While you are seeking for the trouble-free and handy e-commerce website builder to take your retail/ manufacturing business online, you will find numerous competing platforms providing the service. The challenge is to select the best one for your business. Before moving ahead, you must have the features listed that you are looking for. Otherwise, you will end up paying for out-of-budget not-so required features.
Certain features like single-page checkout, easier user-interface, product detail pages, abandoned cart recovery, SEO, etc. are fundamental ones for e-commerce business. Whereas others like sales channel integration, integration of third-party applications, advanced reports, product filtering, API support, etc. are there to improve the customer experience. Don’t follow the count of features, rather select the ones that are important to launch the business and decide the business plan accordingly.
As soon as you start talking about the ecommerce platform, Shopify is the first one to start discussion. It is totally worth it, but, you must know the others performing equivalent or even better than Shopify. To ease your research a bit, we are giving you a comparative brief of leading ecommerce platforms.
Now, we will be telling you the details of ecommerce that can help you design your store in an appealing manner.
1. Shopify:
Being one of the renowned names of the e-commerce industry, Shopify has a vast community build. Shopify lets you purchase a domain, host, and build your e-commerce store, connect with the sales channel, and showcase as a brand.
Shopify’s interactive dashboard helps you create your e-commerce store without any technical knowledge. The basic theme customization is more comfortable to try your hands-on, but to add advanced functionalities, you have to seek professional help.
To start building your business at Shopify, you need to opt for either of the three business plans, namely, Basic Shopify, Shopify, Advanced Shopify. When the basic plan going to cost you $29, advanced plans will require the investment of $79 and $ 299. If you have a full-fledged business already running, you can opt for Shopify Gold, where you will get the custom functionalities as per your requirement.
Benefits of Building your store at Shopify:
- Outstanding sales features
- Distinct apps for handling point of sale customers
- Easy access to third party applications like logo builder.
- Enables multi-channel selling across social media platforms
- Shopify mobile app lets you manage your orders and track your inventory without switching to your desktop device.
Drawbacks of Using Shopify:
- Shopify charges transaction fees for every product you sell via your store. The rate of the commission varies from 0.5% to 2% based on your business plan. You will get the relaxation of zero charges only while using Shopify Pay, which is available for selected countries only.
- Needs third-party applications for international scalability
- Switching templates isn’t easy. You need to reformat the content if you change the theme.
2. Builderfly:
Builderfly is a unique and only e-commerce solution provider in the market that empowers your business with the mobile application along with a live e-commerce store. This makes it a perfect fit for all the business: newly rising entrepreneurs as well as for the established businesses.
With a single dashboard, Builderfly hosted ecommerce platform authorizes you to create and personalize your store, build a mobile app, and manage your inventory across multiple sales channels. An interactive design editor allows you access to the HTML/CSS editor also. So, you can personalize your store as per your preferences and requirements.
Builderfly supports the growth of startups widely. If you are launching your business, you can be greatly benefitted by their startup plan, which is FREE for lifetime. To groom your business identity with the native m-commerce app and personalized store as per your business niche, you can upgrade with their advanced business plans. When the standard plan costs you $35/month, advanced and pro versions will cost you $75 and $135/month.
Benefits of launching your business with Builderfly:
- Builderfly offers a Lifetime FREE plan for startups.
- You get free access to professionally designed, high-quality, responsive e-commerce themes for your business niche.
- You can launch an AI-inbuilt native mobile app in your store. This builds your credibility as a brand.
- Builderfly doesn’t charge any commission on your sales.
- It offers a free consultation to the e-commerce enthusiasts and guides them step-by-step to launch their business.
- You can add unlimited variations of the same product on Builderfly.
Cons you face with Builderfly:
- Since Builderfly is a relatively new platform, you will not find a huge community of existing businesses.
- As of now, Builderfly doesn’t have a distinct seller app to manage your sales remotely. However, the m-commerce app negates this point to a considerable extent.
- There is no massive marketplace like that of existing platforms for now.
3. BigCommerce:
BigCommerce is also the prominent e-commerce store building platform with which you can create your business. BigCommerce has a huge focus on developed businesses, which makes it less ideal for startups. However, the choice may vary from user to user, so you can explore it in a free trial period.
Designing your e-commerce store on BigCommerce will arm you with all the necessary e-commerce features. This keeps you from looking for third-party applications to make the most out of your business and doesn’t cost you additional expenses.
BigCommerce’s base plan starts with $29.95/month. To improve your customer experience with the advanced functionalities, you can opt for plus and pro plans at the rate of $79.95/month and $249.95/month.
Benefits of BigCommerce for your business:
- Supports multichannel selling across the platform
- It offers a fantastic combination of features right from the standard plan.
- Amazing SEO boost options to improve search rankings.
- The seller’s mobile app that can help you manage your business remotely from anywhere.
Drawbacks of opting for BigCommerce:
- BigCommerce platform is full of jargon and complex language with which you may get intimidated as a newbie.
- They don’t offer a mobile app or native m-commerce app for easy access.
- It doesn’t offer access to a primary required feature of abandoned cart saver with the primary plan.
4. Volusion:
Volusion turns e-commerce store building easier for you with its collection of free and paid e-commerce themes. With Volusion, you can create your store, market, and sell through it.
Volusion shares the standard business like that of Shopify. It lets you create your store at $29/month as an individual plan. If you are a business or professional, you must look for the business and pro plan of $79 and $299/month.
Pros of using Volusion:
- You will get access to drag and drop tools, which will surely be helpful in designing your store as a first time user.
- Easy and secure checkout options.
- Single portal inventory management.
Cons of opting for Volusion:
- Free themes are basic and don’t have a unique look.
- You can’t list unlimited products with Volusion. If you have a huge inventory, you need to upgrade with the pro plan.
- Volusion limits the staff accounts that you can assign to your team.
- If you are subscribed to the individual plan, you won’t have access to bulk uploading features.
5. Squarespace:
One of the excellent and affordable e-commerce website builders that you can rely on is Squarespace.
When you get access to numerous themes, you won’t get similar access to must-have e-commerce features. This makes it a good fit for the startup, but not for advanced businesses.
To set up your store with Squarespace, you can get started with a personal plan. However, that won’t give you access to the e-commerce functionalities profitable for your business. To move ahead, you can opt for a business plan, e-commerce plan, and advanced e-commerce plan, which are available at the rate of $18, $26, and $40/month.
Benefits of Squarespace:
- Access to drag and drop technology makes it easier to add or remove content.
- Basic e-commerce functionalities to get your online business presence.
Cons of using Squarespace:
- You will be charged the commission on your sales if you are not subscribed to e-commerce or advanced e-commerce plan.
- You won’t get access to some key features like abandoned cart recovery, gift cards, advanced shipping in any of the basic plans. You simply need to opt for an advanced e-commerce plan to get access to the features that competitors are offering.
6. WooCommerce:
Unlike other e-commerce store builder platforms, WooCommerce is not the one. Instead, it is just a plugin that you can install after hosting your site on WordPress. If you are wondering, why would I name it here, then all the credits go to its popularity.
Now, when you already know WooCommerce is not a store builder, it’s no wonder that you won’t get everything as per plans. WooCommerce is the WordPress for e-commerce and thus offers you access to all the necessary features that you will need to empower your business. Rather than the plan, WooCommerce allows you to select and pay for the features. So, you have to pay for extensions that you need for your store.
Benefits of opting for WooCommerce:
- WooCommerce is available for free. So, you can get started anytime.
- Since WooCommerce is an open-source platform, you can get sound support from WooCommerce as well as the WordPress community.
Disadvantage of WooCommerce:
- There is no all-in-one package to make the online store designing easier for you.
- Not preferable for newbies, unless you know technical tidbits. Else, you will find yourself confused about choosing the best plugins.
At this point, we have mentioned the crucial ecommerce software that will not only help you design your store, but arm you with all the necessary tools. If you like to opt for WooCommerce, you can rely on your creativity to make the best out of available resources. If you like to see the close comparison of features, we advise you to check our detailed comparison blogs.
If you like to know how Builderfly can help you through your entreprenuerial journey, you can write to us at support@builderfly.com. You can fix an appointment if you like to get free telephonic assistance for your ecommerce business.
