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If you want to sell products online, you need an ecommerce platform.
With an ecommerce platform, you can manage your entire online business activities. You can...
There are hundreds of ecommerce platforms, but choosing the right one isn't easy. Every business has specific requirements that an ecommerce platform needs to fulfill.
For example, a dropshipping business needs another ecommerce platform than a local business - since a dropshipping business needs integrations to dropshipping partners.
A tech business might need another ecommerce platform than a fashion business.
That being said, here are the 17 best ecommerce platforms for any type of business in 2021:
Here's a list of the 17 best ecommerce platforms for 2021:
In the following, I'm going to give you a quick introduction to each ecommerce platform. I'll show you the pros and cons, payment methods, pricing, and the main features of each software.
So if you want to know which ecommerce platform is best suited for your business, this article is for you.
Let's dive right in.
Squarespace was founded in 2004, has about 800 employees, and is based in New York City. Squarespace is known for its awesome website builder - however, they also offer an integrated eCommerce solution, except for the personal plan.
Squarespace is popular for its beautiful and modern templates and is the best ecommerce platform for small to mid-sized businesses and startups.
Pros:
Cons:
Squarespace might not be the best solution for enterprise ecommerce companies.
Payment methods:
With Squarespace, you can connect:
Pricing:
You should check out all Squarespace plans here.
Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform in the world. Shopify was founded in 2006, has over 5.000 employees, and is based in Ottawa, Canada.
It's is an All-in-One ecommerce platform for small to large businesses. They also provide a drag-and-drop builder, so it'll be easy for you to build your online store from scratch.
They offer awesome support and over 3.200 Apps within their Shopify App Store.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
You can either use Shopify Payments or another third-party payment provider. In case you use Shopify Payments, you can let your customers pay with over 100 credit cards.
Here are the fees you've to pay with Shopify Payments:
Online Credit Card rates:
In-Person-Credit Card rates:
Additional fees using third-party payment providers:
Pricing:
If you're new to ecommerce, the Basic Plan will be enough, but I recommend switching to the Shopify Plan once your business grows.
BigCommerce is one of the biggest competitors to Shopify. The company was founded in 2009, has over 600 employees, and is based in Austin, Texas.
Like Shopify, BigCommerce is an All-in-One solution for small businesses and larger companies who want to sell online.
Compared to Shopify, BigCommerce has more in-built features from the start you don't need to pay extra for.
BigCommerce is especially popular for multichannel selling. You can easily sell on Amazon or other marketplaces like Facebook or Instagram.
They also offer an enterprise solution for large ecommerce companies and solutions for B2B ecommerce.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
Choose from more than 65+ integrated online payment solutions without additional fees.
Pricing:
BigCommerce is a flexible solution for small to larger businesses that want more functionalities and pay fewer fees.
Square was founded in 2009 and is based in San Fransico, California. Square offers a wide range of financial services, but they also have a great ecommerce platform.
When you use Square Online, it will be easy for you to integrate your online store into other Square services.
Square Online is an awesome solution for local businesses that want to take advantage of Square PoS.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
Square Online lets you accept all major credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Square Pay.
Pricing:
Weebly was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. In 2018, they had more than 625.000 paid subscribers.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
Pricing:
Ecommerce functionality is available with their Pro Plan for 10€/month.
Ecwid specializes in selling products through different marketplaces like Amazon, Facebook, or Instagram. It's also a very flexible ecommerce platform with lots of integrations.
With Ecwid, you can turn any website into an online store. For example, there are integrations for:
But you can install Ecwid on any website.
What's also great is that they offer a free plan you can use to sell up to 10 products through your online store.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
Around 70 payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, and many others. No additional transaction fees from Ecwid.
Pricing:
Jimdo was founded in 2007, has about 200 employees, and is based in Hamburg, Germany.
It's an easy-to-use website builder with ecommerce functionality. It has an affordable pricing and is best suited for small local businesses. Medium to large ecommerce businesses should go for more powerful solutions like Shopify or BigCommerce.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
Jimdo offers several payment options such as PayPal, Credit Card (Stripe—for Business customers), Invoice, Payment in Advance, Local delivery, Local pickup, Collect-on-Delivery, and Check (by mail).
Pricing:
Sellfy was built to sell digital products, but now you can also sell physical products through it. Sellfy is the best platform for creators, bloggers, and small businesses who want to sell digital products, subscriptions, and physical goods on their site and through their social media profiles.
Sellfy also provides tools for email marketing, discount codes, upselling features to increase your sales, and more.
Here's a Sellfy review you should check out.
Pros:
Cons:
The main downside of Sellfy is that you can only use PayPal and Stripe as payment methods.
Payment methods:
Pricing:
Zyro is relatively new in the ecommerce space. It was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Kaunas, Lithuania.
What's different about Zyro is that they provide AI solutions for their customers. For example, you can use a content editor that automatically generates SEO friendly content.
That's a perfect solution for absolute beginners who have no clue about copywriting.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
Choose from over 50 quick and secure payment options.
Pricing:
3dcart was founded in 1997 and is based in Tamarac, Florida. 3dcart has been in the business for 20 years now and is a great option for advanced sellers.
If you've built online stores in the past, 3dcart is a great option for you to consider because it offers advanced features that you can take advantage of.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
Choose from over 100+ payment processors with no additional fees.
Pricing:
3dcart is the best ecommerce platform for SEO.
Yo!Kart is a self-hosted multi-vendor ecommerce platform. The platform is known for building online marketplaces that offer tailor-made shopping experience to the buyers.
Unlike other platforms, Yo!Kart is a licensed-based solution, which means you have to pay once and the platform will be yours for a lifetime.
Yo!Kart platform is used by startups, small businesses, and enterprises to build different types of ecommerce marketplaces.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment Options:
Yo!Kart supports multiple payment options such as PayPal, Stripe, Authroize.net, M-Pesa, etc. Also, there are payment options like Pay at Store, COD, and wallets.
Pricing:
Wix.com is one of the most famous drag-and-drop website builders. The company was founded in 2006, has 2.562 employees, and is based in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Wix.com is not only perfect to build standard websites without HTML and CSS knowledge - but you can also build online stores with Wix.com. They provide over 500 templates and features like collections, galleries, related products, or a customer wishlist.
In fact, Wix.com is popular for the simplicity of its system.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
WixPayments is their internal payment system. If you're going to use WixPayments, you've to pay the following fees:
Credit Card:
Pay Now:
iDeal:
GiroPay:
While you don't have to pay additional fees for PayPal, keep in mind that you also have to pay the PayPal fees.
Pricing:
All in all, Wix.com is a great ecommerce platform for small to mid-sized business. If you run an enterprise ecommerce company, Wix.com might not be the best solution for you.
Volusion was founded in 1999 and is based in Austin, Texas. It's a top ecommerce solution for those of you who want to sell only physical products. There's no restriction on how many products you can list within your online store - buy you can only sell physical products.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
30 payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, and Amazon. They don't charge additional fees.
Pricing:
Pinnacle Cart was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Colorado. Pinnacle Cart is an All-in-One ecommerce solution that provides lots of features.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
They partnered up with over 25 payment providers. However, if you're going for the Standard Plan, you can only use PayPal and PayPru.
Pricing:
Salesforce was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, has about 50.000 employees, and is based in San Fransico. Salesforce is the world's leading CRM system, but they also offer an ecommerce solution.
Their ecommerce solutions are suited for all kinds and sizes of business, and also for businesses focusing on B2B ecommerce.
If you want an ecommerce solution with an integrated CRM system, Salesforce Commerce Cloud would be your best bet.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing:
There's no fixed pricing. Pricing is not transparent on their website. You can request a quote if you're interested in Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
WooCommerce is not an All-in-One ecommerce solution like Shopify or BigCommerce. It's rather a WordPress plugin that turns your WordPress site into an online store.
However, since most websites are built on WordPress, most online stores in the world are power by WooCommerce.
It's also a free solution if you already have a WordPress site. Yet, you need to pay for hosting and other services to run your WordPress site.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
Pricing:
WooCommerce is free to download.
PrestaShop is an open-source ecommerce solution written in PHP. They have more than 1 million community members and 1.000 active developers.
Presta Shop is available in over 75 languages and they have over 300.000 users worldwide.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
PrestaShop supports by default all major types of payment methods such as checks, cash on delivery, bank wire, PayPal, Moneybookers, and various other payment methods.
Pricing:
PrestaShop is an open-source software.
BigCartel is an ecommerce platform especially for people who sell artwork, clothing, jewelry, and photo prints.
Pros:
Cons:
Payment methods:
You can set up PayPal and Stripe. Big Cartel does not charge additional payment processing fees.
Pricing:
Choosing an ecommerce platform is an essential long-term decision that affects your business success.
It's uber important that you take a close look at each ecommerce platform before you make a decision. Take your time and determine what's important for your business.
For example, is it more important to stay flexible or do you want the highest productivity?
With this article, I gave you a guide in the right direction when choosing an ecommerce platform.
Here's a summary of all ecommerce platforms we've reviewed: