7 Excellent eCommerce Providers and Applications That Will Get You Selling Online Fast

Featured article by Catherine Hernandez, Independent Technology Author

If you’re looking to get started from scratch with eCommerce or are hoping to find a way to integrate eCommerce into your existing web platform, you’ll want to read this article. In it, we discuss the 7 best eCommerce providers and what they can bring to your business.

Worldwide ecommerce sales are growing by the year. In 2014, businesses made $1.4 trillion in eCommerce sales. By 2021, that number could increase by nearly 250% to $4.5 trillion.

It’s clear that businesses literally can’t afford to avoid integrating ecommerce into their business models.

Maybe your business has recently added an ecommerce option, or maybe you’re just looking for a way to scale your current operations. Either way, there are ecommerce providers that will suit your needs.

Read on to learn about seven of the best ecommerce providers out there and discover what they can do for your business.

1. Shopify

If you want to start an online store, Shopify is one of the best options out there. This is one of the best-known providers when it comes to integrating an ecommerce platform into your website.

Their platform is incredibly customizable and helps you create an interface that will maximize sales. Whether you want the shopping carts to be more responsive or the ability to create personalized discount codes, Shopify can easily accommodate your needs.

It’s also a very scalable platform, so your online store can grow as your business grows. You won’t have to worry about completely changing over your system if you experience unexpected growth.

2. Gumroad

What if you just need a very small, simple store? Let’s say you’re a freelance photographer looking to sell your prints or a local mom-and-pop store who needs a way to conduct business online.

In this case, Gumroad can serve your needs. It’s meant to sell just a few products and is geared towards people with minimal programming experience. Just drag and drop a picture of your product into the editor, type up a description and price, and you’re done!

However, if you anticipate your business growing over the years, this is probably not the choice for you. Since it’s designed to be a simple ecommerce platform, you won’t be able to scale it up to fit your changing needs.

3. Squarespace

If you want to easily and quickly build a website as well as an online store, Squarespace might be a good decision. You can build a business website that looks modern and professional with minimal effort. Plus, Squarespace’s ecommerce platform is equally sleek.

This is a good option if there won’t be an IT professional or programmer dedicated full time to the website and store. A business owner with no programming experience could still easily run the store.

The editor is easy to learn and the pricing is reasonable — you can run a basic store for as little as thirty dollars a month. If you get a lot of mobile traffic, the interface also looks great on Apple and Android devices.

4. YoKart

In some cases, you may want a store that can support multiple vendors. Maybe you’re not just selling your own products or services, but those of other businesses, too.

In that case, you would definitely want to consider YoKart. It’s one of the best ecommerce platforms for multivendor stores since this is what it specializes in. While other platforms offer a multivendor option, this is YoKart’s main focus.

This is also a good option for people who aren’t interested in doing a lot of programming or code work. Similar to Squarespace, it offers various design options for those who aren’t interested in the smaller tasks associated with establishing an ecommerce store. Just choose a theme template that fits your branding and get started.

If you do prefer a more customizable experience, though, that option is still available. You’ll need a developer for that.

5. Magento

Magento has been around for a decade this year and it continues to stay relevant in the world of ecommerce platforms. This is a particularly great platform if your business needs to handle a lot of traffic and individual customers. Global organizations like Burger King and Liverpool F.C. use Magento for their ecommerce needs.

One thing to note — even though Magento is a powerful system, it might not be the best choice for you if your business doesn’t have an employee who is familiar with coding. In that case, you might want to outsource to a programmer or support service. (Read more here about when you should do that.)

If you do have programmers on board, though, this could be a great option. It’s open-source, so there are countless third-party extensions and modifications available. Plus, you can handle a lot of your data analysis within the platform itself.

6. WooCommerce

If your website is already hosted using WordPress, this is a no-brainer. WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin, so integrating it into your existing website should be seamless.

You’d be one of the millions of pages already using this plugin — it’s been downloaded more than 49 million times!

It’s a good choice for both established businesses and those who are just getting off the ground. Plus, if you’re already very familiar with coding for WordPress, this is a perfect choice. Like WordPress itself, it’s open-source. This opens the door for lots of free extensions created by third-party developers, in addition to the free and paid options offered by WooCommerce.

7. BigCommerce

Finally, BigCommerce has evolved to fit the needs of people without coding skills who need to create an online store. Think of it as a standard website builder, only instead of a website you’re building an online store.

BigCommerce really excels when it comes to serving small and medium-sized businesses. Their customer service is fantastic and the security is so tight that you never have to worry about being hacked or your customers’ data being stolen.

The tradeoff will be that there are only so many themes to choose from. They don’t have as many free themes as other platforms do (only around seven), so your choices will be limited without the ability to code. It’s also not the best for multivendor stores.

Get More Information About Ecommerce Providers

Hopefully, this blog post has helped you learn a bit more about the different ecommerce providers that are the best options for online stores. Choose which one is best for your business and start creating!

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