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Ecommerce is the need of the day, as modern businesses cannot survive without these. If there were no ecommerce platforms, there would be no online shopping option in the current world. These platforms are basically used for hosting the purpose of your ecommerce site.
If you are a business owner and are planning your business in the digital realm, you need to build your website with an ecommerce component. You can get your website hosted on one of the best ecommerce platforms available.
This article aims to help you identify the most suitable ecommerce platform for your website on the basis of pros and cons.
Top Four ecommerce platforms: Pros and Cons
In order to make the choice of an ecommerce platform for your site. You need to weigh various parameters. Factors like your business goals and needs play a very important role. If you go for a self-hosted site, you will be in for a huge benefit of a wide array of customization options. But if you opt for a hosted site, implementation will be easy, but it will offer little control.
Following are some of the best platforms in the industry with pros and cons elaborated for you:
1. Shopify
Shopify is the most well-known ecommerce site and has been relevant in the realm of online shopping for a long time now. It is highly innovative and has introduced social shopping as customers can now shop their desired items directly on social media platforms like Facebook.
Pros:
The platform is user friendly, and the starter plan it offers is not costly. Smaller businesses thus can prefer to use Shopify when they are kick-starting the online shopping feature of their business. As a small business owner, you can seek professional services of eCommerce solutions in Dubai for the development of an e-commerce platform.
With Shopify, you can easily carry out social commerce integration and provide a mobile-friendly experience to the users.
Cons:
While Shopify is one of the most widely known and relevant eCommerce platform options for businesses, it does have some cons. For some businesses, non-Shopify transactions are very inconvenient. Secondly, the enterprise plans are pretty expensive, and only well-established businesses can afford that.
2. Magento
It is an open-source platform for eCommerce sites and offers a very high level of flexibility. The platform is highly scalable and is considered the most reliable of all the options in the industry.
Pros:
You can get an infinite number of customizing options when developing your site on it. There are more than nine thousand extensions and plugins available for use, but you need to hire a professional developer for using this platform for hosting your business site.
Cons:
The platform is not user-friendly enough to be used by everyone. In similarity with Shopify, It can get very expensive if you opt for an enterprise-level plan.
3. Big-commerce
It is a platform well suited for small to medium businesses to indulge in eCommerce web design practices. There are numerous additional features besides eCommerce support functionality.
Pros:
The built-in features of Big commerce like SEO tools, newsletters, tax, and analytics features are the main highlight that makes it popular. You do not need to bear the burden of transaction fees. The integration with other platforms is seamless and extremely flexible.
Cons:
There are only a few themes that are free on Big Commerce, while other platforms are quite generous in this regard. It is one of the expensive platforms, therefore not suitable for small businesses at all. Learning to use this platform requires more effort than other contemporaries.
4. WooCommerce
Woo-commerce is a plugin rather than a full-fledged platform for hosting an eCommerce site. It is still very popular, and those who own WordPress websites prefer to use it.
Pros:
The WooCommerce add-on is completely free of cost. Therefore, it is well-suited for small businesses. It offers a high level of customization and seamless integration with other platforms and payment options. You have the option to benefit from the WordPress community by using this platform.
Cons:
Acquisition of this platform for eCommerce is free, but you have to pay for using some of its extensions. You can only use WooCommerce for WordPress websites. Therefore, if you are a CMS platform-based business, WooCommerce holds little to no promise for you.
Which eCommerce platform is best for you?
No business can gain recognition without indulging in eCommerce these days. You must weigh the pros and cons of the common eCommerce platforms available in the industry. You have to compare the significant features against your business goals and needs. Your top priority must be to provide your customer with a user-friendly online shopping experience. In the meanwhile, do not underestimate the role of an experienced developer for your website.