How to select the Best Ecommerce Software for your brand?

Ecommerce software is an all-in-one solution that assists you with all the essential elements that you need for ecommerce development and to build and run an effective online store by helping you to add and sell products, manage your inventory,and/ or accept payments, deliver orders, and sort out taxes – without switching between different services.

There are basically two main types of ecommerce software that you can use to build an online store:

  1. Hosted ecommerce software which are user-friendly and these enable you to build an ecommerce store without learning to code.  The top three under this category are Shopify, BigCommerce and Volusion.
  2. Self-hosted open source ecommerce software that is more advanced.

The top most self hosted ecommerce software include Magento and WordPress with WooCommerce.

Self-hosted ecommerce software like WordPress empowers millions of online stores, while ecommerce solutions such as Shopify and BigCommerce are used by some of the renowned brands.

Using the best ecommerce software, you are able to build a stylish online store and establish your brand as one of the finest ecommerce website development Bangalore without any technical knowledge. Both hosted and self-hosted software assists you well to build the online store of your dreams.

To help you sell online successfully, we carried out an analytic research to bring you this list of the best ecommerce software available. As a renowned ecommerce website development company in Bangalore, India, in this article we tried to present a comparative analysis of the top ecommerce software.

Leading Hosted Ecommerce Software

  1. Shopify is considered to be the best hosted ecommerce software; suitable for larger businesses.

  2. BigCommerce can be regarded as the best hosted ecommerce software especially for online businesses.
  3. Volusion marks for the best hosted ecommerce software for analytics.

Leading Self-Hosted Ecommerce Solutions

  1. WooCommerce is regarded as the best self-hosted ecommerce software overall.
  2. Magento is considered to be the topmost self-hosted ecommerce software that is suitable for large businesses.
  3. OpenCart is an easy to use, simple and convenient self-hosted software for any business type.

An overview of the 6 Best Ecommerce Software available

In an online world which is already filled with elegant shops and stores, your business certainly needs the best ecommerce software it can get. Selecting the right software will help make a real impression for you – and earn a good revenue too. 

There are several ecommerce solutions out there, and most of them aid in building an effective online store and they also offer similar tools and features. That is what drove us to carry out extensive research on every ecommerce platform including their features, pricing, design, customer support, and many more through which we wished to provide a real insight into ease of use and customer satisfaction.

How can ecommerce software be differentiated from an ecommerce solution?

In this guide, we have used ‘ecommerce software’ and ‘ecommerce solution’ mostly in the same way. They both essentially describe dedicated ecommerce tools that would help you create an online store.

Ecommerce platforms, on the contrary, can include website building tools that let you add additional ecommerce functionalities. 

Are You all set For Your Personalized Recommendation?

An insight into the best 3 Hosted Ecommerce Solutions

These are basically all-in-one ecommerce solutions that are dedicated to help you build a robust and effective online store.

Following is a description of the features along with their significance

1. Premium Support Services

Enjoying premium support from your ecommerce software is something similar to employing a full-time business mentor. Most of the packages offer fantastic assistance, but few such as Volusion – do not offer even phone support on their most basic plans.

2. Abandoned Cart Recovery

This particular feature can have a profound impact on your bottom line. If any customer gives up on a specific purchase at the checkout, Abandoned Cart Recovery aids you in sending an email reminder to them. They’ll then be able to think about completing their order without any need for filling out all the details again.

3. SSL Certificate

SSL or Secure Sockets Layers enables your customers to view your site in HTTPS. An SSL certificate verifies the security of the data to be passing through your store. Unlike Shopify and BigCommerce, Volusion does not offer an SSL certificate.

With all three above ecommerce solutions listed, you can: 

  1. Build a functional online store very quickly, usually in a couple of days and
  2. Get help through various support channels.
  3. You also won’t need to: Know how to code, Hire expensive developers or Manage the technical parts of operating a store like hosting, security, coding, etc.
Shopify Bigcommerce Volution
Ease Of Use 3.5/ 5 stars 3.3/ 5 stars 3.2/5 stars
Design Flexibility 3.9/ 5 stars 3.2/5 stars 3.4/ 5 stars
Customer Score 4.7/ 5 stars 3.1/ 5 stars 1.9/ 5 stars
Help and Support 3.8/ 5 stars 3.4/ 5 stars 1.7/ 5 stars
Value For Money 3/ 5 stars 3/ 5 stars 2.5/ 5 stars
Website Features 4.2/ 5 stars 3.6/ 5 stars 2.5/ 5 stars
Sales Features 4.5/ 5 stars 4.6/ 5 stars 3.7/ 5 stars
Pros No coding needed! It ‘s easy to create a powerful online store  Has almost all of the built-in features which makes it extremely scalable Brilliant analytics features
Essential sales features help large stores continue to grow Great SEO and multi-channel integrations Multi-channel selling can easily be managed from your dashboard
Cons Not a good option if you are thinking about international growth Prices aren’t convenient for very small-scale sellers No blogging tools, which can have an adverse impact on your marketing strategy
Transaction fees are applied to sales if you are not using Shopify’s inhouse payment gateway, that is Shopify Payments Terminology are not so easy to comprehend Limited bandwidth may result in unexpected fees 

 

Shopify

Shopify is undoubtedly one of the best ecommerce software for larger businesses in the market that sell a range of products and wish to manage large inventories. Shopify is a software solution with the scalability to grow your e-store as your business expands.

Key Shopify highlights:

  • Several beautiful, professional, mobile-ready themes
  • More than 1,400 apps to add to your store thereby extending the functionality of your business
  • 24/7 support services 
  • Qualified experts available if you wish to customize your design and functions
  • Multi-channel selling through Instagram, Facebook, Amazon and more than 100 payment options
  • Unlimited products you can sell
  • Mobile apps to manage your store 
  • Customizable guest checkout options
  • Auto-email notifications 
  • Options for Abandoned cart recovery 
  • An In-depth analytics and insight reports

Shopify has three price plans: Basic Shopify comes with $29/month, Shopify for $79/month, and Advanced Shopify for $299/month. You can also unlock a wider range of brilliant sales tools if you pay more. 

Shopify is like a one-stop-shop for ecommerce solutions. Its functionalities eliminate the challenges of building an online store, with no pior coding knowledge required. 

Big commerce: 

BigCommerce is a robust ecommerce software having several built-in features than any other ecommerce solution. It is perfect for sellers with big plans for growth, as it is one of the most scalable ecommerce solutions, with multiple features to boost traffic. The pricing starts at $29.95 per month, and it does not charge transaction fees on any of its plans. The themes are fully optimized for ecommerce, and you can filter them as well by industry – or even by layout. It allows you to build your store without getting tangled up in technology. It’s especially great for online businesses due to its multichannel features and SEO tools.

It offers the following features: 

  • “out-of-the-box” ecommerce tools to assist you build your store
  • An opportunity to leverage different social channels 
  • Advanced tools in their app store
  • 24/7 support
  • The Bigcommerce mobile app assists to check the performance metrics, update orders etc.
  • An option for combining the specialized ecommerce features of BigCommerce with the customization and flexibility of WordPress.

Volution: 

Volusion has great analytics features to help you not only track but as well improve – your online store’s performance. Volusion has a limited number of themes as compared with Shopify and BigCommerce, yet its 0% transaction fees are a great perk.

Key features include:

  • 24/7 customer support which is pretty impressive through support pages and video tutorials, and also they offer phone support on higher price plans.
  • Wide range of mobile-responsive themes covering fashion, beauty, food, beverages, electronics etc.  
  • Mobile-optimized themes which ensures that your customer’s experience will be smooth 
  • You can choose from more than 20 apps to bolt onto your online store from Volusion’s App Marketplace. 
  • Brilliant Ecommerce tools to help you add products, offer subscription billing, get automatic tax rates, and integrate with Amazon – all without touching any code. 
  • Volusion’s design simplicity. 
  • Pretty accessible Volusion’s store editor. 
  • An excellent range of analytics tools 
  • Volusion is very helpful if you are selling through multiple channels, such as Facebook and Instagram. 

 

An insight into the best 3 self Hosted Ecommerce Solutions

Self-hosted ecommerce softwares is flexible, but with self hosted ecommerce softwares you need to have technical knowledge or you can hire a capable developer to help you build your e-store. Self-hosted ecommerce software solutions involve a more complex learning curve than the hosted ecommerce solutions. But they can be helpful if you are tech-savvy and wish for better customization options. The best open -source ecommerce solutions providing unrivaled customization are as below.

  1. WordPress with WooCommerce: overall the best self-hosted ecommerce software
  2. Magento: topmost self-hosted ecommerce software for large businesses
  3. OpenCart: Easy and convenient to use self-hosted software

Open source shopping carts are standalone programs that you can install into your own host such as Bluehost meaning that you’ll have to set up, configure and manage your own hosting service to enable your online store. Additionally, when you sign up to a particular hosting service, you’ll need to install some shopping cart software into the hosting account of yours. Once the shopping cart platform is installed, you need to install a design template for which you can also hire a coder to help you with design changes in case you are not so confident with your coding background. 

The main benefit of using a self-hosted open source software is that you can configure it to do exactly the way you want it to function, meaning your store can be well customized.

The drawback however is that it requires you to be technically expert and experienced to install, set up and configure it to work properly. So in case  you’re not a tech- savvy person, or if you don’t have enough time to learn more advanced coding functions, self-hosted shopping carts will probably not be the best approach for you.

 

Features Woocommerce Magento Opencart
Ease Of Use 2.5 out of 5 stars 2.5 out of 5 stars 4.3 out of 5 stars
Design

  Flexibility

4.5 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars
Customer

  Score

4.2 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars
Help and Support 5 out of 5 stars 5 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars
Value for money 4.4 out of 5 stars 3.5 out of 5 stars 4.5 out of 5 stars
Website

  Features

3.9 out of 5 stars 4.2 out of 5 stars 2.5 out of 5 stars
Sales  Features 4.1 out of 5 stars 4  out of 5 stars 2.5 out of 5 stars
Pros Easy to install and it is good from value of money aspect Perfect for medium to large- sized businesses, Back-end inventory has excellent features such as multiple product variants and bulk product import Easier to use than any other   self-hosted platforms, easy to download
Cons Multichannel

  integrations are limited as compared to other platforms, No established

  abandoned cart recovery feature which requires an extension, sometimes   additional plugins can be time consuming

It requires technical proficiency, It includes Expensive extensions for multichannel for example. $499 to sell on eBay Less scalable as compared to other self hosted platforms, Requires a bit of technical knowledge and coding   experience

 

WooCommerce (empowered by Bluehost)

The Best self-hosted ecommerce software overall 

WooCommerce is one of the most popular WordPress plugins that assists you to craft effective online stores. You can either start from scratch, or turn a pre- existing WordPress site into an e-store with ease. Woocommerce has a huge marketplace from where you can select the features you wish to add to your store.

To turn your WordPress site into an efficient ecommerce store, you need to use a few extra ecommerce solutions, the best of which is WooCommerce. All you need to do is sign up to your chosen hosting provider’s WordPress hosting plans and it will install WooCommerce automatically onto your computer for you. 

WooCommerce also offers an ‘setup wizard’ that assists you through the process of building your online store, thereby helping you set up payments or choose currencies, and decide on shipping and tax options. 

With WooCommerce empowered by Bluehost, you get:

More than 15 themes costing on average just $38 

Bluehost plans that start from just $13.99 per month. WooCommerce, combined with Bluehost, is a total value for money category.

WooCommerce extensions 

Multilingual support and Multichannel selling – you can sell on Facebook for free and sell on Amazon, eBay through a paid extension, and 

Excellent SEO support 

Payment mode integration options like PayPal and Visa 

The great benefit of ecommerce software such as WordPress + WooCommerce is personalization.

Do You Want Total Flexibility?

WooCommerce is a robust and flexible ecommerce solution that is extremely popular and easy to get started too!

Magento ( The Best self-hosted ecommerce software for large enterprises) 

Magento is a self-hosted ecommerce software that is most suitable for larger enterprises. Magento can be reliably used to design impressive online stores implementing them with stylish images, banners, and menus, ensuring a great customer experience. Magento’s Extensions Marketplace includes several options and it is one of the most renowned ecommerce solutions on the market. It has been used effectively to set up over 240,000 stores so far. If you know at least simple coding then you have great flexibility to build the store of your dreams.

With Magento, you are able to:

  • Sell physical, downloadable, and/or service products
  • Accept payments for the WorldPay as a built-in feature (though this payment processor is only suitable for large businesses)
  • Add several product variants
  • Generate total revenue reports
  • View visitor count

The Magento community is very helpful, too, and there remain lots of quality guides which, combined with SiteGround’s customer support, can offer great help and support.

You have the option of purchasing themes externally via Magento and it also enables you to access a large selection of apps and plugins. However, the key difference with Magento is that you are required to pay for your own hosting. 

Wish to Get the Best Out Of Magento, Talk to our experts. 

 

OpenCart (The most Easiest to use self-hosted software)

OpenCart is an easy to use, and popular self-hosted ecommerce solution. It has a marketplace that features free and paid extensions. It provides all the necessary elements that you need to build, scale up and run your business online smoothly. 

If you have a bit of coding knowledge, OpenCart is worth considering as It is one of the easiest-to-use self-hosted ecommerce solutions. The interface is accessible, and you don’t have to be a proficient programmer to add products or change your store’s theme.

One of OpenCart’s key selling points is the number of payment processors it supports. OpenCart features include:

  • Free to download
  • Unlimited product categories
  • Customer reviews and ratings
  • Hosting is not included with self-hosted ecommerce software. 
  • Multiple currency support
  • Provision of selling digital products 

Are you looking for an Easy Self-Hosted Solution? Talk to our experts!

How can You Pick the Best Suitable Ecommerce Software for Your brand?

To find the best ecommerce software is not apparently what you should be aiming for. Rather, you should focus on finding the best suitable ecommerce software that is perfect and compatible for your brand.

There are four key questions that you need to ask yourself before you pick the ecommerce software. The responses you get will help you to pick the right ecommerce solution for you.

Q.1. How much time do you wish to spend on technical maintenance?

Q.2. What is the overall budget that is available with you?

Q.3. Technologically, how proficient are you?

Q.4. What kind of support do you need?

1. How much time do you wish to spend on technical maintenance?

You might consider using hosted ecommerce software if you are not so technical and if you do not wish to worry about hosting, security and other technical aspects. Ecommerce solutions such as BigCommerce, Magento and Volusion take care of almost all the essentials of building and running an effective online store.

These solutions basically take care of all the technical aspects of operating a website thus enabling you to focus on your business instead. These ecommerce solutions also provide you great flexibility to customize your store, apart from regularly updating their system, ensuring that your store is up-to-date and glitch-free.

2. If you are budget-conscious.

You will be able to create a store for a set monthly fee using hosted ecommerce software. Some hosted ecommerce platforms even offer discounts on their premium plans to make them more affordable. For instance, Shopify offers a 10% discount if you sign up for a year, and 20% in case you are signing up for two years.

3. How proficient are you  technologically?

Hosted and self-hosted ecommerce solutions both require different technical skills to help you create an e-store. Self-hosted ecommerce software is great for customization and to build an unique and robust store. However,  if you wish to build your online store using more accessible technology that demands no coding skills, hosted ecommerce solutions are probably the answer for you.

4. What kind of support do you need?

When launching an online store, professional support definitely is a big help.

Generally, self-hosted ecommerce solutions will offer resources and tutorials to help, but you may find it a bit hard to go through the information to check for  the answer to your specific problem. On the contrary, hosted ecommerce softwares like Shopify and BigCommerce provide a brilliant level of support. 

 

Ecommerce Software Development with IndGlobal

If you have articles to sell online or Custom Software Lab designs and wish to develop mobile-friendly ecommerce solutions, we are here to deliver phenomenal ecommerce success solutions and stories for every business right from startups to enterprise clients. 

Get a Free Quote!

Conclusion

Finding the best ecommerce software thus, is not at all an easy task when you have adapted to sell online efficiently.

The first point is to think about how technically proficient you are. If you are a master coder, then probably self-hosted solutions such as Magento will provide more flexibility and you can configure the cart as per your choice.

If you are a beginner or intermediate user, who are not so comfortable with code, or if you wish to set up an online store quickly and start selling then probably Hosted ecommerce solutions such as Shopify is your best option.

Magento Commerce vs. Magento Community Edition- A Comparative Index to find which will better fit your brand!

Headless Ecommerce web design Solutions- Perfectly Redefining the Ecommerce Industry

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