The Best E-Commerce Platforms to Get Your New Business Up and Running

If you’re looking to set-up your online shop or a purchasing plan for users to access your online course, you’ve come to the right place. Picking the right e-commerce platform for you and your product or services can be daunting – but lucky for you, we did the research so you don’t have to!

First off, what exactly is e-commerce? We throw that word around a lot in the blogging and influencing spheres, but do we know what we mean by it?

E-commerce is defined by e-commerce giant Shopify as  “the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions. E-commerce is often used to refer to the sale of physical products online, but it can also describe any kind of commercial transaction that is facilitated through the internet.”

There are plenty of platforms to choose from – here’s a breakdown of the strengths of each of the top contenders.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free, WordPress-associated shopping cart plugin that runs on 30% of all stores on the internet. That percentage seems crazy high, but not when you consider its efficacy, price point, and WordPress affiliation.

If you own a small business or have a tight budget, and especially if your site is hosted by WordPress, WooCommerce might be the right fit for you.

Magneto 

Magneto is another industry leader owned by Adobe. This is a great option for slightly bigger, small-to-medium businesses that perhaps have a high demand among established customers. This one is slightly pricier than some of the other platforms we’ll discuss, but it’s tried and true. Those who use it swear by it.

Shopify 

Shopify is an awesome choice for e-commerce beginners, as well as small-to-medium size businees owners that need every bit of help they can get as they set up their online shop. That includes pre-made templates so you can focus more on selling your stuff than web-design, storefront design, content marketing models, and more.

BigCommerce 

If you’re looking to use BigCommerce, you should be ready to spend BigCash. It comes at a higher price point than many of its industry co-leaders, but the platform’s advanced features like the abandoned cart reminders or shipping integrations are hard to beat. If you want to get fancy with your already-established business, this is your best bet.

Squarespace

If your shop is on SquareSpace, you’re in luck! The platform’s e-commerce tool is amazing for beginners and incredibly user-friendly. The drag-and-drop features and pre-built site templates are highly intuitive. Best suited for entrepreneurs and small businesses who are just starting and in the process of figuring out what their e-commerce needs will look like.

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