• Web Design

Evolution of Commerce Ended in eCommerce. What’s Your Favorite Platform?

Once I questioned myself: why do we need a post? Emails and social media messages totally changed the paper letters. Then, I came to conclusion: actually we need it to ship products ordered in e-stores. This only live function of a post brings to another thought, which consists in importance of web shop for a modern human. Watching the global evolution of postal services roles, I can say – yes, it’s very important.

As you could know, web designer are such people that define and follow new tendencies rather quickly. In our case we can get a plenty of eCommerce platforms. These applications are developed exactly for online stores and include the elements needed to make the websites comfortable for a commercial use. Shopping cart, ordering capabilities and user account are in fact mandatory.

The amount of eCommerce websites has grown comparing to the last year: Alexa Top 1 Million ranking represents the number of 34,864. The permanent leader of the list is Magento – 26% of all eCommerce websites use this platform.

The well-known Zen Cart fell down to the 4th place. That has brought VirtueMart to the second place, though the amount of the websites powered by this platform decreased from 3657 to 3324.

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It’s interesting to make our own statistics and to check the rating from DesignFloat blog visitors. Also, that would give a chance to see an eCommerce platform you like in the TemplateMoster’s inventory in the future.

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Now let me present the 10 most popular eCommerce platforms according Alexa rating and shortly outline the pres and cons for each of them.

Shopify

Shopify got the first place in the list and it’s not surprising: this platform has everything needed for good eCommerce interface. The elegant storefronts and handy tools together with customization option makes the product extremely suitable for any online store.

BigCommerce

This platform is aimed to fulfill the needs of the small business. The other useful feature is that the software is optimized for selling on Facebook, eBay, smartphones and email services.

CoreCommerce

The main benefits of CoreCommerce are close connection with social media and high-quality customer support. The weak side of CoreCommerce is SEO and designs. Nevertheless, it didn’t impede it to take the honorable third place.

Americommerce

AmeriCommerce stands out with a multi-storefront option. It gives an opportunity to launch multiply eCommerce websites from one back-end.

Big Cartel

One more platform for small markets. Big Cartel is especially intended for different types of artists and craftsmen: designers, musicians, jewelry makers and so on, which forms a bigger part of the platform’s users. It’s obvious to me that Big Cartel gained popularity because of its suitable free package.

3dcart

3dcart is probably the easiest in using eCommerce platform. Its pricing plans are quite appropriate for small businesses. Nevertheless, the true fly in an ointment is a horrible customer support.

Volusion

This is a platform that pays attention to the mobile web a in proper way: spreading of smartphones makes mobile eCommerce more and more promising field. In addition to that Volusion offers a deep social media integration.

Magento

This shopping cart is open source, having a lot of great components: from advanced statistics to pretty look of admin panel. Magenta has the most numerous quantity of users among eCommerce platform for good reason.

LemondStand

Solid developer community, a bunch of helpful add-ons and comfortable interface makes PHP-based LemondStand a good choice as an eCommerce platform.

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I can’t state that any of mentioned platforms is the best, because in any case we should take into account the product we sell, the scope of business, target audience and much more. Every detail should be considered. So, make analysis, choose the eCommerce platform fitting your business the best.

By the way you can also write your favorite platform in comments after finishing survey.

About the author:

Art Rivera: Deeply interested in everything connected with Internet, I sincerely suppose the web is the only future reality for the humanity through its inevitable involving into every part of human life. I’m not a great fan of cyberpunk concept, but the world is keeping that certain direction of total connectedness. And of course there should be someone, who can write the history, who would describe and analyze and enter in the record all notable changes and tendencies on the web. Hello, it’s me.