
- Scalability: Excellent for large-scale businesses
- Security: Advanced security features
- Ease of Use: Requires technical knowledge
- Support: Community support, enterprise support for paid version
- Shopify
- Price: Starts at $29/month
- Features: Built-in SEO, marketing tools, multiple sales channels
- Scalability: Suitable for small to large businesses
- Security: PCI compliant, SSL certificates
- Ease of Use: Highly user-friendly
- Support: 24/7 support
- BigCommerce
- Price: Starts at $29.95/month
- Features: SEO tools, multi-channel selling, advanced analytics
- Scalability: Suitable for growing businesses
- Security: PCI compliant, advanced security features
- Ease of Use: User-friendly, though some advanced features may require technical knowledge
- Support: 24/7 support, extensive knowledge base
- WooCommerce
- Price: Free basic plugin (additional features and hosting extra)
- Features: Highly customizable with numerous plugins
- Scalability: Suitable for small to medium businesses
- Security: Depends on hosting provider and plugins
- Ease of Use: Requires some technical knowledge
- Support: Community support, extensive documentation
- Squarespace
- Price: Basic Commerce plan starts at $27/month
- Features: Professionally designed templates, basic eCommerce functionality
- Scalability: Suitable for small to medium businesses
- Security: SSL certificates, PCI compliance
- Ease of Use: Drag-and-drop interface, very user-friendly
- Support: 24/7 email support, live chat support during business hours
- Wix
- Price: eCommerce plans start at $17/month
- Features: Basic eCommerce functionality, customizable templates
- Scalability: Best for small businesses
- Security: SSL certificates, basic security features
- Ease of Use: Very user-friendly, ideal for non-technical users
Support: Multi-language support, 24/7 for major languages
When choosing the right eCommerce platform for your business, consider your specific needs, budget, and technical expertise. Platforms like Magento and BigCommerce offer robust scalability and features for larger businesses, while Shopify and Wix provide user-friendly solutions ideal for small to medium-sized businesses.
By considering these criteria and exploring these platforms, you can find the best solution to grow your online business successfully.
Choosing the Right Ecommerce Platform
When a merchant decides to run an eCommerce store, the very first challenge they meet is choosing a platform for this store. Like with many other products, it’s not as easy as Googling for “the best eCommerce platform.” There are many factors that should be taken into account, and not all of them are obvious.
For example, you should consider the cost of the first version of your store not only by checking the price of the platform itself. All the additional functionality you might need, as a rule, will be provided either by paid apps/extensions or by custom development. And that fact also requires some additional budget. Below, we outline the key factors you should review before jumping into a new eCommerce ecosystem.
Key Factors to Consider
- Cost:
- Platform Price: Initial setup fees and ongoing monthly or annual fees.
- Additional Functionality: Costs for apps, extensions, and custom development.
- Features:
- Basic Features: Product management, SEO tools, marketing capabilities.
- Advanced Features: Multi-channel selling, analytics, and integrations.
- Scalability:
- Growth Potential: Can the platform grow with your business?
- Performance: How well does the platform handle high traffic and large inventories?
- Security:
- Protection Measures: SSL certificates, PCI compliance, regular updates.
- Data Protection: Ensuring customer and business data is secure.
- Ease of Use:
- User-Friendly Interface: How easy is it to set up and manage your store?
- Learning Curve: The amount of time needed to learn and efficiently use the platform.
- Support:
- Customer Support: Availability of support channels like chat, email, and phone.
- Community and Resources: Access to tutorials, forums, and documentation.
Choosing the proper eCommerce platform is vital for your business as it affects your initial costs, growth potential, security, ease of use, and the quality of support you receive. The right platform can help streamline your operations, enhance your customer experience, and ultimately drive your business’s success.
At Atwix, we are not only certified Magento developers but also experts in helping businesses migrate from any platform to Magento. Whether you are starting fresh or looking to upgrade your current system, our team can provide the expertise and support needed to ensure a smooth transition and optimal performance of your eCommerce store. Learn more about our Magento Development Services.
Know Your Business and Its Uniqueness
First, we need to understand that all eCommerce platforms provide more or less the same core functionality. Customers can browse/search the catalog, review product details, add them to the shopping cart, choose a delivery method and pay for the order. At the same time, all merchant’s business models are unique. And that’s the reason why requirements for an eCommerce platform shall cover more than just the core functionality.
You need to identify what makes your business unique and how you plan to engage your customers.
Let’s review an example of a store where you are going to have a sophisticated sales system. Such systems provide discounts for different goods according to the predefined rules. As a result, customers with a matching set of products in the shopping cart should receive a discount [usually during a particular period of time]. The discounting system should include many factors that play a role in generating the final price.
The main question is: would it be great to have this discounting system out of the box, without additional investments? Obviously, the answer is yes! In some rare cases, only one additional thing is required beyond the core functionality that most platforms provide. In other cases, there are, at least, a couple of other extra features that are a must-have for a merchant’s business.
Define the Right eCommerce Structure
Another example is related to the site search. In general, we may outline two main categories of the eCommerce store structure:
- The first one is the customer journey-oriented approach. The main idea is to “guide” customers through the catalog, use different configurators/wizards to create a proper set of products in the shopping cart.
- The second one is the search-oriented approach, when the main navigation through the site is performed by searching for something. An excellent example of the last one is a marketplace like Amazon.
So, if your store will use the second search-oriented model, you need a well-organized search on your website. In this case, the well-organized means support the synonyms, stop words, filters, suggestions, etc. Moreover, it’s not a “luxury” case to have an AI-based search nowadays. We believe you got the idea that having this feature out of the box would be great as well.
With these two items of your business model, you may check the capabilities of different platforms on the market. The main goal is to find a platform that covers the mentioned scenarios. For this particular example, Adobe Commerce Cloud covers both cases. It has a pretty robust system of catalog/shopping cart price rules and Live Search based on the AI system called Sensei. Does this mean that Adobe Commerce Cloud is a silver bullet? Not so fast.
Be One Step Ahead
Besides the mentioned functionality, it makes sense to think about the perspective. Most likely, if you are mindful enough, you will not put everything into your store’s very first release (if you are curious about the details, check our webinar about choosing the correct strategy). It means that you have a backlog of developments for the future. In such case, it makes sense to check the capabilities of different platforms, considering the features planned for the future.
At some point in time, you will face the situation when no platforms cover your particular business need out of the box. So, you need either a 3rd party solution or a team of developers who will bring the missing feature. It makes sense to discover the market from this perspective as well. If you see that you may need a lot of custom development in the future, it’s good to check the development price for different platforms. Frankly speaking, Adobe Commerce, in terms of custom development, might cost you. Does that mean that you should stay away from Adobe Commerce and look for something else? Fortunately, it’s not that simple.
Adobe Commerce vs Other eCommerce Platforms
When we are talking about Adobe Commerce, we may say that it’s the richest eCommerce platform on the market in terms of functionality. There is a significantly higher chance that in this particular platform you will find whatever you are looking for without extra developments on top of it. Also, there are thousands of extensions on the Marketplace that may fulfill your needs.
In terms of customizations, Adobe Commerce holds one of the leading places on the market. Literally, you are allowed to change the system behavior according to any of your needs. Competitors like Shopify, BigCommerce, and others have a strict set of limitations in terms of system customizations compared to the platform from Adobe. Moreover, with Adobe Commerce, you may have all your modifications within the system itself. It means you don’t need to “rent” a self-hosted application and transfer your personal data there for every new function (it’s a typical case for Shopify and similar SaaS solutions).
Consider The Size
Another thing that you should consider is your catalog size and the visitors base. If you have one million SKUs and more, it might not be smooth for some platforms to handle such an amount of data. Or, if your business model will be using flash sales with hundreds of orders per minute, it might be an overkill for most platforms as well. And, you assume we say that Adobe Commerce can easily cover the mentioned cases, right? We wish we could say that. But, as mentioned earlier, with Adobe Commerce, you may tweak any part of the system. And it’s applicable for the performance tweaks as well.
Choose Your Right Solution
And even now, it does not mean that Adobe Commerce is an all-rounder. Think about the opposite example, when you need only a core eCommerce functionality, have a small catalog and a tiny customer base. There’s one or a couple of extra things that might be covered by free apps. And, finally, you don’t need all the instruments Adobe Commerce provides out of the box. Obviously, investing in an enterprise-oriented platform may not be a smart decision.
Considering eCommerce replatforming may significantly enhance your store’s flexibility and efficiency.
So, to summarize, when choosing an eCommerce platform, you need to think of the following factors first:
1. Price
2. Features
3. Scalability
4. Security
5. Ease of Use
6. Support
There are many factors to consider, but we outline the most common ones. It can be challenging to calculate aspects like the ROI of maintaining and improving your store. We recommend consulting with an expert or agency to help you understand your business needs within the eCommerce ecosystem. If you have doubts, feel free to contact us for advice, leveraging our 10+ years of experience in eCommerce development.
If you have other factors to share, please add your thoughts in the comments section below. Thank you for reading.
Learn more about smart eCommerce strategy from the dedicated webinar:
