In this guide, I’ll show you 6 great ecommerce platforms that are perfect if you’re a small business owner.

If you are thinking about starting, building and growing your online store, then you probably know that it’s not always a walk in the park. However, with the right ecommerce solution for your business, things could be a lot easier for you.

The good news is that there are many ecommerce platforms available to help new and small businesses launch their online stores.

Whether you sell handmade crafts, vintage clothing, or something else entirely, these platforms can help you sell your products online without requiring any technical knowledge or investing money in complex website builders.

So, if you want to get your store up and running fast, I have great news: there are 6 awesome ecommerce platforms that’ll help you do just that.

Let’s dive right in and see which one is right for you…

What Are The Best Ecommerce Platforms?

Here are my top picks for the best ecommerce platforms this year.

1. Shopify

Best all-in-one ecommerce platform for businesses of any size

Shopify is one of the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses. You can easily create a store within minutes, and it comes with a variety of great features to help you grow your online store.

With it, you can create and sell a wide range of different product types, including everything from digital products to physical goods. You can also sell subscriptions, services, and even physical spaces such as parking spaces in your parking lot.

Shopify also comes with a great customer-facing ecommerce platform that allows you to easily create a store that looks professional and is easy to use.

One of the best things about Shopify is that it is easy to scale as your business grows. For example, you can easily install apps to add new features to your store, such as a live chat function or an app that lets your customers pay for their orders using their debit cards.

Key features:

• Ease of Use: One of Shopify’s most appealing features is that it is easy to use. Even if you don’t have any prior experience with website design or development, you’ll be able to create a professional-looking website with Shopify.
• Flexibility: It’s a fully customizable platform, which gives you the freedom to create a unique online store that reflects your brand.
• Scalability: It can grow with your business. As your business expands, you’ll be able to add more products and features to your website without any major disruptions. Scale your store to the moon if you want, nothing is holding you back.
• Security: It’s secure platform, which is important for any ecommerce website. You can rest assured that your website and payment process are secure, and your customer’s data is safe.
• Support: Shopify offers excellent customer support, which is available 24/7. You can contact them via phone, email, or live chat, and they’ll be happy to help you with any issues you’re having.

Best feature: So simple to use

Shopify’s best feature is definitely its simplicity. Even if you’re not a tech-savvy person, you can still create a beautiful and functional online store using it. Everything is very self-explanatory and there are plenty of resources (such as tutorials and support forums) available if you need help.

They also offers a wide range of customization options, so that you can create a unique online store that perfectly reflects your brand identity. There are hundreds of different themes to choose from, and you can also use HTML and CSS to further customize their store’s design.

The Shopify ecommerce platform is designed to be as streamlined and uncomplicated as possible, so that you can focus on running your businesses, rather than struggling with complicated technical issues.

Pricing:

• Free trial: Yes – Try it for 3-days
• Annual discount: Yes- save 50%
• Basic plan: $29/month or $14.44/month (billed annually)
• Shopify plan: $79/month or $39.44/month (billed annually)
• Advanced plan: $299/month or $147.78/month (billed annually)

Pros and cons with Shopify

Pros:

• It’s a fully hosted platform, which means that you don’t have to worry about hosting fees, server maintenance, or security issues.
• They offers 24/7 customer support, which is available by phone, email, and live chat.
• Shopify is integrated with a number of shipping carriers, so you can easily set up shipping for your products. Plus, they offer shipping discounts from DHL Express, UPS, or USPS.
• Has a large selection of themes and templates to choose from, so you can create a professional-looking online store quickly and easily.
• Allows you to sell products in multiple languages and currencies, and to accept payments from all over the world.
• Shopify has a built-in website builder, so you can build a website that is ready to integrate with your store right away.

Cons:

• There are transaction fees can eat into your profits if you have a low margin product or business model. Here’s how the fees stack up:
  • Online credit card rates: Up to 2.9% + 30¢ USD.
  • Online International/Amex credit card rates: Up to 3.9% + 30¢ USD
  • In-person credit/debit card rates: Up to 2.7% + 0¢ USD
  • Third-party transaction fees if not using Shopify Payments: Up to 2.0%
• It’s a hosted platform, which means you don’t have control over your server environment. And like any hosted platform, if Shopify goes down (highly unlikely), your store will go down with it.
• You’re also locked into their platform, which means that it can be a bit tricky to move your store to another ecommerce platform if you decide you want to in the future. So make sure that you’re in it for the long run.
• Most other platforms use PHP for customizing themes, Shopify on the other hand uses Liquid as theme language, something not too many are familiar with.

Get started with Shopify

2. WooCommerce

Best for those who already have a WordPress websites

WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce platform that’s built on top of WordPress. If you use WordPress to run your website, then this is ideal for you as it allows you to seamlessly integrate your store with your existing website.

Thanks to a simple interface, you can build your own ecommerce store quickly and easily, making it perfect for both beginners and pros. This has turned it in to a popular ecommerce platform used by millions of websites and businesses around the world.

WooCommerce comes with a number of great features that make it a good choice for small businesses. For example, you can use it to sell digital and physical products, keep track of your inventory, accept payments, and add a wide range of different products to your store.

Key features:

• Open-source: As an open-source ecommerce platform, WooCommerce is free to install and use.
• WordPress core: It’s built on WordPress making it extremely flexible and easy to install on any WordPress powered site.
• Customizable: WooCommerce Block Themes gives you complete customization freedom of your store. Create the ultimate user experience without ever writing a single line of code.
• Extensions: 700+ free and paid extensions are available for you to use in your store. From payments and marketing to shipping and store management.
• Sell anything: Physical products, subscriptions, bookings, downloads, services, etc. WooCommerce got you covered no matter what you’re trying to sell.
• Scalable: Reached the limits of out-of-the-box ecommerce? No worries, Enterprise ecommerce lets you scale to the sun and back.

Best feature: WordPress based

As you know, WooCommerce is a plugin that extends the functionality of WordPress. Meaning that you can turn any WordPress based site into into a fully-fledged ecommerce platform.

This makes the platform very flexible and also highly customizable, giving you the ability to tailor your online store to your specific needs and preferences.

And since you’re already used to working with WordPress, and you know how to navigate and use that platform. It won’t take many minutes until you can navigate and use the WooCommerce plugin as well.

All this results in a very low entry barrier if you want to build a store using this ecommerce platform. Plus, it’s also easily scalable, so it can grow with your business.

Pricing:

• Free trial: No
• Annual discount: No

WooCommerce is an open-source platform that is free to use. Since it’s built on WordPress, there are however still some costs to consider, like:

• Web hosting: Hosting services like Bluehost can get you started for under $3/month. Plus, they also have ‘online store’ plans that’ll get you started with WooCommerce for under $10/month.
• Domain registration: Typically around $15/year, but could be much higher if you’re buying a domain from a privat seller.
• Theme costs: Free and up. Good premium WordPress themes starts at around $30/year.
• Shipping costs: Free up to $108/year on average.
• Payment processing:
  • WooCommerce has a fee of 2.9% + $0.30 for each transaction made with U.S.-issued credit or debit cards. For cards issued outside the U.S., there’s an additional 1% fee.
  • Stripe and PayPal has a fee of 2.9% + 0.30 cents per transaction.
• CRM tool: You need a way to stay in touch with your customers to boost backend sales. A tool like ActiveCampaign can do this from $29/month.
• SEO tool: Plugins like Yoast can get you started for free.
• Security: Free and up depending on what you choose.
• SSL certificate: Typically included in hosting deals. If not you’re looking at around $65/year.
• Developer: Here’s where things can get really expensive. Prices for this kind of service can range from $1,000 up to $50K.

Pros and cons with WooCommerce

Pros:

• Free and open-source which is awesome
• It’s a WordPress plugin, making it one of the more versatile ecommerce platforms.
• Easy to set up and use
• No monthly fees, although extensions can cost some money if you need them.
• Can be used for physical and digital products
• Can be used for both small and large businesses
• Has a large community of developers and support

Cons:

• While WooCommerce is highly customizable, there are still limits to what you can do with it in terms of appearance and functionality. If you need a very specific type of online store, WooCommerce may not be the best option.
• While WooCommerce itself is free, you’ll still need to pay for hosting, a domain name, and a WordPress theme (if you don’t already have one). This can add up to a significant upfront cost, especially if you’re just starting out.
• Although there are a lot for extension you can download for free, not everything is free. Some extensions can be expensive, for example WooCommerce Subscriptions cost $199/year.

Get started with WooCommerce

3. Wix

Best for small business who want lots of flexibility and customization

Wix is a popular small business ecommerce platform that you can use to create a professional online store for your products. It allows you to create a website, store, register products, and set up payment options. You can also manage your content and launch promotions.

With its easy-to-use interface, businesses of all sizes can create an online store in minutes. This includes new retailers with little or no experience in ecommerce development. Plus, there’s no cap to what you can sell, digital products, physical products, services or subscriptions, Wix cover it all.

The platform is also completely customizable and has a drag-and-drop builder tool that allows you to build sites and stores with ease. This means that there shouldn’t any problems for you to design a beautiful online store that matches your business perfectly. And you also create a mobile app version as well.

Always on the run? No worries, Wix also has a mobile app that allows you to manage your business from anywhere.

Wix has many benefits for new and established businesses alike. It’s affordable, easy to use, and gives businesses more control over their online presence. Moreover, Wix provides tools to help you grow your business and reach customers around the world.

Key features:

• Editor X: You can create a website using Wix’s drag-and-drop editor.
• ADI: Wix’s own artificial design intelligence will create a website for you. Just answer a few questions and let the AI get to work.
• Templates: 800+ designer made templates should be enough to get anyone started with their website and online store.
• Velo by Wix: Use their developer’s platform and add your own custom code to your website.
• Wix ecommerce: Create your own online store with Wix and sell whatever you want. Sell physical products, services, subscriptions, booking, and more, making it suitable for many business types.

Best feature: Very user-friendly

One of the best things about Wix is that it is very user-friendly. You can create a website or store in just a few minutes, without having to learn any complicated coding or design. Plus, Wix offers a large collection of templates and designs to choose from, so you can create a website that looks exactly the way you want.

For example, you can use the ADI (artificial design intelligence) to create beautiful websites by just answering a few questions.

Or use powerful ‘Editor X’ editor to easily create stores and sites in minutes, without ever having to touch a line of code.

And if you can’t find just the right function, there’s a custom code editor that lets you add custom functionality to your site without having to hire a expensive developer.

Pricing:

• Free trial: No
• Annual discount: No
• Connect Domain plan: €5.50/month (displays Wix ads)
• Combo plan: €10/month
• Unlimited plan: €17/month
• VIP plan: €29/month
• Business Basic plan: €20/month
• Business Unlimited plan: €30/month
• Business VIP plan: €44/month

Pros and cons with Wix

Pros:

• Wix is a user-friendly platform that is perfect for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
• It’s also an affordable platform, with a variety of pricing options to suit most budgets.
• With Wix, you can create a professional website without any prior experience or design skills.
• Wix websites are responsive, meaning they will look great on all devices (phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops).
• Wix offers a wide range of features to help you create a website that is perfect for your business, including ecommerce, contact forms, and social media integration.
• Wix websites are also SEO-friendly, meaning they will help you get found online by potential customers.

Cons:

• You must buy a new premium plan for each site you want to upgrade, not optimal if you have many sites.
• If you already have a Website plan and want to accept payments through your site, you need to upgrade to a Business and eCommerce premium plan.
• You’re unable to switch template once it’s live. If you want to make changes you have to take the whole site down and start over again with a new design.

Get started with Wix

4. Zyro

Best for beginners and small businesses who wants to set up a store quickly

Zyro is a cloud-based ecommerce platform that allows you to quickly create a store and start selling your products online. Think of it like a more affordable alternative to Squarespace and Wix.

It was designed with the needs of small- to medium-sized businesses in mind, offering features like automated product management, inventory control, automated order fulfillment, and more.

You can use Zyro to power your entire ecommerce operation from A to Z, including product creation, order management, shipping logistics and fulfillment, customer service and support.

Zyro is ideal for businesses that want to create and sell their products online quickly and easily. It’s easy to use, even for those who don’t have much experience with ecommerce.

There are tons of great-looking templates to choose from, over 20 payment methods available, and you can host up to 500 products, making it easy for you to build the store you need.

It’s also packed with features that will help you grow your business, such as social media integrations, email marketing, SEO tools, and more. Thanks to these tools, you can grow your business and reach more potential customers.

Key features:

• No-code builder: Zyro is a powerful website builder that enables you to create a professional-looking website and stores in minutes, without having to code or hire a web designer.
• Templates and features: Zyro comes with a huge selection of templates and features that you can use to create a unique website that represents your brand.
• Use-cases: You can use it to create a website for your business, blog, or personal brand. Of course you can also create ecommerce stores.
• Tools: It comes with a bunch of fun, useful tools like: AI writer, AI heatmap, privacy policy generator, refund policy generator, and more.
• Hosting: They offer users a free domain (1st year), email (1st 3 months) and hosting, making it the perfect solution for those on a budget.

Best feature: Interface

The best feature of Zyro is its user-friendly interface that makes it easy for you to create beautiful websites and stores, without having to learn coding or hire a web designer.

With Zyro, you can simply drag and drop elements onto your website to create a professional-looking site or store in minutes. Additionally, Zyro offers a wide range of templates and designs to choose from, so you can create a unique website that reflects your brand identity.

There’s even AI tools that can help you create a professional logo, business name, and help you improve your store’s layout to boost sales.

Pricing:

• Free trial: No
• Annual discount: No
• Website plan: Available at a discounted price of $2.59/month
• Business plan: Available at a discounted price of $3.59/month

Pros and cons with Zyro

Pros:

• No need to worry about hosting or managing server infrastructure, everything is taken care of in the cloud.
• Fully customizable store and website design with over 100 templates.
• It’s an affordable platform where prices starts only $2.59, which if I’m honest is way under most paid competitors.
• Powerful integrations like Google analytics, Hojtar, Snapchat pixel and Facebook live chat.
• Built-in SEO optimization – Fast page loading speeds, mobile optimized, full control over meta tags, AI that helps you generate content, and more.
• 24/7 support from the Zyro team.
• It’s a user-friendly ecommerce platform which makes it perfect for beginners.

Cons:

• Limited to “only” 500 products. Is this bad? Well it depends on how much you want to scale.
• The free email is only for the first 3 months, then you have to buy it. If you wan to do that you’re looking at a cost of $2.90/month per email address.
• Not the ideal for blogging, which can be good to know if you’re planning on relying on that for traffic.
• Can’t add members areas.

Get started with Zyro

5. Squarespace

Best ecommerce website builder that offers a premium experience

The Squarespace platform is a powerful website builder and ecommerce platform that’s good for any small businesses looking for a premium solution. It’s an easy-to-use platform that has a drag-and-drop interface which makes it easy for you to create a website with all the features you need.

With just a few clicks, you can create professional-looking websites with all the bells and whistles.

Plus, you can choose to either create everything from scratch, for that ultra-personal look, or you can make it easy and use one of the Squarespace templates. No matter what you choose, everything is customizable, so you can make changes to make your site look exactly how you want it.

The ecommerce features cover all kinds of product types, inventory management tools, and payment processing. This means that you can sell, physical and digital products, subscriptions, services, appointments, and more without limitations.

Squarespace is ideal for beginners who want to create an online store even if they don’t have a lot of technical knowledge. It is also suitable for businesses that might not have tons of technical expertise in-house and are looking for a simple solution. This makes it perfect for small businesses, individuals, and startups.

Key features:

• All-in-one platform: Squarespace provides everything you need to create and manage your website, including cloud hosting, domain names, email, and security.
• Drag-and-drop editor: The editor makes it easy to create and customize your website, even if you don’t have any coding experience.
• Beautiful templates: They offer a wide selection of professionally designed templates that you can use to create your website and online store.
• Ecommerce features: If you want to sell products or services online, Squarespace has everything you need to get started, including an integrated shopping cart, inventory management, and shipping options.
• Support: 24/7 customer support, meaning help is always just a click or call away.

Best feature: Ease of use

There are many great features that come with Squarespace, but one of the best is undoubtedly the platform’s ease of use.

Unlike other website builders and ecommerce platforms that can be quite complex and confusing, Squarespace is designed to be simple and straightforward. Even if you’ve never built a website or store before, you should be able to create a beautiful and functional site with Squarespace in just a few minutes.

To help you with this, Squarespace offers a wide selection of beautiful, modern designs that are sure to make your website stand out from the crowd. And, if you’re not satisfied with any of the pre-made designs, you can always create your own custom design using the platform’s powerful drag-and-drop editor.

Pricing:

• Free trial: Yes – Not stated how long
• Annual discount: Yes – Save up to 30%
• Personal plan: $23/month or $16/month (billed annually)
• Business plan (3% transaction fees): $33/month or $23/month billed annually)
• Basic Commerce plan: $36/month or $27/month (billed annually)
• Advanced Commerce plan: $65/month or $49/month (billed annually)

Pros and cons with Squarespace

Pros:

• You don’t need to know how to code. Squarespace has one of the easiest drag-and-drop website builders on the market. Even if you’ve never built a website before, you can create a beautiful, professional site with it in just a few hours.
• If you can’t come up with a design of your own, there’s over 100 modern, stylish templates that are perfect for any type of website or store. No matter what industry you’re in, there’s a Squarespace template that will make your site look great.
• You always start with a free trial and CC information isn’t collected until you’ve decided that this is the platform for you.
• Squarespace offers excellent 24/7 customer support (award winning actually), so you can always get help if you need it.
• Really nice ecommerce suites that can accept donations, sell gift cards, do Instagram product sync, abandoned cart recover, and more.

Cons:

• The premium feel also comes at a premium cost.
• No support for 3rd-party apps, plugins or extensions.
• There’s no autosave function like there is in WordPress for example. So be prepared to say “Yes” often when using the editor, since it asks you if you want to save your work a lot.
• The marketing tools ‘Email Campaigns’ and ‘Scheduling’ costs extra if you want them.

Get started with Squarespace

6. OpenCart

Best for tech-savvy people looking to start an online store

The OpenCart ecommerce platform is a powerful web store building tool that allows you to sell products online easily and efficiently.

It is a highly customizable and user-friendly platform that allows you to create a beautiful online store with just a few clicks. With thousands of extensions, you can customize the layout of your online store, add items, manage orders, process shipping and more.

And with OpenCart’s theme system, you can easily install different themes and customize the look of your store to match your brand.

As an open source ecommerce platform, OpenCart is free to use. You can install it on almost any web hosting service such as cPanel or Plesk. Plus, because it’s written in PHP, it works on most web servers.

All this makes OpenCart an excellent choice for anyone looking for an ecommerce solution that is both powerful and easy to use.

Keep in mind that, although the OpenCart ecommerce platform is powerful, it also requires you to be a more tech-savvy person if you want to use it. If installing files and such isn’t your thing, I’d recommend you’d check out some other platform on this list.

Key features:

• OpenCart is a free and open-source ecommerce platform.
• It is easy to install and use (if you have some technical knowledge).
• Comes with a lot of native features including unlimited categories and products, multiple languages and currency support, product reviews and ratings, coupons and discounts, and much more.
• OpenCart is highly customizable and there are thousands of themes and extensions available.
• Responsive by default so your store can look awesome no matter the device type.
• SEO capabilities from the start.
• Create unlimited product categories, and sell an unlimited amount of products. It doesn’t matter if you have 1 or 1M products, OpenCart got your back.

Best feature: Good features and tons of extensions

OpenCart is a popular ecommerce platform for a reason – it’s a powerhouse packed with features that make it easy to start and grow a successful online store…

Features like:

• It’s open-source and free to use.
• You can set up unlimited products and categories.
• Built-in order management system.
• Manage multiple stores from one account.
• Affiliate system.
• And much more…

But on top of the features you also have access to thousands of extensions, like:

• WordPress
• Google Analytics
• Amazon
• Ebay
• Facebook
• Excel
• And over 10K more…

Combining the native features with the extensions, there’s no doubt that you can build the online store of your dream.

Pricing:

OpenCart is an open-source ecommerce platform that is free forever.

However, I’d only recommend this platform if you already have a website in place and have some technical know-how. If you need technical support beyond the forum and documentation the pricing is as following:

• $99 per month per site
• $99 one-time fix

If you don’t have a website you’re looking at pretty much the same costs are WooCommerce, but with a more complicated installation procedure.

Pros and cons with OpenCart

Pros:

• OpenCart is completely open-source and is one of the few ecommerce platforms that are free to use. Making it perfect for those tech savvy-people on a tight budget.
• It has a lot of features and extensions that can make your store more efficient and successful. This also makes it very customizable and can easily be adapted for your unique needs.
• It has a large community of developers and users who are always willing to help.
• Multi-currency, so you can sell products in any currency you want (with automatic rate updates).
• Multi-lingual, that supports 40 languages (more are in the making). Now you can easily handle Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, and even right-to-left languages like Arabic (that’s unique).
• For hosting services using cPanel, like Bluehost, installation is pretty straight forward using the file manager. If you don’t have that, you can also use a FTP client to install it.

Cons:

• This is one of the ecommerce platforms that requires you to have some tech knowledge. You must be able to confidently install files using either cPanel or with FTP client.
• Relies heavily on the use of extra extension to get the functionality you want.
• Although OpenCart has many more of them, they’re not all free. For example the Weight and Volume-Based Shipping extension is $22.99. This is just like how WooCommerce works, with one major difference…OpenCart extensions are one-time payments.

Get started with OpenCart

What Are Ecommerce Platform?

Ecommerce platforms are web-based software applications designed to help businesses sell their products and services online.

In addition to offering a storefront to customers, these platforms also offer a variety of tools and resources for small businesses, including analytics and marketing tools to help businesses grow.

Many ecommerce platforms are hosted on the cloud, which makes them easy to set up and scalable as businesses grow. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms can also provide additional benefits, such as lower storage costs and faster customer response times.

Another important feature of using a dedicated ecommerce platform is its ability to handle large volumes of customer orders and sales. This is crucial if you want to run an online business that generates significant revenue.

Most of them also offer customizable features designed to meet specific business needs, such as payment processing, shipping, or inventory management.

The Benefits Of Using An Ecommerce Platform

Let’s face it, if your business isn’t online today, you will soon go out of business. This is the hard truth about how shopping has changed over the years. According to a recent study, ecommerce will stand for 20.4% of global retail sales by the end of 2022.

The explosive growth of ecommerce is in my mind a result of our tendency to move just about everything online. Because both you and me like to shop online…it’s so convenient, the whole earths market a few clicks away.

And when Covid-19 struck our ball shaped planet, it was like pouring gasoline on the fire. Now ecommerce is a hot topic for everyone looking to sell stuff.

So if you want a piece of the profit pie, it’s about time you get online, because ecommerce is only going to get more popular.

However, in order to get those new “online” customers, you need an attractive and engaging website.

With all that said, let’s look at some of the benefits of adding an ecommerce store to your small business.

SEO

Whether it’s basic or advanced SEO features, almost all ecommerce platforms comes with some kind of SEO capabilities. This allows you to optimize both your store and the products in it to increase search engine visibility.

Typically you can manage things like sitemaps, meta titles, descriptions, tags, target keywords, and more.

WooCommerce is a perfect example…

Since it’s WordPress based, it integrates with some of the highest quality SEO-related plugins. These can then help you optimize your entire site (including your store) and make it rank higher in search engines like Google.

This includes SEO tools like:

• Yoast SEO
• Hummingbird
• Smush
• MonstersInsights
• Rank Math SEO
• BZ Lazy Load
• And more…

Built-in marketing tools

Prooting your store using social media is a great way to find out where your target audience is, But you should do more marketing than that.

When your website is up and running, you need to pinpoint what your customers want to buy in order for your store to become a real success. And to do that you need solid set marketing tools.

The best ecommerce platforms will help you do just that. By giving you access to built-in marketing tools that provides you with all the essentials when it comes data and analytics, you can optimize your store for future sales.

Squarespace is a good example of this:

In order to help you drive traffic to your website, it provides you with a set of powerful marketing tools. It also helps you measure and calculate your success with advanced analytics tools.

With Squarespace you can use marketing features like built-in newsletter, pop-ups, coupon codes, banners, and more to boost sales.

Support

Your bread and butter are your customers, and if you can’t provide them with a good user experience, then you could be missing out on a lot of revenue.

In order to provide great UX, you need a site that loads fast, looks good, and is easy to navigate

Although most good ecommerce platforms will provide you with pre-designed templates for you to use when building your site and store. You still might encounter an issue or two every once in a while.

It could be anything from slow site speeds and unsmooth checkouts, to actual site errors that’ll prohibit your site from working correctly.

Whatever problem you might be faced with, every single ecommerce platform on this list offers solid customers support, so you can get the help you need.

For example, Shopify provides 24/7 email and English live chat support, plus a large community.

The only exception to this is OpenCart where support comes form its community and forum (you can get expert support, but then you’ll have to pay for it).

Scalability

Brick and mortar retail shops are cool in their own unique way, but they’re not ideal if your customers are geographically far away…

Unless you are very successful and have the funds to set up stores all over the country like Walmart and all over the world like Ikea, geography is a problem.

Most small to medium sized business simple can’t cover to costs of setting up stores like this, not to mention the management that it take to run them…

Naturally, this makes brick and mortar stores incredibly cost-ineffective to scale for a smal business.

However, if you can move your business online, this becomes a whole other question…

When small and medium sized businesses start using ecommerce platforms for their stores, they can now reach a global audience. Plus, they can now scale up their store much more easily and cost-effective comparted to the old-school brick and mortar store.

Most platforms let you set up an online store for anything between $3 and $50 per month (even for free in some cases).

Taking your business online, pretty much means that the whole planet becomes your playing field. You no longer have to target a single neighborhood or city, you can now target based on interest for example.

With this new broader reach, your sales will get a massive boost, and in the long run you’ll also see increased revenue and profitability from your store. Plus, you’re also less sensitive to local market fluctuations.

Ecommerce platforms will help you build a scalable store that will deliver solid performance and an impressive shopping experiences all around the globe.

How To Choose An Ecommerce Platform?

When choosing an ecommerce platform for your small business, it’s important that you choose one that has all the features your unique business needs. So take a closer look at things like:

• Costs
• Hosting
• Shipping options
• Payment alternatives
• How many products you want to sell
• What types of products does the platform allow you to sell
• Scalability
• And more…

Another very important aspect to consider is how easy it is to use and whether it can integrate with your existing website (if you have one).

As you can see, there are a lot of things to look at when you’re about to decide which of all the ecommerce platforms is best for you.

My best tip is that you take a close look at all the platforms that excites you, put them in a list, and see which ones ticks most of your boxes. Don’t just jump straight in, do a bit of research beforehand, your future self will thank you for it.

As you probably can tell, there are many great ecommerce platforms available on the market today. And as a small business owner you should be able to find one that suits your needs in this guide alone.

When you find the ecommerce platform that fits you like a glove, you can create a simple yet powerful online store and start selling your products to a wider audience without requiring any advanced technical knowledge.

Best Ecommerce Platforms For Beginners

We all got to start somewhere, right?

But starting from scratch should not require you to get four PHD’s in computer science and another one is sales and marketing. That would just make starting a store far to complicated and not worth the effort.

Back when I was a complete beginner, I wanted tools and business platforms that could help me get started with as little effort as possible. I didn’t want to spend days studying before I could do the simplest of things.

Therefore you need a ecommerce platform that is easy to learn and use, has a lot of professional looking templates, solid analytics and good support.

Working with a platform that has all of this will make it much simpler for you to start your fist online store as a small business owner.

So here are the best ecommerce platforms for beginners based on this guide:

• Shopify
• Wix
• Squarespace
• Zyro
• WooCommerce

Best Free Ecommerce Platforms

If you’re on the slimmest of budgets and still want to start an online store, a free open-source ecommerce platform could be the way to go.

But before you decide to go with a free platform, you need to ask yourself this:

• Do you have the skills to run and manage a self-hosted ecommerce platform?
• Are you experienced with web development?
• Is creative control something you want a lot of?
• Do you feel like having to pay a monthly fee to run your store isn’t your thing?

If you answered “yes” and “a lot” on the above statements then a free open-source ecommerce platform could be just the right thing for you.

And based on this guide here are your best options:

1. WooCommerce
2. OpenCart

As with everything else, open-source platforms has their own set of pros and cons. You will miss out on things like simple hosing, maintenance, security, support and overall simplicity.

But you also gain a lot in other areas…

These free open-source ecommerce platforms almost always comes with an almost unlimited amount of freedom and flexibility.

Conclusion

There you have it, my top 6 best ecommerce platforms for small and medium sized businesses.

As you can see, ecommerce platforms are a great way to start selling products online. They’re easy to use and don’t require you to be tech-savvy at all to set up your online store. All you have to do is decide which ecommerce platform is right for you and your business.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

Which ecommerce platform are you going to try first?

Or maybe I forget to put your favorite on this list.

Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below.