You will know exactly which platform to use to create your online store! We’re going over the pros and cons of every single e-commerce platform.
Last year, over six trillion dollars were spent on online websites. E-commerce is growing like crazy, but still only makes up 15% of all retail sales. This means right now is the perfect time to start your online store – there’s still a ton of room to grow! By the end of this year, it’s expected that 65% of all Americans will purchase something online.
But if you want to be one of the millions of people making money online, you’re going to need to create a website. Now, we will tell you exactly which platform you should use.
- Shopify
Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms out there (though it’s not actually the most popular).
The most popular e-commerce platform is WooCommerce, but Shopify is still the most popular for professional e-commerce sellers.
Pros Shopify:
- It’s built from the ground up to support e-commerce.
- They also offer 24/7 support
- Multiple Themes
- Easy to set up
- 14 day free trial
- Free SSL Certificate
- A ton of APPS AND PLUGINS
They have a ton of apps, plugins, and integrations. So whatever you want your website to do, there’s probably already an app out there. Back in the old days, when you had an e-commerce store, you would have to hire a developer to custom design some element of your website. But because Shopify has so many apps and plugins, you won’t need to hire a developer – you can just use one of those existing solutions.
Cons Shopify:
- More expensive
- Additional Cost
- Limited Customization for Product Page and Checkout Page
- Bad Customer Service
Even you have 24/7 support with Shopify, the quality of support you get has gone downhill with Shopify over the last few years.
Even you have 24/7 support with Shopify, the quality of support you get has gone downhill with Shopify over the last few years.
If you are looking for a cheaper option than Shopify, stay tuned for WooCommerce – it’s actually a free e-commerce platform.
2. Squarespace
Pros Squarespace:
- Beautiful Websites (There is a huge selection of designer-made templates that look beautiful.)
- 24/7 customer support.
- More affordable ( starting with $16 a month)
Cons Squarespace
- Not made for Ecommerce
- Limited App marketplace
- Limited Features
I do not recommend this platform unless you’re an artist or a creator and you’re trying to make a beautiful website first and foremost, and then you’re just going to happen to be selling some CDs or some art on.
- Wix
Pros Wix :
- Easy to setup
- Large app marketplace
- Reliable platform
- Good security
Cons Wix: It started out as a website builder and then they added the e-commerce functionality later on
- Limited Support
- Limited Features
4. GoDaddy
GoDaddy is another one of those platforms I do not recommend that you use.
Pros : affordable prices on domain names, but a lot of people get tricked into buying their hosting packages and trying to create an online store using GoDaddy.com.
Pros:
- overpriced
- Limited features and functions
5. Big Cartel
Pros:
- Post 5 products for free
- Easy to setup
- Mde for artists and creators.
Cons:
- Limited Features
- Limited Integration
- Limited Templates
- No 24/7 customer support
6. BIGCOMMERCE
BIGCOMMERCE is another platform that used to be really popular but they have since completely pivoted. Now, they only cater to medium and large sized businesses
7. Adobe Commerce
Magento is another platform that used to be really popular three four five years ago. They since have rebranded to Adobe Commerce.
- Pros : Highly Customizable
- Cons : Extremely Complex
You’re going to need to hire a designer or developer to create your entire website.
8. Woo Commerce
Pros:
- It’s free…sort of.
You have to pay for Hosting. There are a lot of options for hosting and getting hosting for your website is extremely affordable.
I recommend going with Hostinger and hosting your website with them only costs between two to three dollars a month.
- Most popular ecommerce Platform
- A ton of Plugins and Apps. In fact WooCommerce has the biggest library of plugins out of all the e-commerce Platforms in the world.
- Extremely Easy to Setup
- A ton of Templates
- Fully Customizable (You can change anything that you want)
Cons:
- It’s not user friendly. If you want to make changes deeper down in the code you might want to hire a professional.
A lot of the basic features are missing from WooCommerce. Because they have such a big app and plug-in catalog. You can usually find a plugin that will work to fix that issue but that means that you’re going to need to install a few plugins in order to use WooCommerce.
- Not professional looking
- Poor technical Support (sometimes you have to deal with Hosting company )
- Complicated issues
9. Amazon
Pros:
- Amazon is the biggest opportunity to make money online right now and that’s because Amazon is a one trillion dollar company.
- Last year there over 500 billion dollars of sales on their platform.
- Allows to sell on Website (Amazon.com)
- Minimal Marketing cost
- Easy to sign up
- Easy to set up. You don’t need to create an entire website all you need to create is a single product page
Cons:
- There are a ton of competition (9 million sellers globally; 3700 new seller every day)
There’s only around 2 million active sellers on the Amazon platform. Only a little over 1 million sellers here in the United States – but over 40 % have made at least 1 hundred thousand dollars selling products on Amazon.
If you sell on Amazon correctly you can avoid this competition.
10. Walmart
Walmart.com which is growing extremely rapidly last year.
Pros:
- They did over 50 billion dollars on their website alone.
- High chance of getting into retail stores.
If you make a lot of sales on their website they’re highly likely to get you into the retail stores. Walmart is the biggest retail giant they did over 500 billion dollars of sales in their retail store.
- No Subscription Fee.
They only charge you a percentage of all the sales.
Cons :
- smaller than Amazon. It’s only making up around 5.3 percent of all e-commerce sales
11. eBay – Etsy – Walmart- Amazon
Pros:
- easier to make money
Because these platforms already have customers going to their website every single day.
Cons:
- You news to pay a fee
Walmart and Amazon charges you a fee of around 15% of all sales that you make .
eBay and Etsy will also charge you fees.
- They can kick you off whenever they want
However when you create a website using Shopify, Woocommerce or one of the other platforms we talked about, you own the website and they can’t kick you off as easily.
Conclusion:
If you plan on selling on Amazon and you still want to create your own website using one of these platforms and out of all these platforms I recommend either Shopify or Woocommerce.
If you’re on a budget or you don’t know how well your Ecommerce business is going to do, I recommend going with Woo commerce it’s a great beginner platform. It’s extremely affordable and it’s easy to set up If you’re looking to have a more professional e-commerce business I recommend going with Shopify. It is more expensive, but in the long run it’s probably going to be money well spent.