The year 2020 which was the beginning of the Covid-19 era, was very difficult for retailers to survive who didn’t have an online presence. This is when eCommerce came in as a boon that helped them create their online presence and stay in business.
During the pandemic-induced lockdown period, eCommerce adoption increased significantly, with growing usage and trust amongst smartphone users across the bigger cities and also dwelling deeper into smaller cities and non-urban areas, with customers buying products ranging from basic commodities to products from their favourite lifestyle brands, from the comfort of their homes and reducing their risks by avoiding crowded experiences.
What is an eCommerce Platform?
An eCommerce platform is a package of software that allows companies to develop, host, and manage e-commerce websites. Modern eCommerce platforms, which are a must-have for any online business, will allow seamless integration of front-end (the part that customers see) and back-end operations (all the behind-the-scenes things like payments, delivery, and stock management).
You will find many e-commerce platforms in the market OpenSource, SAAS-based, Headless etc. Without wasting any of your time, let me take you through the main agenda of this blog content, where I will be introducing you to some of the Best eCommerce Platforms to use in 2022, to help you decide while switching your offline business to online or migrating from one platform to another, starting with:
Magento
Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. Magento provides two distinct platforms: Magento Open Source (previously Magento Community Edition) and Magento Commerce; the latter is available in an on-premises version (previously Magento Enterprise Edition) or as a platform-as-a-service (previously Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition). There were also two former platforms, Magento Professional Edition, and Magento Go. Magento should be a priority for businesses and individuals looking to develop long-term professional e-commerce sites. Magento is the best open source for setting up an online shop. But most importantly, it’s very professional and completely free.
Some of the best reasons to choose Magento:
- Mobile Friendly
- Scalable & Strong
- Easy to Integrate Third-Party Plugins
- Different Models in eCommerce like B2C, B2B, B2B2C
- Advanced Security
- Advance SEO
- Better Speed
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress that gives customers an open-source CMS, in addition to the extendable use of several plugins and extensions. It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress. WooCommerce is a famous call within the e-commerce industry, by and large, due to the fact it’s far an easy-to-use, customisable, and open-source e-commerce platform for businesses ranging from different dimensions.
Some of the best reasons to choose WooCommerce:
- Quick Setup
- Limitless Customizations along with free and paid themes & plugins
- Flexible & Scalable
- Cost-effective
Drupal Commerce
Drupal has been the CMS of choice for large websites. It offers new features to e-commerce businesses and enables their customers to have a better online shopping experience. Additionally, you can use a Drupal ecommerce module which will help you engage more visitors and ensure more conversions through your website. Drupal Commerce is an open-source eCommerce framework used to build complex & flexible eCommerce Websites.
Some of the best reasons to choose Drupal Commerce:
- Good for creating large complex websites
- Fully Open-Source
- Several Functionalities
- Content-Driven
- Data Security
- Support Easy Integrations
- Robust eCommerce Workflows
- Improved Performance
Shopify
Shopify is a cloud-based software system that operates on a monthly subscription model; it gives small business owners access to the admin panel where they can enter store data, add products, etc which will help you to get your online store up and running quickly. Even a layman can find it easy to set up a store in Shopify as it is built keeping their end users in mind.
Some of the best reasons to choose Shopify:
- Easy To Use
- Quick Setup
- Flexible & Scalable
- Cost-effective
However, the main disadvantage for Shopify is the high Transaction Fees attached to their services.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a scalable and open SaaS e-commerce platform. BigCommerce, as the hosting service provider, hosts, supports and maintains the web-based application. BigCommerce offers a user-friendly UI that makes it simple to navigate. However, this platform employs technical words that may be difficult to understand for those who are not computer-knowledgeable. However, with enough practice, it is possible to have a grasp of all the terminologies and fully utilize all of the platform’s functions.
PrestaShop
PrestaShop is a self-hosted, open-source, freemium ecommerce platform. The software, which is developed in the PHP programming language and supports the MySQL database management system, may be deployed on any server of your choice. PrestaShop offers an easy-to-use interface and a large selection of pre-made templates. PrestaShop is not built for large stores or businesses, thus we would not recommend it if you want to open a large store.
And there are others…
Apart from the above-mentioned platforms, there are also other several e-commerce platforms available in the market, each with its own set of features, benefits, and drawbacks like Wix, OpenCart, Salesforce Commerce, IBM Websphere Commerce, NopCommerce, SAP Commerce, osCommerce, ZenCart, SquareSpace, etc.
Fig i – eCommerce Statistics 2021 (Source: TrustRadius Platform Data Collected in June 2021)
Conclusion
It’s not an easy decision to make over a cup of tea, to switch your business from offline to online. When you are planning to take your retail business online, perhaps the greatest choice to make is to identify the best platform, their pros & cons, whether they will guarantee versatile long growth, help you to develop the right kind of revenue and allow you to centralise your whole operations on one-click.
Businesses have undergone significant and frequent transformations as a result of the rise of online commerce. Your business online will have the best chance of reaching your customers if you remain adaptable and keep their demands at the forefront of everything you do because it’s only you who knows your business the best, the products that you are going to sell online and what may change as per the market trend. Finding the right eCommerce platform, however, is the first step.
So go ahead and do it. Keep these helpful hints in mind, apply these to the trial, and you’ll be able to choose the best eCommerce platform for your online presence.
If you need help evaluating the best eCommerce platform for your business, connect with us at Focalworks to learn more about our technology and works. Kindly visit our work to see examples of our projects. With over 16+ years of experience, we have been working with client partners from across the globe to help them adopt and implement the right technology to enable and grow their businesses.
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