Best Online Store Ecommerce Platforms

Ecommerce is here to stay, ready or not.

Look at the numbers if you don't trust us.

Global ecommerce sales will top $5 trillion in 2022, accounting for more than a quarter of retail sales, according to eMarketer. By 2025, despite declining growth, overall spending will top $7 trillion.

Platform 1

As a merchant wishing to come online, choosing the ideal ecommerce platform will ensure scalable, long-term growth.

Ecommerce platforms help internet businesses manage their website, marketing, sales, and operations. BigCommerce integrates sophisticated ecommerce features with standard business tools, allowing entrepreneurs to centralize operations and manage their business their way.

Choosing the finest ecommerce platform has repercussions.

Helping brand-engaged customers obtain products.

Providing sales and marketing tools to your workers.

Protecting sales growth, maintenance, and installation costs.

Let's look at what to consider and major ecommerce platforms:

What's my ecommerce solution?

Three ecommerce platforms are available:

Open-Source.

ASP (software-as-a-service).

Unguided business.

Open-Source ecommerce.

Cloud or on-premise hosting, however all patches and platform updates are manual.

Open-source ecommerce platforms are code-editable.

This type of ecommerce platform is popular with development and IT-heavy enterprises that seek control.

The brand is responsible for:

PCI-compliant.

Hosting (depending on if your open-source solution is on-premise or cloud).

Open-source cloud commerce solutions differ from on-premise in that hosting is controlled off-site.

Cloud environments don't have unlimited bandwidth like SaaS. If evaluating Magento or Volusion, ask about bandwidth limits.

Platform-provider-mandated patches and updates.

Threats.

QA for all further apps, including:

ESP.

CRM.

CMS.

ERP.

Analytics/BI tools.

New site tools, including:

Promo engines.

Marketing tools (e.g. SEO features, email marketing).

Drag-and-drop builders.

Many firms find open-source ecommerce platforms too cumbersome, pricey, and complex.

Popular ecommerce platforms include:

SaaS.

Unguided business.

Large ecommerce firms only consider open-source, cloud-hosted ecommerce solutions 46% of the time.

Why?

Because open source software is free, its cost might be deceptive.

Open-source solutions sometimes leave security, licensing, and maintenance costs to the user, which can increase the total cost of ownership.

SaaS and headless commerce speed up brand launches.

We live in a competitive market where a delay in UX, product, or backend improvements might offer your competition an edge.

ecommerce SaaS.

Cloud-hosted.

SaaS ecommerce solutions simplify internet business. Instead of building a custom or open-source solution, you rent the platform.

This is a cheaper choice than open-source when considering development costs.

SaaS providers handle product updates, security, hosting, and PCI compliance.

Marketing and growth departments for ecommerce firms cheer on SaaS ecommerce solutions. You can go-to-market fast and economically with SaaS.

Some worry that a SaaS solution's closed-off code may limit flexibility and modification. APIs, non-proprietary coding, and staging environments can ease this anxiety.

Open SaaS platforms, like BigCommerce, meet the aforementioned criteria.

With BigCommerce's open API, merchants have all the benefits of a SaaS platform — hosted by BigCommerce, cheaper total cost of ownership, faster go-to-market time — plus the ability to create custom integrations and functionality faster, akin to utilizing an open-source platform.

Headless e-commerce.

Cloud-hosted.

Headless commerce decouples the shopping cart from the CMS.

In these use scenarios, brands can utilize Adobe Experience Manager, Bloomreach, or a CMS like WordPress or Drupal. Then they can add an ecommerce shopping cart.

SaaS systems commonly replace disconnected carts due to their low TCO and strong API flexibility.

Historically, large businesses' IT and development departments controlled the business through on-premise hosting, open-source platforms, or proprietary platform builds.

SaaS and cloud hosting altered the paradigm due to the exorbitant expense of monolithic technology stacks and marketing's requirement for speed and innovation.

Headless commerce reduces total cost of ownership and speeds go-to-market.

APIs, plug-ins, and decoupled technology let brands retain monolithic operational systems.

Headless commerce providers also work with:

CMS for page-building and blogging.

ERP data collecting.

ISP Email (ESP).

PIM for several sales channels.

OMS manages inventories.

POS for payment processors.

Amazon or eBay.

SaaS APIs provide for a modern SaaS technology stack, including ecommerce SaaS platforms, ESPs, and even Brightpearl.

IKEA is a good analogy.

When combined, microservices form a final product.

Headless commerce is many ecommerce brands' first step toward microservice architecture.

Burrow's interface bridges content with commerce. By adopting a headless configuration, they've created the online purchasing experience they seek.

Kabeer Chopra, Burrow's CPO, explains:

We use a headless CMS to modernize our platform and deliver a better digital experience across channels.

Consider the traditional IKEA nightstand.

If you replace the nightstand's top with a wireless charging-enabled top, you've done headless commerce in a way — employing a different frontend piece to update the original while keeping the same base and utility (e.g. drawer = cart/checkout).

BigCommerce is a headless ecommerce system. BigCommerce decouples the presentation layer from the commerce engine, allowing businesses to run several stores with different frontends from a single account.

Headless?

BigCommerce's headless solution can aid your business.

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Self-Hosted vs. Cloud: What's Better?

Two options to host ecommerce sites:

Self-Hosted.

Cloud.

Both options aren't platforms. They are how the site is hosted, with machines on-site (controlled by your IT or development staff) or off-site in a warehouse (think Amazon Web Services, for instance).

Self-hosted ecommerce.

Self-hosted ecommerce solutions require store owners to find hosting, install software, and update it manually.

Developers must maintain and update a self-hosted ecommerce website, which is costly and time-consuming.

WooCommerce, a WordPress plugin, is a self-hosted ecommerce system that can be hosted on-premise with some technical know-how.

This option gives you additional control over your online retail platform, data visibility, and data security.

This approach makes sense for complex businesses, but it can lead to increased expenses and fewer revenues.

ecommerce cloud platforms.

Off-site solutions like Amazon Web Services host cloud-hosted ecommerce platforms. Cloud platform manages brand uptime.

Choose a cloud-hosted ecommerce platform to save money on servers, maintenance, and updates. As needed, the hosting provider will give customer support.

In addition to hosting costs, cloud-hosting requires a licence charge. You have less server control and can't customize them.

Ecommerce platform features

Every online storefront has distinct needs, and the optimal ecommerce platform for your business depends on its ability to tackle day-to-day difficulties.

You should learn the basics about potential providers.

Host.

Your hosting environment is a web hosting platform for an ecommerce website that incorporates payment processing, security, SSL, and shopping cart software.

Depending on your traffic, site size, budget, web development skill, and amount of products, you'll need to pick the right host, especially if you rely on your online store for income.

BigCommerce has 99.99% uptime and unlimited bandwidth on Google Cloud Platform, a fast, secure global hosting service.

BigCommerce merchants also have these hosting features:

Bandwidth limitless.

Quick CDN.

Purchase domains.

Use a known domain.

SSL included.

Purchase or transfer SSL certificates.

Unrestricted API calls.

When using a SaaS platform, the amount of API calls accessible, their efficiency, and whether the essential APIs exist are crucial for data orchestration. Companies demand high or infinite API call volumes. Each SaaS platform handles API call volumes differently.

Shopify has strict API call per second limits, but BigCommerce has no cap for Enterprise merchants. We don't charge based on your business' API requests.

Website builder user-friendly.

More than 60% of designers spend 11 to 40 hours on a website before launching it.

For a business owner with little to no web design and development knowledge, this may seem like a significant undertaking. It's important to choose a platform with a user-friendly ecommerce website builder and a wide range of free themes in non-proprietary languages. The BigCommerce Page Builder, for example, is easy to use and flexible. The drag-and-drop tool lets you make quick adjustments to your site, control your brand, and launch faster.

Security.

Running an online store includes handling sensitive data including customer addresses, credit card details, and payment information.

PCI Compliance criteria must be met to take payments or you face fines, the loss of customer confidence, and other fraud-related financial consequences.

Some platforms may not give enough features. Many systems include SSL certificates, however proper protection may require third-party applications or in-house infrastructure.

BigCommerce stores are secure with Level 1 PCI compliance. So you may focus on business growth instead of security.

optimization (SEO).

90% of ecommerce firms fail within the first 120 days, mostly owing to poor SEO, proving that getting search engine traffic isn't always straightforward.

There's a lot to consider when optimizing your site for SEO, including page load speed, keywords, mobile compatibility, and website structure.

Fortunately, many ecommerce platforms include built-in SEO capabilities.

BigCommerce has various SEO tools built-in:

BigCommerce auto-populates SEO-friendly URLs for product, category, and other pages and lets merchants change them.

Every page has its own URL, preventing duplication material.

Microdata are "rich snippets" that improve search results.

If you rename products during the migration process, BigCommerce will redirect the old URL to the new URL so customers can find them quickly.

BigCommerce's CDN ensures your online store loads swiftly for customers and search engines.

Other major ecommerce aspects are:

Extensive app shop with pre-built connectors with top service providers.

Mobile-optimized site, checkout, full experience (out-of-the-box), and mobile app possibilities.

Marketo integrations.

Promotions and discounts, analytics, catalog management, WYSIWYG editors, etc. are built-in ecommerce capabilities.

Multiple payment methods.

Unlimited product bandwidth.

Ecommerce Platform Choices

Do your study before committing to an economical plan that satisfies some of your needs. You can switch hosts at any moment, but moving your site can be difficult. Note:

Budget.

Despite offering competitive packages, ecommerce hosts must be cost-effective.

More doesn't always mean better.

Choosing the cheapest choice generally means turning elsewhere for add-ons. Combining costs from different sources is pricey.

Budget for the following characteristics before choosing an ecommerce host.

If you choose solitary web hosting, you'll have to shop about for prices. All-in-one hosting typically provide a premium package that covers all of these capabilities and fits your budget.

Websites.

From landing page through checkout, your store's web design should reflect your brand and keep customers coming back.

Themes are available on several major ecommerce platforms. Some themes are free, while others cost $60-$200.

Your ecommerce system may lack a feature you need. Here come add-on, plugin, and extension costs.