9 Best Ecommerce Platforms Compared
Choosing the right ecommerce platform from a pool of the best ecommerce platforms available can be a tough decision to make, whether you’re a store owner or a developer who needs a platform to build client sites on.
We’re going to go over nine of the best ecommerce platforms in existence, comparing their best and worst features, to give you a quick and easy-to-consume resource for comparing these platforms.
The Elements – How We’ll Rank Each Platform
Every ecommerce platform is different, but there are a few elements that occur in each one. The quality of these elements differ from platform to platform, which more or less means there is no “supreme ecommerce platform” that’s miles ahead of the rest. Every platform excels at something and lacks in something else, and it’s up to you to decide which features are most important to you.
Let’s do a quick rundown of the elements we’ll be using to compare each platform against one another.
Element #1: Pricing
The features each platform offers differ between each one. Pricing for plans differs just as much, so it’s important for you to consider which features are most important to you and how large of a business you wish to grow to ensure you pick a platform that offers all of the features you need at a price that makes sense for your business.
Element #2: Ease of Use
Some platforms cater to store owners with little to no technical inclination while others are meant to be used by developers or store owners who can afford to hire professional developers. You should consider what type of platform you need, a factor that’s entirely dependant on your budget and the amount of technical skills you have/are willing to acquire.
Element #3: Inventory
Running a store is difficult enough on its own. It’ll be even more difficult if you can’t create and manage products efficiently. We’ll be looking at the way each platform handles inventory because of this.
Element #4: Store Management
This ties into the last element. You can’t run a store efficiently, or effectively for that matter, if you can’t manage it properly. This element includes order data, sales and other reporting features, and analytics.
Element #5: Support
Support should be a huge factor when it comes to choosing an ecommerce platform, especially if you’re not technically inclined. If you have no experience in web design or even running an online store, go for platforms that offer multiple levels of support.
Element #6: Expandability
Some platforms are all inclusive while others are open-source and allow you to expand the functionality of your store beyond your wildest dreams. Every store is different, which means every single one needs a different functionality than the rest. Platforms that do not allow you to expand the functionality of your store can be severely limiting.
Be certain you have a business plan in mind so you know what functionalities you’ll need in the future. This allows you to determine if a platform’s limitations will have a negative impact on your business.
9 Best Ecommerce Platforms Compared
Now, let’s compare each ecommerce platform and outline what they excel at and where they falter.
1. Shopify
Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce platform that operates as an all-in-one solution.
- Best In: Ease of Use
- Worst In: Inventory
- Pricing – Shopify’s base prices for each of its plans are fair, but they charge a 2% transaction fee if you use any third-party payment gateway. Some of the themes are really expensive, and a few apps add high costs to your monthly invoice.
- Ease of Use – Setting up a website, editing styles and creating products are all simple to do.
- Inventory – You cannot create subcategories nor can you add more than three options to each product.
- Store Management – Reports include detailed sales reports and data on customer acquisitions. You can also view analytical data.
- Support – Support is available 24/7 via live chat, email and phone.
- Expandability – Over 1,200 apps are available in the App Store. Developers also have access to the Shopify API.
Visit Shopify Read Our Full Shopify Review
2. Squarespace
Squarespace is a dedicated site builder that includes ecommerce features to complement its all-in-one approach to web design.
- Best In: Ease of Use
- Worst In: Expandability
- Pricing – Squarespace offers basic ecommerce features suitable for small to medium-sized businesses, making its pricing fair and affordable.
- Ease of Use – Squarespace is known for its stylish, easy-to-customize templates. You can have a store up and running by the end of the day. It’s that simple.
- Inventory – Creating and managing products with Squarespace is just as simple, but its category and product-variant systems are a bit complicated.
- Store Management – Squarespace has powerful analytical data, but it lacks sales and customer reports.
- Support – Support is available 24/7 via email and Twitter. Live chat is available between 3 AM and 8 PM EST Monday through Friday.
- Expandability – Squarespace has very few apps and integrations.
Visit Squarespace Read Our Full Squarespace Review
3. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is another dedicated ecommerce platform that acts as an all-in-one solution. It’s a direct competitor to Shopify.
- Best In: Store Management
- Worst In: Pricing
- Pricing – This platform’s base prices are fair, but prices rise continuously for enterprise customers. You’ll pay an additional $80/month for every 1,000th order you process if your store earns more than $125,000 in revenue or processes more than 2,000 orders in a single year.
- Ease of Use – Creating and managing products from the backend is simple, but making changes to your theme beyond basic color changes is tedious and downright impossible for some.
- Inventory – Creating products is simple to do. You can even use parent categories, child categories and as many options as you need (not unlimited but more than enough).
- Store Management – This platform has one of the most powerful sets of analytical data and sales reports available in the ecommerce industry.
- Support – Support is available 24/7 via chat, email and phone.
- Expandability – There are hundreds of apps available in the BigCommerce Apps Marketplace.
Visit BigCommerce Read Our Full BigCommerce Review
4. LemonStand
LemonStand is a premium ecommerce platform designed for large and enterprise-sized businesses and developers.
- Best In: Expandability
- Worst In: Pricing
- Pricing – LemonStand’s base prices are expensive, and it gets more expensive the more successful your shop becomes. You’ll pay an extra $100 for every 1,000th order you process once you process over 2,500 orders in 3 months.
- Ease of Use – LemonStand does not cater to technically-challenged individuals, so it’s not a great platform for store owners who need to design and build their own websites.
- Inventory – Creating and managing products is something anyone can accomplish with LemonStand. It even has unique stocking features.
- Store Management – You can keep track of orders and customers, but this platform lacks analytical data and detailed sales reports.
- Support – Support is available via chat, email and phone.
- Expandability – LemonStand is a developer’s ecommerce platform as it allows you to expand it as much as you need it to depending on your abilities as a developer.
Visit LemonStand Read Our Full LemonStand Review
5. Ecwid
Ecwid is a versatile ecommerce platform you can use to build an ecommerce store via Ecwid’s servers or the platform of your choosing, such as WordPress.
- Best In: Pricing
- Worst In: Store Management
- Pricing – Ecwid is a simple platform, and its pricing reflects that. Its most expensive plan is $99/month.
- Ease of Use – Creating products and the overall process for managing your store is simple, but editing styles is not.
- Inventory – Products can have parent and child categories, attributes, and multiple input types, such as checkboxes or radio buttons, for options.
- Store Management – You can keep an eye on sales, orders, customers and abandoned carts, but the platform lacks analytical data and powerful reporting features.
- Support – Support is available via live chat, email and phone.
- Expandability – Ecwid offers a number of different apps that allow you to expand the basic functionality of the platform.
Visti Ecwid Read Our Full Ecwid Review
6. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source WordPress plugin as well as the go-to solution for WordPress ecommerce.
- Best In: Expandability
- Worst In: Ease of Use
- Pricing – WooCommerce, as well as many of its extensions, is free. Some extensions are only available at a premium monthly price, but you can get by for a fairly decent amount of time without them.
- Ease of Use – Installing WooCommerce, setting it up, and creating and managing products are all simple to do, but it does take a bit of research to figure out which host to use, how to install WordPress on your server, how to use WordPress in general, how to secure a WordPress site, which theme to use and how to install/customize it, etc. This process can be tedious for some.
- Inventory – Products can have parent categories, child categories, tags and attributes.
- Store Management – You can manage your store with sales reports, order reports, analytical data through integration with Google Analytics and more.
- Support – Support is available via email during normal business hours Monday through Friday.
- Expandability – WooCommerce is an open-source plugin with a number of different plugins and extensions you can use to extend its core functionalities.
Visit WooCommerce Read Our Full WooCommerce Review
7. Big Cartel
Big Cartel is an all-in-one ecommerce platform designed for creatives.
- Best In: Pricing
- Worst In: Store Management
- Pricing – Big Cartel is targeted toward creatives with small shops. It has a “free-forever” plan, and its most expensive plan is only $29.99/month.
- Ease of Use – Using the Big Cartel interface is simple. Managing styles and creating products is something any creative can do with this platform.
- Inventory – This platform offers no parent/child category system nor can you create a hierarchy system for options.
- Store Management – Big Cartel has poor inventory management features, and it also lacks reporting features. It doesn’t even integrate with third-party tools.
- Support – Support is available via live chat and email.
- Expandability – This platform has a limited but highly-targeted list of apps.
Visit BigCartel Read Our Full Big Cartel Review
8. Volusion
Volusion is another all-in-one ecommerce platform similar to Shopify and BigCommerce.
- Best In: Ease of Use
- Worst In: Expandability
- Pricing – Volusion has an affordable pricing model. Their cheapest plan is only $15/month.
- Ease of Use – Setting up your store, editing your theme and creating products are also easy to do with Volusion.
- Inventory – This platform allows you to create “master” lists of options and selectively choose which options you want to add to a product.
- Store Management – Reporting features are basic, and analytical data is nonexistent unless you integrate your store with Google Analytics.
- Support – Support is available via live chat, email and phone.
- Expandability – It is not easy expanding the core functionalities of this platform. You need to have quite a bit of technical knowledge to do so.
Visit Volusion Read Our Full Volusion Review
9. Wix
Wix is an all-in-one site builder and a direct competitor of Squarespace. Like Squarespace, it offers ecommerce features to complement the site-building elements it already has.
- Best In: Ease of Use
- Worst In: Store Management
- Pricing – Wix offers fair pricing for its ecommerce plans. The most expensive option is $30/month.
- Ease of Use – Wix is easy to use as a site builder, and it has extended this functionality into its product creation and store management features.
- Inventory – Creating products is easy with Wix, but they don’t have a proper category system that allows you to organize products in the backend.
- Store Management – This platform has no sales reports, and it has limited analytical features.
- Support – Support is available via phone and a ticket system.
- Expandability – This platform has zero integration with shipping carriers, and its selection of apps is pretty basic.
Visti Wix Read Our Full Wix Review
Final Thoughts
Shopify, BigCommerce and LemonStand are definitely the strongest dedicated ecommerce platforms while Squarespace beats Wix in the “site builder moonlights as an ecommerce platform” contest.
If you’re a developer or a larger store that needs a custom, expandable website, go with Lemonstand or WooCommerce. If you’re a creative who makes and sells their own products and does not intend on selling more than 300 different products, give Big Cartel a try.
Be certain to check out our full reviews if you’re interested in any of these platforms:
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