What is an eCommerce Platform?
An eCommerce platform is a software application that enables businesses to control their website and operations. It also helps businesses to manage their marketing and sales.
An eCommerce platform is more than a piece of technology; it serves numerous purposes. Essentially, it enables businesses to launch, host and manage their stores in the digital space, giving them the tools to sell a large inventory, reach out to wider audiences and enhance their brand/product discoverability using SEO and advertising.
The several features and advantages of eCommerce platforms make them imperative for businesses that are engaged in selling products and services to customers and other businesses alike.
Which is the Best Ecommerce Platform for Startups in India?
The role of an eCommerce platform in any startup includes:
- Expanding the customer base
- Assisting the growth of business
These factors make the job of choosing the right eCommerce platform a very important task for startups.
The advantages that an online business enjoys through an eCommerce platform make it an absolute must for growing eCommerce businesses. Let’s go over them quickly:
- Easy management of a prolific product catalogue.
- Hassle-free inventory management.
- Seamless integration with blog, shipping and delivery partner, payment gateway, etc.
- An SEO-friendly platform that aids in boosting the discoverability of your products and services.
- Great for selling digital products and subscription-based invoicing.
- Streamlining of the customer experience by providing a seamless purchase journey.
- Enhanced customer service.
- Targeted content delivery to customers via integrated CMS.
Now that we are familiar with the advantages and benefits of eCommerce platforms, let’s have a look at some of the best eCommerce platforms and compare them to each other.
Additional Read: What is SEO Automation: 4 Must-Have SEO Automation Tools and Their Benefits
Magento
Magento is currently one of the most popular and sought-after eCommerce platforms globally. Some experts call it the best eCommerce platform in India.
Source URL: https://www.afaicon.com/services/ecommerce-web-development/
Point to Remember
- The estimated merchandise value handled by Magento across the world is more than $100 billion.
- This platform is widely favoured by businesses owing to the value it offers in terms of performance, stability and security.
- Magento Installation on your hosting account is a straightforward process.
- It keeps on coming up with updated versions to accommodate the changing needs of the businesses and to fix any shortcomings in the security feature.
Magento offers two editions as per the needs of the businesses:
- Magento open source edition
- Magento commerce edition
Additional Read: best ecommerce cms
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is touted as the world’s most efficient and appropriate eCommerce platform. It covers around 30% of the total eCommerce market.
Source URL: https://www.tristatetechnology.com/blog/why-woocommerce-is-the-best-option-for-ecommerce-website/
Points to Remember
- WooCommerce is not a complete content management system, nor is it a complete framework. It is free to use plugin powered by WordPress.
- WooCommerce holds special relevance among businesses that are not interested in spending a lot of funds in developing an eCommerce platform as it is a highly affordable and lowkey platform.
- It is very simple to use. Hence, any common person can use this platform to build a website and create an online store.
Did you Know: Techmagnate also offers complete expertise in SEO Services.
Opencart
Opencart is free of cost and an open-source eCommerce platform that is built on the PHP framework.
Source URL: https://martsoft.ru/articles/kak_vybrat_cms_dlya_internet_magazina/
Points to Remember
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- Opencart is best suited for small and mid-sized businesses.
- Around one million websites across the world are using this platform to run their online businesses efficiently.
- This platform offers the most customization options among all the eCommerce platforms.
- The installation of this platform on a basic level doesn’t involve any add-ons. For add-ons and other attributes, you will need to buy the paid version of Opencart.
- It allows businesses to access the admin panel through admin.
Prestashop
Prestashop is an open-source and free to download and use online instrument store. It is probably one of the best in its category throughout the world.
Source URL: http://www.galitein.com/prestashop-best-ecommerce-platform/
Points to Remember
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- Prestashop has more than 2,50,000 online stores across the world.
- This software allows businesses to open and set up a fully functioning and personalized store in a short time.
- It offers a few unique features, such as predicting sales conditions.
- It enables businesses to integrate their products with online stores to the likes of eBay, Google and Amazon.
- Prestashop is very user friendly with a simple admin panel. Its dashboard is clean and advanced, making access to all the store settings quite easy.
With this, we have discussed the four most popular eCommerce platforms. It’s now time to draw a comparison between all of them. So, let’s get started.
Magento vs Woocommerce
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- Magento is an eCommerce platform designed for web developers along with medium and large online stores, whereas Woocommerce is a plugin for WordPress platform offering ease of use.
- Magento offers a free community version along with various premium services, while Woocommerce is a completely free platform.
- The community version of Magento is self-hosted, while the premium services include hosting. On the other hand, Woocommerce needs you to find your own web host.
- Magento supports extensions. It also offers a wide range of them. Woocommerce comes with an extension system and several options.
- Magento provides advanced security features, whereas Woocommerce ensures basic security features.
- Magento is recommended for users who have a basic level of knowledge regarding web development. Woocommerce is comparatively easier to use.
- Magento installation is more complex than Woocommerce installation.
Opencart vs Woocommerce
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- Opencart is an open-source eCommerce platform, while Woocommerce is a WordPress Plugin.
- Opencart is designed to manage the store easily for every business, irrespective of the size. Woocommerce is designed to convert an existing WordPress website into a functioning online store quickly and easily.
- Opencart installation can be done manually or through a single click script installer. WooCommerce can be installed like any other plugin. It does not require any licences.
- Opencart offers a basic store design along with options of free and paid themes. Woocommerce offers around 21,000 free themes and around 30,000 paid themes.
- Opencart installation is free of cost as it is an open-source platform. WooCommerce can be installed free of cost, and it is free to use on the WordPress website, but it involves additional costs such as domain name and hosting service.
Additional Read: Which Top Level Domain is Better: com vs net vs org
Opencart vs Magento
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- Magento and Opencart are similar to each other in a lot of senses. They both are open-source platforms that use templates to upload products. They both are developed in PHP and offer resources like extensions, plugins and add on products. They both support several languages and currencies across the globe.
- Magento needs a stronger hosting plan to support the performance of the store. Opencart, on the other hand, is cheaper to host owing to its lightweight.
- Magento offers several features, including personalized shopping experiences, unlimited design options, plugins and integrations, among others. On the other hand, Opencart is simpler with limited features.
- Even though both Magento and Opencart have firmly established developer communities, the Magento community is far stronger. Magento also facilitates certifications and recommendations for developers.
Additional Read: Instagram vs Facebook vs Twitter vs Snapchat: Which is Better for Business Marketing
Opencart vs Prestashop
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- Opencart is an open-source eCommerce management system that provides the premise, online and mobile solutions for SME businesses. Prestashop also provides similar solutions for SMEs, but it is a self-hosted platform.
- Opencart ensures a powerful order processing mechanism and basic features. Other features have to be added by using extensions. On the other hand, Prestashop offers several commercial features, including cross-selling and layered navigation. It offers more extensions and themes than Opencart.
- The platforms supported by Opencart include Windows, Mac and Web-based. On the other hand, Prestashop supports Windows, Android, iPhone/iPad, Mac and Web-based.
- Opencart is simpler and is more suitable for small stores, whereas Prestashop is more complex and is more suitable for larger businesses.
Magento vs Prestashop
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- Magento and Prestashop are both written in PHP. Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform, while Prestashop is a free eCommerce platform.
- Both Magento and Prestashop provide a large number of themes. While the Magenta themes include a supply from a wide range of third parties, the Prestashop themes are designed by their own team.
- Both Magento and Prestashop offer a wide range of features, but Magento is known for offering stronger features. Magento 2.0, especially, offers several exclusive features such as customer segmentation, gift registries, rewards and loyalty, etc.
- Even though both Magento and Prestashop ensure high-level security, Magento offers consistently updated security features to overcome any new threats.
- Both Magento and Prestashop are known for their performance and scalability, but Magento right now is performing better than Prestashop in this regard.
- With regards to SEO and marketing, Magento and Prestashop both offer features such as page title and meta description. But, Magento offers some additional features like sitemap and Google tools for which Prestashop requires modules.
Prestashop vs Woocommerce
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- Prestashop is a content management system for eCommerce stores, while WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin.
- PrestaShop has a CMS section to create information pages. But the options are very limited. Woocommerce offers better content management services owing to the underlying WordPress layer.
- Even though both Prestashop and Woocommerce are open source eCommerce solutions that are easy to install and download, businesses still have to pay for themes and modules. In this regard, Prestashop is thrice as expensive as Woocommerce.
- Prestashop provides two main support services comprising online and technical assistance. Woocommerce, on the other hand, doesn’t offer any direct support to users.
- Users can pay for Prestashop by choosing between a third party payment processor or a Prestashop checkout solution. Woocommerce offers more than 100 payment gateways.
Conclusion
Since all the above-discussed components of the top eCommerce platform list offer a plethora of features, you can choose the most suitable one for your business as per your requirements.
These requirements could be anything from the ease of installation, templates & designs offered, platform functionalities, and SEO friendliness to user-friendliness, price and extra costs, product personalization, security, performance, and customer services and support. Whatever eCommerce platform you pick, rest assured that it is going to deliver lucrative growth to your business across all parameters.
