Best Platforms for Building an E-commerce Store

The e-commerce market is experiencing a period of rapid growth. A diverse range of entrepreneurs are increasingly establishing their businesses online. Whether you’re expanding your existing business or a start-up with a game-changing product, building an online store is an exciting first step. With so many e-commerce platforms competing for your business, narrowing down your options to the ideal one can be a real challenge.

This blog is here to be your guide! We will explore the best e-commerce platforms, providing a detailed analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, pricing structures, and distinctive features. By the time you finish reading this article, you will be ready to make an informed decision and launch your online shop on the perfect platform.

Shopify

Trusted by over 4.8 million online stores, Shopify is a popular e-commerce platform that allows users to easily build an online store without any coding skills or a big budget. It offers a variety of features to help users find customers, make sales, and manage their day-to-day operations. Some of the pros of Shopify include ease of use, customization options, Shopify Payments, a variety of themes, a robust app store, SEO and marketing tools, hosting and security, and 24/7 customer support. However, there are also some cons to consider, such as pricing, limited design customization options, Shopify processing fees, no email hosting, and difficulty exiting the platform. Shopify enjoys widespread popularity across the globe, with a particularly strong presence in North America (US and Canada), the UK, and Australia. 

Displayed below are the primary pricing tiers provided by Shopify, alongside another option offered by Shopify:

Shopify Plus: Custom pricing – For large enterprises requiring a highly scalable and customizable solution.

Wix

A leader in web design, Wix offers a powerful no-code website builder filled with features for e-commerce, marketing, scheduling, and branding. Their user-friendly drag-and-drop editor with over 500 templates empowers anyone, regardless of experience, to create a website. Wix goes the extra mile with built-in SEO tools, a blog platform, mobile optimization, and an AI assistant for additional support. While customization options are vast, choosing a template is a one-time decision, mobile website management is separate and customer support can be slow. Despite these drawbacks, Wix remains a globally popular choice, especially in the US (with over 1,062,000+ Wix websites), more than twice as many as the second-placed UK. In third place is Brazil and then Australia and Germany. 

WooCommerce

WooCommerce, a free, open-source WordPress plugin, holds a strong position of leadership in the e-commerce industry, powering nearly 13% of all online stores globally. This user-friendly platform seamlessly integrates with WordPress, leveraging its familiarity for anyone to create a fully functional online store. Entrepreneurs, especially those comfortable with WordPress, will find WooCommerce’s affordability and vast community support particularly compelling. Management tools for products, shopping rules, order tracking, and insightful sales reports are all readily available. While WooCommerce itself is free, some extensions and professional themes may incur extra costs. Additionally, larger enterprises might require other resources for extensive scalability. Despite these considerations, WooCommerce’s flexibility caters to businesses of all sizes, making it a powerful solution for anyone venturing into the e-commerce world. The United States boasts the most WooCommerce sites globally, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany. 

Magento

Magento, a feature-rich open-source e-commerce platform, caters to large businesses with complex needs. Offering high customization, scalability, and advanced marketing and SEO tools. At present, Magento boasts a massive user base with 145,476 live stores running on the platform in 2024. However, compared to other platforms, Magento requires more technical expertise and resources. Notably used in the US, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, Magento empowers businesses with features like product browsing tools, customer account management, and omnichannel support. While being highly customizable and SEO-friendly, Magento can be expensive due to maintenance needs and plugin costs. Additionally, its technical complexity makes it less beginner-friendly.

Bigcommerce

BigCommerce, a leading hosted e-commerce platform, empowers over 44,250 businesses globally to sell online. They offer scalable solutions with features like unlimited product uploads, storage, and bandwidth, making them suitable for businesses of all sizes. From streamlining checkouts with single-page options to boosting sales with features like coupons and product videos, BigCommerce provides a comprehensive toolkit. Their plans are affordable, starting at $29 per month with annual billing, and include benefits like managing inventory across locations, no extra transaction fees, and 24/7 customer support. While there are limitations, such as annual revenue caps on plans and a smaller pool of free design templates, it’s worth noting that the majority of their online stores(66.5%) are based in the United States, with the UK and Australia following closely behind. 

Conclusion

Choosing an e-commerce platform depends on your technical skills and desired level of control. Self-hosted platforms offer more customization and scalability, allowing you to tailor the platform to your specific needs and handle significant growth in traffic. However, this flexibility comes with the responsibility of managing your own server, which requires technical expertise and ongoing maintenance. Cloud-based platforms, on the other hand, are user-friendly and require minimal technical knowledge. The platform provider handles server maintenance and security, freeing you to focus on running your business. However, cloud-based platforms may limit your ability to customize the platform or scale your store beyond a certain point. Additionally, cloud-based solutions often have monthly fees, whereas self-hosted platforms require upfront costs for hosting and a domain name.By evaluating your budget, technical capabilities, and anticipated growth, you can select the e-commerce platform that best positions your online platform for success.