The Top 10 e-Commerce Platforms for Beginners

 

We're taking the top 10 e-Commerce platforms and comparing the pros and the cons of each of them and by the end of this blog, you'll know exactly which one of these you should use to build your online store but stick around till the end of the article.

Right now is the perfect time to start an online store last year there were over 800 billion dollars in e-commerce sales and because of everything that's been happening e-commerce sales have been growing like crazy last year. They're going to keep growing the thing that's interesting about this statistic. There's still so much room for e-commerce to grow, so if you think e-commerce is the future this is the perfect time to build an online store.

Let's start with Shopify let's go over the pros and the cons,

1.SHOPIFY

 

This is probably the most popular e-commerce platform for successful e-commerce entrepreneurs. This isn't overall the most popular platform we'll be talking about Woocommerce later which is the most popular platform. Shopify seems to be the most popular platform amongst successful e-commerce entrepreneurs. A lot of my friends, a lot of people that I know in this space 99 of them are using Shopify to build their online store.

Pros

 

There are a lot of really good reasons for that one of which is that it's built from the ground up with e-commerce in mind unlike some of the other platforms.  From the beginning, Shopify was about selling things online. They also have a ton of apps, plug-ins, and integrations so it makes it easy if you want to connect other services or if there's something that Shopify doesn't have out of the box you can add an app or some kind of integration and pretty much get your store to do just about anything you want. They also have beautiful templates and it's really quick and easy to set up.

 

Cons

 

Big cons with Shopify as well, the biggest one being at $29.99 a month it's a little bit pricey now this price is pretty standard for professional e-commerce platforms but there are cheaper options also available. One of the good things about Shopify is they do have a 14-day free trial but if you're looking for a cheaper option then Shopify is not the best option for you.

2.SQUARESPACE

 

 Squarespace is great if you want to build a beautiful website but it's not the best website for creating an online store. If you are a band or a podcast and an online store is not the main feature of your website then Squarespace might be a really good option, but from the ground up Squarespace was built to make beautiful websites not so much for their e-commerce functionality.

So if you are looking to be a professional e-commerce seller I would suggest staying away from Squarespace.

3.GODADDY

 

Do not use Godaddy to build your e-commerce website it is overpriced and honestly, I think they just trick a lot of people. It's a good place to go buy a domain name but I think they trick a lot of people to upgrade and host a website with them and then host their e-commerce site with them do not go with Godaddy for your online store.

 

4.WIX

 

Wix is another one of those websites I highly recommend avoiding. It's not built for e-commerce yes they added e-commerce functionality to it and it's a good website builder if you want to build a general website I think there are better options out there but it's okay.

It seems a lot of middle-aged people tend to get tricked into using this to build their website and add on eCommerce functionality do not go with Wix.

 

5.BIGCARTEL

 

Big cartel is another platform a lot of people are talking about and the big pro with big cartel is it's free. That's the only big pro in my opinion. Something to keep in mind it's free for the first five products that you add. Big cartel is made for artists and makers that's their whole slogan, so I think if you're an artist and you're trying to sell one-off pieces of art or different things like that then big cartel might be a really good option, but if you're looking to sell your product and you're looking to build an e-commerce store I honestly don't think they have enough features. But I will say it's pretty easy to make a simple small store and since your first five products are free you can always test this one out. I would never recommend this because they just don't have enough integrations, apps, and features. For you to be able to scale your business but for artists or makers, big cartel might be a good option.

 

6.BIGCOMMERCE

 

Bigcommerce used to be pretty decent they have a lot of really good built-in features but one of the big cons with Bigcommerce is they have selling limits. If you sell more than 50 000 in a year they start charging you extra fees which is bonkers to me. I don't want to have to pay more because my business is doing well that just doesn't make any sense, and in full honesty, Bigcommerce is the same price as Shopify, but I think Shopify is way better. 

 

7.MAGENTO

 

One of the e-commerce platforms out there we do have to talk about Magento. Magento is one of those e-commerce platforms that used to be popular and the good thing about Magento is it's fully customizable, but that's the only pro for Magento. The negative side of Magento is it's very technical. It's very hard to work with and you need to hire a designer. I'm not a fan of Magento I don't know any e-commerce entrepreneurs that are still using Magento. I think it was used to be a good platform but it's just not that good of a platform anymore.

 

8.WOOCOMMERCE

 

Pros

 

The first pro for Woocommerce is that it's free. Woocommerce is a free plug-in to WordPress. To get hosting for a WordPress website does cost some money but it's relatively inexpensive at around five to six dollars a month. That’s why it's the most popular e-commerce platform.  There is a lot of plug-ins but the reason it's the most popular e-commerce platform is because it's free, and it is relatively easy to set up a Woocommerce website. It's easier to set up a Shopify website versus a Woocommerce website but it's pretty user-friendly.

Cons

 

 If you want your website to look good and perform a lot of functions you're probably going to need to hire a designer or a developer to do some more of the technical stuff, another issue with Woocommerce is that it's very piecemeal, meaning if you want added functionality you're going to have to pay for it. You have to pay for all the different apps and add-ons so even though it's free the costs do add up very quickly. Another con with Woocommerce is there can be security issues there seems to be way more security issues with Woocommerce websites than Shopify websites. This is because all the different apps and all the different integrations are a lot more vulnerable on a WordPress website than they are with Shopify, but still, overall Woocommerce is a great platform.

 

9.ETSY & EBAY

 

Pros

 

The pros of these platforms that they already have a lot of customers when you're building your website. It's very tough to get customers to your website but the benefit of eBay and Etsy is they already have people that are going to their website every day, and so if you list your product on any of these platforms you're more likely to get sales because people are already there looking for your products.

Cons

 

Cons for these platforms they do usually have high fees to sell. It's a decent chunk of your profit they cut. They can also kick you off of their platform at any time. That's the downside of selling on eBay or Etsy. It's not your website it's not your platform you're playing in someone else's sandbox and if they want to kick you out they will any time.

 

10.Amazon

 

Pros

 

Amazon is the most powerful platform. Amazon made up to 50 of all e-commerce sales last year. Amazon is a 1.6 trillion-dollar company and they have millions upon millions of customers, here's the crazy thing out of every sale that happens on amazon two-thirds of them 66 are made by third-party sellers. People like you and me selling on the Amazon platform and Amazon FBA is one of the best ways I know to build a legitimate passive income business because the thing with amazon FBA is you send any products you're trying to sell into the amazon warehouse and when you get a sale they pick it to pack it and ship it out for you. Meaning you could be traveling the world or doing whatever you want you don't have to be doing the shipping yourself.

Cons

 

On Amazon, they take 15% and even a little bit more of your sale if you use their FBA program. I think Amazon is a great place to start and you can leverage all the opportunity that's there but you're still going to want to build your website, because there's always a chance that amazon kicks you off and even if Amazon doesn't ever kick you off it's just good to have an extra source of income.

 

CONCLUSION

 

That brings us to the whole point of this article which e-commerce platform should you use and if I had to narrow it down to just two, it would be either Shopify or Woocommerce and they both have their pros and cons. Which one you should use depends on how serious you're going to be about your online store. I'd say if you're looking to do over ten thousand dollars a month in sales go with Shopify they're way more professional. It's way easier to set up, they have way more apps and integrations and overall it's a good platform you do get what you pay for, but on the other side, Woocommerce is great if money is tight. If you maybe want to build an online store just to test it out and you're not sure how serious you're going to be and the truth is you can always upgrade to Shopify later. Woocommerce is a relatively beginner-friendly platform but you may need to learn a little bit of HTML or CSS to get the full capabilities out of it, and as I mentioned with Woocommerce you do have to pay for hosting.