The Most Successful eCommerce Platforms

If you’re looking to launch an online store, you’ll want to spend some time researching eCommerce platforms to help you lay the foundation for a bustling digital business. Your eCommerce platform serves as the magic (read: software) behind your online storefront, allowing you to list and manage your entire inventory. There are so many big-name services from which to choose; how do you know which one is best?

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It helps if you know what you need from a platform and what each can offer you. The best options serve not only as digital storefronts but also as all-around tools to help you grow, manage, track, and promote your business, all from a single user-friendly interface. Some things to look for in a good eCommerce platform include:

• The ability to customize your experience with various third-party plug-ins and tools that help you meet specific goals.
• A well-designed website and online mobile store- and desktop-friendly- functions seamlessly with mobile commerce.
• The ability to accept various credit card types and payment gateways.
• Advanced reporting, with data and analytics, helps you measure, track, and analyze your sales data so you can constantly adjust as needed.
• Complete order and inventory management tools to help you stay on top of your supply levels, what’s selling out, etc.
• Integrating small business asset management into these tools ensures that resources are allocated efficiently and inventory is optimized.
• A complete blogging platform that helps you build a strong content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
• Comprehensive, built-in SEO tools that help you leverage organic search to make more sales and to make your products easier to find online.
• Around-the-clock customer service and technical support to keep your store up and running with minimal downtime.

The Biggest Players in the eCommerce Game

Though hundreds of eCommerce platforms are out there, we’re focusing on a few of the industry’s biggest and most well-known. Browse this list as a great introduction to some of the more popular options on the market.

1. Shopify – Canadian eCommerce heavyweight Shopify was launched in 2004 by three guys looking for a simple way to open an online store to sell snowboarding equipment. Now, over 15 years later, Shopify employs more than 4,000 people, rakes in over $1 million annually, and serves over 820,000 merchants and 1 million active users.

Shopify is built for small- to medium-sized businesses, but the company offers an enterprise version called Shopify Plus to cater to larger companies. Over 5,300 businesses are using Shopify Plus, including MVMT, Bombas, Leesa, and other companies that have forged their way by being eCommerce disruptors.

2. Magento – Magento is another one of the world’s eCommerce platform giants, serving over 250,000 merchants. Unlike Shopify, Magento is free, open-source software written in PHP that’s available to anyone. It was initially developed in 2007 and has grown exponentially in the past decade thanks to a hefty investment from eBay. In May 2018, Adobe acquired Magento for $1.86 billion and launched a new service called Commerce Cloud.

Magento is a popular platform but is generally favored among larger companies with bigger tech budgets. The fact that it’s open-source makes it highly customizable and provides users with 100 percent control over how the shop looks, feels, and operates. This means that it often takes a more tech-savvy team to work, but templates are available to simplify the process.

3. WooCommerce – WooCommerce is similar to Magento in that it’s an open-source option, but rather than operating as a full-scale platform and host, it serves as a plug-in for WordPress. Even though it offers fewer features and functionality than the two options above, WooCommerce is still extremely popular and owns about 25 percent of the market share.

WooCommerce is so widely used because it’s free and surprisingly flexible, allowing it to adapt to a wide range of store sizes and industries. However, there are a few drawbacks. For example, it doesn’t offer the same number of SEO features and built-in marketing tools that Shopify and Magento do.

4. SalesForce – You probably know of SalesForce because of its uber-popular cloud-based CRM service, but did you know that they offer a high-tech eCommerce platform, too? The San Francisco company is the oldest on this list, founded in 1999 by a former Oracle executive.

SalesForce is a good option for companies of all sizes because it uses your sales as a metric for how much you pay for the service. In other words, the price of a SalesForce license is based on a percentage of each store’s sales. It’s known for its fast, easy implementation and impressive customer support.

5. BigCommerce – Founded in 2009, BigCommerce has grown to be a strong competitor in the eCommerce landscape, used on nearly 20,000 websites worldwide. It’s important to note that, like many of the products on this list, BigCommerce is a SaaS product, meaning you pay a license to use it each month.

BigCommerce comes with hosting, payment, and advanced marketing tools, making it particularly desirable among mid to large-sized businesses amid rapid growth. BigCommerce features a user-friendly interface and templates, which means that it can be mastered by all users and doesn’t require extensive training or tech resources.

Finding the Right Platform for Your Business

Finding the right eCommerce platform is essential in launching an online store. The reality is that your chosen venue will do a ton of the heavy lifting for you, from managing your inventory to helping promote your brand at every step. To prevent any setbacks or disappointments, be sure to spend ample time researching your options before you commit to one.

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