Top 10 ECommerce Platforms to Boost Online Sales in 2024

If you want to start selling online, fill your customers' digital shopping carts leveraging one of best e-commerce platforms on the market today. Maximize your sales potential, customer service and user experience all at once. Why wouldn't you position your e-commerce business at an advantage if there was a tool you loved to use?

For what they offer, e-commerce platforms are relatively inexpensive and easy to use. It’s just a matter of finding the platform that’s best for you and your business.

Here’s the rundown on 10 of the best e-commerce platforms on the market and the different features and options they offer:

1. Shopify

Founded in 2004, Shopify is arguably the most well-known e-commerce platform around. They ended 2018 with a reported 1,000,000+ businesses using their platform and turning over more than $41.1 billion in gross merchandise volume.

So, they’re one of the best and most popular e-commerce platforms. But this doesn’t mean they outperform their competitors in every area.

The main advantage of Shopify is how easy the platform is to use, customize, and navigate. Both from a backend perspective and for users on the front end. You can drag and drop elements to make your Shopify store, the menus are intuitive and well designed, and it looks great.

The main drawback is the rigid URL structures and some of the restrictions when trying to lay out your site structure from an SEO perspective. If SEO is your long-term goal, as it should be for most online businesses, you’ll find some elements of laying your pages frustrating.

Pros

Great look and UX
Easy to customize themes and layouts
Fast loading time
Awesome customer support
Good for 1-click selling and upsells

Cons

Can be costly for those starting a new ecommerce store
Not good for SEO and site structure

Cost Structure

You can get start using Shopify with a 14-day free trial to learn your way around the platform before committing to a plan. cOutside of the free trial, you’re looking at three different pricing plans ranging from $29 per month to $299 per month. You can run all aspects of an e-commerce business on their basic plan, with their larger plans mainly offering savings for transactions and shipping fees.

2. WooCommerce

WooCommerce has the lion’s share of the e-commerce marketplace powering a huge 22% of all online e-commerce stores as of 2019. Its popularity is due largely to being completely free to download, as well as offering a wide range of features out of the box, being intuitive to use, and incredibly flexible. WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, so there is that restriction if you’re new to WordPress. But WordPress is also the most popular content management system.

It’s largely down to you to figure out how to use WooCommerce. But if you’re experienced using WordPress it shouldn’t be a problem, and with the free price tag makes it an attractive choice.

Pros

Free to download and use
Incredibly easy to use and has a wide range of customizable themes and add-ons
Great for SEO because it’s a WordPress plugin

Cons

Being an open-source plugin, the customer support is poor
You’ll need to add-on various extensions which, can slow down your site

Cost Structure

WooCommerce is free to use. There are paid themes and add-ons, but honestly, none are necessary to run a successful large-scale e-commerce business.

3. Appy Pie AI Website Builder

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‍Appy Pie's AI Website Builder is a revolutionary tool that leverages artificial intelligence to help users create dynamic and versatile websites without the need for coding or technical expertise. It's designed for businesses aiming to establish a robust online presence without the hassle of hiring developers or setting up IT departments. The platform offers a user-friendly interface, allowing users to describe their website concept in plain text, which the AI then converts into a fully-functional online application.

Pros

Intuitive interface makes website generation simple and efficient.
Create websites without writing a single line of code.
Websites are served securely through HTTPS, ensuring data privacy.
Allows for on-the-fly changes, even after the website is live.
Offers a range of themes and layouts to align with brand identity.
Swiftly deploy the website once built.

Cons

The AI relies on user input, so clear instructions are crucial for best results.
While it offers many customization options, some advanced features might be limited.
The final website design is based on AI's interpretation of user input.

Cost Structure

Appy Pie's AI Website Builder allows users to create a basic website for free. However, for advanced features and functionalities, there are different pricing plans.

4. Squarespace

Squarespace is a website builder that provides hosting, website building tools, and has dedicated e-commerce themes and tools.

They’ve been around since 2003, and have established themselves as one of the best products for website and store builders with limited technical knowledge.

If you want to build a simple store quickly, Squarespace can do this for you. They have some great looking themes and images to use, and it’s a simple drag and drop process to get everything in place.

Pros

Easy to use with limited technical knowledge
Lots of great looking designs out of the box
Good SEO capabilities
Integrates with ShipBob and ShipStation

Cons

Currently only offers support for Stripe and Paypal at checkout
Not the most competitive pricing

Cost Structure

They offer two pricing plans; you can start with their Basic Commerce plan for $26 per month. Or you can pay $40 per month for their Advance Commerce plan, which includes some additional features such as APIs for orders and advanced shipping and discount options.

5. Weebly

Weebly was founded in 2006 and currently has more than 45 million customers all over the world.

It’s a good platform for beginners and experts alike. You can use their drag and drop feature to quickly assemble a store, or dig into the HTML and CSS to customize the templates if you’re comfortable doing that.

They offer competitive pricing and some cool features like marketing campaigns, shipping calculators, and phone support if you get stuck.

Pros

Competitive pricing
Plenty of great-looking designs to choose from
A simple interface and smooth user-experience
Good marketing tools to promote your business

Cons

Not good for SEO
Limited blogging features for content-driven sites

Cost Structure

Weebly has two pricing plans for e-commerce businesses. You can get started with their $25 per month Business plan, or upgrade to their Business Plus plan for $38 per month for their full suite of tools.

6. Wix

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Wix shares a lot of similarities with Weebly. They have also been in business since 2006, have similar drag and drop e-commerce store building tools, and offer a similar suite of features.

The main difference between the two is that Wix is better-suited to smaller businesses. This is because it lacks some of the key features other e-commerce platforms offer, such as an automatic tax calculator and reminder emails when stocks are low.

It’s not as easy to seamlessly add new products and scale a store as it with Shopify for example. So, if you have the foresight that you intend to keep a small to medium range of products, it might be useful to consider Wix vs Shopify to see if Wix suits your needs.

Pros

Plenty of themes and add-ons to choose
Very simple to use and build a stunning storefront

Cons

Missing a few features other e-commerce builders offer
Dropping shipping not available

Cost Structure

Wix has three pricing plans for e-commerce businesses ranging from $23 per month to $49 per month.

7. 3dcart

Despite being around since 2001, 3dcart hasn’t reached the size of audience some of the other e-commerce platforms have. This is mainly due to the fact that it’s not the easiest platform to use. Beginners will struggle to really make the most of all their features, and it takes longer than most of the other platforms to put a store together.

If you can work through this, however, you can take advantage of their advanced features to build an awesome store and excellent user experience. They offer some great features, too, such as no transaction fees, even on their basic plan. Users also enjoy unlimited storage, their own POS, and 24/7 tech support if you get stuck.

Pros

Good blog features for content-heavy sites
Supports a wide range of integrations
Affordable starting prices

Cons

Not for beginners or users with limited website building experience
Templates are not as modern as other platforms

Cost Structure

3dcart has four pricing plans covering a wide scope of features ranging from $19.00 per month to $229.00 per month. The good news is that their startup plan offers unlimited products and bandwidth.

8. BigCommerce

BigCommerce might have the most built-in features of any e-commerce platform. Combined with their easy-to-use drag and drop store builder, it’s a platform for stores of any size and users of any experience level.

Features that should be considered key for any e-commerce business, such as multi-channel selling, SSL certificates, and inventory tracking all come as standard with any of their plans.

Their Pro plan scales with your sales. It’s $249.95 per month for up to $400k in sales, then an additional $150 per month for each additional $200k in sales. Large numbers, but something to keep in mind.

Pros

Easy to use builder with a wide range of customizable features
Strong SEO tools
Lots of modern, stylish, dynamic themes to choose from

Cons

No 1-click selling feature
Can get expensive for high volume sales

Cost Structure

Their pricing plans range from $29.95 per month for their Standard plan to $249.95 per month for their Pro plan. BigCommerce also offers an Enterprise plan for a custom price to suit your specific requirements.

9. Volusion

Volusion has a similar drag and drop builder that most of the e-commerce platforms offer, so no issues building a store.

The main issue is the lack of free themes, there are currently just 11 free themes at the time of publishing. Their paid themes are $180 each, so that’s a large added expense to factor in for a new business.

Their plans include all of the features you want when starting an e-commerce business. The dashboard is easy to use and makes managing your store and inventory easy. So, all positives from a user experience, the lack of blogging features might turn off the SEOs however.

Pros

Easy-to-use drag and drop builder to build your store
Clear and intuitive dashboard and inventory management
Multi-channel selling capabilities built-in

Cons

No blogging features and lacking SEO features
Few free themes and expensive paid themes

Cost Structure

You can try Volusion for free for 14-days. After that, they have three monthly plans ranging from $29 to $299 per month. They have sales caps per plan too. You’ll have to upgrade after $50k in sales, then $100k in sales, and finally $500k in sales.

10. Spocket

‍Spocket excels in providing a list of thousands of dropshipping suppliers US and Europe have to offer.Aspiring and active dropshippers can take advantage of quality products that ship fast thanks to warehouses in USA and EU.When in doubt, order product samples from the platform's dashboard in a few clicks.Test products and suppliers to determine whether they fit your business well.Finally, Spocket displays the cost of every item and its shipping while also calculating the actual profit for each sale you make.Pros‍

Has a 14-day free trial
Integrations with Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce
Branded invoicing
Exclusive product discounts

Cons‍

Manufacturer chat can be a bit slow at times
Lack of product filters

Cost Structure

‍Spocket's pricing plan starts with a free trial. The Starter package costs $39.99, whereas Pro and Empire cost $59.99 and $99.99 respectively. If you opt for an annual plan, Pro costs $24 a month, and Empire costs $57 a month.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an answer as to what the best e-commerce platform is for your business, it depends on what type of business you have and what your goals are.

Shopify and BigCommerce are two of the most complete platforms and are competitively priced. So, I’d take a closer look at those two as a starting point to see how their features line up against what you want.

If you’re a WordPress user on a budget, WooCommerce can do everything you need for free. You need some technical know-how and a more hands-on approach, however.

Store builders like Weebly, Wix, and Squarespace are easy to use and great for beginners. They are limited when it comes to running huge e-commerce empires, but most aren’t going to test them to that level.