Top 5 best eCommerce platform 2024

The term eCommerce is no more new to us as the majority of the products or services are purchased from e-commerce platforms with just a few clicks.

You name it, you have it, nearly every imaginable product is available online from Fashion, books, Printing, Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical, Furniture & Home Decor, and so on…

The amount of traffic seen on an online eCommerce website is unimaginable and that pushes the traditional business and new startups to come and try to swiss in the big ocean called eCommerce business.

Also, let’s quickly take an overview of each type of eCommerce business and most popular eCommerce platforms how to help them grow immensely. 

Types of eCommerce Business Models

 

1. Business-to-Business

The B2B model of business includes the lead of exchange between at least two businesses. The channels of such exchanges for the most part incorporate regular wholesalers, producers and dealing with retailers.

2. Business-to-Consumer

Here, the target group is the specific consumer. In this, the consumer buys products or services at their own comfort. Some of the big players of this business model are Amazon, Flipkart, eBay. etc.

3. Consumer-to-Consumer

The product which we bought but never got a chance to use it and it’s getting no use at your home. Then there is an online platform where you can sell it by just uploading an image with the mentioned price.

If somebody found it interesting or of use then people will buy it. eBay, Etsy, and Craigslist are renowned names in the Consumer-to-Consumer business.

But the biggest question for merchants – which eCommerce platform would be??…as there are numerous platforms available in the market…

Before we jump into the above question let us also understand about hosted & non-hosted quickly so that it would be easy for you to choose the desired eCommerce platform more easily as per your convenience.

• Hosted eCommerce platform

Running an eCommerce business is not as easy as it looks. As you have to manage your online store & the overall commercial aspect of your business as well. So, using Hosted eCommerce platform will help you in the storage of your data & several other things from security initiatives, SSL, shopping cart, payment processing services, security, and many more. It will help you to run an eCommerce store hassle-free without any technical glitches.

Shopify, Big Commerce, Volusion are some examples of  Hosted eCommerce platforms.

• Self-hosted eCommerce platforms

In self-hosted eCommerce platforms, the online store owners can occupy their own server space where merchants can manage the storage data as per the convenience. To manage the self-hosted e-commerce platform you required an agency to manage it.

As it’s very hardcore technical, it needs the assistance of an expert. Magento & Woocommerce are prime examples of self-hosted eCommerce platforms.

Now, we have a basic idea about the eCommerce business so let’s see what are the best available eCommerce platforms to start or shift any business to reach its full potential and make it successful in the online world.

Top 5 Best eCommerce Platforms

 

1. Shopify

Shopify is a subscription-based most popular and best eCommerce platform with multi-channel, cloud-based, specifically targeting small & medium-sized businesses.

It has its own hosting & subdomain space for every individual website running on it. If we talk about its features then it has its own Product management, Order management, Multiple payment gateways, customer management, 100+ professional themes, and many more.

Further on this, Shopify eCommerce also provides multiple sales channels, including Facebook module, Point of Sale. To fulfil specific requirements of your store it also has its own app store where you can get the Shopify application by just installing it on your eCommerce store.

Development costing starting range – $100-500

Coding knowledge – Shopify is simple & easy to operate an online store. Anybody with practically zero coding & design experience before can just leap on it and create for themselves a web-based store.

Suitable for types of business – It is mostly preferred by small & medium size online businesses but also you can easily manage big giant eCommerce businesses.

Support – The Shopify support team is available 24*7 a week, through email, live chat, and phone.

2. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a very well-known, open-source & customizable eCommerce platform built on WordPress.

A WooCommerce is a plugin to turn WordPress websites into eCommerce. If we talk about the feature then it has Thousands of themes, third-party plugins, Order management, Multiple payment gateways, and many more. 

Pricing – Open-source, hence it has no such direct price to use this platform.

Developer costing –  $1000 to $3000/Year

Coding knowledge  – With available plugins & themes, you can easily customize the website as per your need. To do so requires expert-level coding knowledge.

Suitable for types of business – It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants.

3. Wix eCommerce

Wix is an easy to use beginner-friendly website builder platform. With the editor, anyone with zero technical experience can build and make an entire online store. The whole process of making a website is fast, effortless, simple to proceed with.

Development costing – Usually costs between $2500-$6000+, depending on the requirement

Coding knowledge – most of the functions are drag and drop, so without having technical knowledge one can use it easily.

Suitable for types of business – Wix is mostly used by small businesses, online stores, restaurants, and artists.

Support – Wix offers customer Care Experts 24*7  with live support for any minor to a major issue.

Ecommerce Features	Business Elite $19/month	Business $9/month	Core $4/month	Light $2/month
Unlimited products	✓	✓	✓	✓
Abandoned cart recovery	✓	✓	✓	–
Subscriptions	✓	✓	✓	–
Multiple currencies	Primary+10	Primary+5	–	–
Dropshipping by Modalyst	Unlimited	250 products	25 products	–
Sell on social channels	✓	✓	✓	–
Storage space	Unlimited	100 GB	50 GB	2 GB
Product reviews by KudoBuzz	3,000 reviews	1,000 reviews	–	–
Loyalty program by Smile.io	✓	–	–	–

4. BigCommerce

About Bigcommerce and ecosystem (apps, themes, experts marketplace)

BigCommerce is the world’s driving cloud Online business platform, for setting up and quickly developing business. It has enterprise functionality, an app ecosystem, an open architecture, and market-leading performance.

Pricing – BigCommerce’s pricing plan options include: Standard ($29/month), Plus ($79/month), Pro ($299/month)

Development cost – The standard plan costs $29.95 per month and is the best option for companies having a revenue of up to $50k.

Coding knowledge – It requires several varieties of skills in programming and development. Programmers should have deep knowledge in PHP 5x and higher, including a deep knowledge of JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, HTML5, CSS3, XML, and others.

Suitable for types of business – Anytime from small-scale businesses up to enterprise-level businesses can use BigCommerce. It fulfils & perfectly fits for new-age  B2B/B2C business.

Support – From learning guides through articles, videos, and our community. It also has a support team 24/7 via phone or email.

5. Adobe Commerce (Former Magento)

Adobe commerce (Magento) is an top eCommerce framework platform based on open source technology which includes online vendors with an adaptable shopping cart framework, just as command over the look, content, and usefulness of their online-based store. Magento offers amazing promoting, website marketing, catalogue-management tools.

Pricing

It costs in the range between $10,000 to $100,000, depending on the structure of the website & the amount of customization required.

Development costs

The basic price for Magento eCommerce website development starts at $3000 to $5000 depending upon the structure & functionality of the e-store.

Coding knowledge

Magento is an advanced & very complex open-source e-commerce framework that requires deep knowledge of programming languages such as HTML, CSS, PHP, XML, and JavaScrip.

Suitable for types of business

Magento is suitable for basically mid to big size B2C, B2B, and B2B2C online businesses, which require very complex & high functionality websites.

Support

As it is an open-source platform so as such there’s no specific outreach way to contact them. But you find tonnes of materials in articles & videos to help yourself.

Conclusion

Above all mentioned platforms can be used as per the requirement, size & budget of the business. Each framework has its own uniqueness, pros & cons which helps the merchant to choose wisely as per the required business need in terms of running an online store for the long term.

Running a store is a bit challenging due to cut-throat competition available in the online space so it becomes very important as a merchant to choose that particular frame that allows them to run their e-store hassle-less.

FAQs about eCommerce platform