Establishing an eCommerce business can be a daunting venture. The constantly evolving dynamics of the eCommerce industry and the technical difficulties involved in eCommerce website development make it difficult for new entrepreneurs.
To ensure that the startup process is smooth, entrepreneurs can choose readymade eCommerce platforms that significantly decrease the development costs and time.
There are a lot of readymade eCommerce platforms to choose from; however, selecting the most suitable e-commerce platform for new businesses isn’t an easy task. Additionally, picking an e-commerce platform that claims to be a “jack of all trades” isn’t the best choice. Choosing an eCommerce platform that gives your company the greatest chance to meet its particular needs is essential.
• Meets your business needs
• Is customizable (So that you can make changes as per changing market scenarios)
• SEO-friendly (You want your ecommerce website to show in search results, don’t you?)
• Is easy to manage
To make the overall process of choosing the best ecommerce platform easy for entrepreneurs, we have curated this list of a few ready to launch systems catering to the popular ecommerce sectors:
Given that startups are usually tight on budgets, The WordPress eCommerce platform, which is already built for them, is the most suitable option. It is because custom software solutions demand a greater expenditure of time and money. WordPress is popular for its versatility and whatever you want in your e-commerce website; WordPress can integrate it completely for you.
WordPress includes all the features that are relevant to various kinds of sites. WordPress contains several of the most effective eCommerce tools, and it integrates with almost every third-party service. For example, WooCommerce is known to be the most popular open-source eCommerce system, but it was originally designed as it is a WordPress plugin.
OpenCart platform is an open-source platform that can be easily modified and customized as per your business requirements. OpenCart offers some great functionalities and features for making unique eCommerce websites. It has a robust administrator dashboard that gives you an at-a-glance view of important metrics like sales, customers, and more. The platform offers plenty of third-party integrations. Further, it also has a large marketplace of themes, plugins, gateways, and more. This platform is a little expensive than WordPress.
Magento is an excellent readymade eCommerce platform, which came out as one of the most robust, flexible, user-friendly, and scalable platforms. Though this platform is a bit expensive than WordPress and OpenCart, it is highly flexible and offers limitless customization. The reason for such high flexibility is simple: the platform is open source. You can modify the code, customize templates, twist, and turn the features exactly the way you need. If Magento doesn’t provide the functionality you require, you can integrate a third-party extension or build one from scratch to make your eCommerce store more appealing.
On top of that, Magento’s API-led architecture makes it easier to integrate third-party systems like ERP, CRM, payment methods without slowing down your website. Further, Magento is extremely feature-rich and offers maximum scope for scalability. However, Magento development is time-consuming and involves high development costs..
Shopify is a cloud-based web application that allows you to create your online store. It provides you with a wide range of ‘themes’ that can be customized to meet your branding requirements. Shopify offers a variety of themes that can potentially increase visits to your page. These themes are divided into categories like Furniture, Food & Beverage, Art & Photography, etc., so that your website looks like what it is intended for. There is an even wider range if you are willing to pay for it.
Shopify provides a wide range of features for free; if you need a functional website, it has a cost. The lowest plan starts at just $29, but it can go up to $299. This can go even higher when you add the subscriptions you pay for with certain applications. If you need a third-party gateway, you have to pay a certain amount of fees. The fees can range from 0.5% to 2% per transaction. If you have a comparatively smaller business, this could add up to a lot.
These are some of the best readymade eCommerce platforms you can use to build an eCommerce website for your startup business. You need to consider your requirements and budget before choosing an eCommerce platform.
