Unveiling the Top 10 eCommerce Powerhouses for Business Success (Reviewed)

Last Updated on February 4, 2023 by Arif Chowdhury

Nowadays, you can see that eCommerce is the fastest-growing platform everywhere in your day-to-day life. For example, let’s say you want to buy a pair of sneakers from the Bata website; this website is designed as an online marketplace where different kinds of products are displayed with images, details, and prices.

You can even pay online using your credit/debit card. And they will ship your product within 1-5 business days, depending on your location. You may also contact their customer support if you face any issues in the eCommerce store.

It is called an eCommerce platform & it is much different from a typical website or blog. Real-life examples include Amazon, eBay, BestBuy, etc., with millions of customers purchasing online. In addition, other real outlets and showroom features can apply here, i.e., discounts, offers, and coupons. Therefore, you can start an online store even if you have a small business. As this platform has lots of eCommerce features thus, selling physical products online is not rocket science anymore.

However, it is much more cost-effective and faster than the physical showroom. For example, when you visit a showroom, several sales assistants help you find your desired product; you ask them about the price, they accept cash from you or through Point of sale, then pack your products.

As you can see, there are lots of hassle and expenditures such as employee salary, and you need a proper business plan to maintain a large store. In contrast, you alone can maintain a large eCommerce site and sell unlimited products without incurring extra costs.

So, the question is – what is the best or top-rated eCommerce platform?

Well, before we begin the guide, let us give you a list of the best eCommerce platform:

1. Wix.
2. BigCommerce.
3. Shopify.
4. Ecwid.
5. 3dcart.
6. WooCommerce.
7. Sellfy.
8. ShopBase.
9. Volusion.
10. nopCommerce.

If you want more details about them, please continue reading.

How can an eCommerce platform change everything?

You do not need a single assistant, salesman, or manager on an eCommerce website. Instead, the whole website will manage itself, from displaying your products to accepting customer payment. However, you need to host your site on robust and reliable web hosting and invest in SEO tools and website builders if you are serious about your business.

You can even get automatic statistics reports of sales & expenses every day in real-time; besides, this report is made by software; therefore, it is 100% accurate and honest, unlike physical showroom reports that managers make; hence, no guarantee about accuracy or honesty.

Large businesses started to maintain their showroom using an eCommerce platform as nowadays; people tend to shop online rather than visit a showroom.

In 2022, a massive collection of eCommerce platforms will be available. Over 578 eCommerce platforms exist. Yes, that number is correct. And choosing the right one from this vast collection can be a real challenge. Among this huge list which is the best eCommerce platform for beginners?

I have written down reviews of my favorite eCommerce platforms to make things easy for you.

Trust me. I have years of experience in these eCommerce platforms. I tested by myself, and reviews are all based on that. So I will give you a custom-made choice based on my experience among the vast eCommerce platforms.

So, let’s get started.

1. Wix.

One of the best eCommerce platforms with a free plan.

Wix is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms; it contains hundreds of free and premium themes, and you can use those to build your online store within 10 minutes using drag and drop editor. In addition, you can offer promotions, coupons, and gift cards to engage your valuable customers and make them return. It is designed to help you manage sales orders, maintain inventory, and ship procedures.

They are offering you instant account creation, and it’s completely free with a $0 cost per month. If you satisfy and need an advanced feature for further growth of your business, then upgrade your plan.

Start an eCommerce business by using the Wix platform. You do not have to have advanced knowledge in HTML or CSS, neither you have to hire a professional web developer, as Wix has a built-in drag & drop website builder with a custom-made stunning landing page. It also has a mobile-friendly feature for other devices like Android and iPhones to optimize your website view automatically.

Quick Note: In an online shopping store, abandoned cart recovery is a powerful feature to pursue customers who abandoned carts recently. You can quickly increase your total sales by 200% if you follow your customer effectively with lucrative offers.

Easy 1-2-3 drag & drop online store builder.

You have created an online store but no products to sell? Surely you can’t sell affiliate products on your eCommerce site because affiliate products have their website. Therefore, what is the option, then?

Wix also has a solution for that. Start a dropshipping business and sell high-quality products from thousands of suppliers according to your choice; you do not have to hold inventories or face shipment hassles. Instead, you will set your price and sell right from the website, and the products will deliver from the supplier’s warehouse.

As for pricing plans, Wix has highly competitive subscription plans for its customers. For eCommerce businesses, prices start at $17 per month for the Business Basic plan. In addition, it offers you unlimited bandwidth & 20GB of online storage. You will also get a free domain for one year—enough features for a starter business.

However, If you want a boost right from the beginning for your large eCommerce website, choose Business Unlimited, or the VIP price will be a maximum of $35 per month.

Think about it; a physical showroom would cost you 20 times more than this. And the most beautiful part is that you can test their service for free if you want.

2. BigCommerce.

A master of eCommerce platform – built for business.

For a severe and large organization, BigCommerce is best. It has some features that outclass other eCommerce platforms, i.e., it covers almost all kinds of available payment gateway, drives more customers with built-in marketing and SEO features, has seamless integration with virtually all types of apps, built-in stunning website builder and hosting, can handle orders more than $150 million per year.

Most honest offers may be a 15-day risk-free trial period, enough to understand how their platform works, which will help you make an informed decision.

If you have a big organization, my advice is to start using the BigCommerce platform right from the beginning without thinking of a second option. Because its platform is specially designed to handle millions of orders per month, its pricing model is also scaled. Therefore for a small business, it will be a waste of resources and costly because their lowest pricing model is similar to the Advance model of other eCommerce platforms.

Quick Note: SSL certificate is vital for today’s online store; without it, no one will trust your business. Also, remember that your shipping rates are essential for your eCommerce business growth. The number of products you will sell per month is directly related to how easy and less expensive your shipping cost is.

Work smarter & make complex management easy.

They are offering you two exclusive products – 1. Essentials, and 2. Enterprise

It is designed for medium to large business owners and Enterprises intended for a large organization that needs customized eCommerce solutions.

Their Essentials eCommerce solution has the same features as other eCommerce platforms though their learning curve might be a little higher. Though, it has open APIs, SaaS, and zero transaction fees.

BigCommerce can be an inexpensive SaaS eCommerce solution for a large organization that wants to migrate from an expensive platform to save thousands of dollars from their annual turnover.

In December 2018, they launched Next-generation eCommerce solutions for their clients named “Headless Commerce.” This new feature enables organizations to manage their visual content with WordPress software while the whole platform will operate by a powerful BigCommerce engine.

The Built-in SEO suite will take care of site optimization.

You get a powerful built-in SEO suite thus no need to worry about optimizing your site.

Now, what about the pricing model? For Essentials solution price start from $29.99 per month for a small organization with some limited feature, and the Pro plan cost is $299.95 per month. However, if you choose an annual bill payment option, then an automatic 10% discount shall apply. Finally, choose the Enterprise plan for significant organizational needs with a custom pricing model; you have to call for it.

If you are unsure about plans, try them out for 15 days and decide later.

3. Shopify.

Specially designed for eCommerce solutions – free for 14 days.

Shopify is the most well-known eCommerce platform trusted by over 1 million businesses globally.

It began in 2004, was launched by a Canadian company, and became one of the most trusted SaaS eCommerce solutions. You may have already heard about them, as they have known for not only eCommerce solutions but also website-building platforms, email marketing campaigns, social media ads campaigns, and many more.

They offer you to test out their fantastic platform for a risk-free 14-days trial.

The birth of Shopify was on a whim; Scott Lake, Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Tobias built their open-source web application with Rails and Ruby because they were not satisfied with the current mobile application at that time, and this is how Shopify was born.  

Even a 7-year kid can set up an online store using Shopify.

Shopify gained mass awareness only because of its flexible, user-friendly interface and perfect marketing to its clients’ hearts.

Drag and drop features enable their clients to build a dropshipping online store within 10 minutes. So even the most inexperienced computer user can make an online store with the help of their platform.

With their pre-designed professional themes and custom-made plugins, you can quickly build a robust and well-designed online store; however, building an online store is just the beginning. Your site needs online marketing features and optimization for SEO to become successful.

There are some limitations in SEO optimization; for example, you can’t change the format of the online store URL; by default, it will be the same as always. If your website URL is hobby.com and one of your product’s sub-URL is under collections URL hobby.com/collections/xxx, then you won’t be able to change it to hobby.com/xxx.

A virtual assistant will manage your business 24/7.

Another shortfall can be a limitation in product variants. Shopify is limited to 100 product variants, i.e., colors, sizes, materials, fabrics, etc. Therefore, if your organization is significant, Shopify might not suit your needs; you should consider looking for the BigCommerce platform.

Shopify has three different subscription plans, from $29 to $299, from Basic to Advance. However, they all have more or less the same features, i.e., free SSL, discount codes, coupon codes, inventory management, etc.

However, If you choose the Basic plan, then your transaction fee will be a little bit higher than the Advance plan; for example, Online credit card payment fees are 2.4% for the advance plan, while in the basic strategy, it is 2.9% then again for third party payment processor fees is 2.0% for the basic plan while only 0.5% for the advance plan. It might not affect your revenue much; however, when you start to get more sales, it will cut down a massive chunk of it.

Therefore, upgrade to an Advance plan to be safe when your sales grow.  

4. Ecwid.

First thing –you can start it for free.

It is one of the fastest-growing and most popular eCommerce platforms, with a customer base of more than 1.6 million. However, it is best suited for those who already have their website and want to add shopping features. But if you do not own a website, that’s okay. They offer an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder to create an online store within 10 minutes, then add products you want to sell online.

Besides that, Ecwid is simple and easy to use, even for a beginner.

Yes, you can sell anywhere, even on Amazon or eBay.

Built-in integration with third parties is another feature of Ecwid, as you can easily integrate with WordPress or Joomla. And optimized for device-friendly views enables you to target a broad audience from iOS to Mobile.

Manage your store virtually from anywhere using mobile apps.

Ecwid eCommerce has more than 50 secure payment gateways.

Some key features of Ecwid.

• Managing and tracking inventory using a dashboard
• Smart Shipping Calculator
• Robust security system (PCI DSS Validated)
• Awarded by G2 Crowd for – “Fastest ECommerce Implementation Platform.”

Lots of downloadable pdf guides for your training.

Ecwid has four different subscription plans available for you to try out. Starting from $0 to $99 per month. If you are not sure, why don’t you use their free plan? Let’s give it a try.

5. 3dcart.

Get a free trial with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

With the 3dcart eCommerce platform, you will have over 200+ built-in features and 50 free themes for your new online store. And, of course, it is an SEO-Ready online store; thus, you won’t have to worry about SEO optimization.

All-in-one hosted platform for your ultimate solution.

Another beautiful thing I need to elaborate on is the Pre-Built SEO Optimization features. You might not find this feature on every eCommerce platform, but 3dcart is different. Every part of your online store is pre-designed and optimized for SEO; thus, it will eventually increase your organic traffics; all you have to do is concentrate on building customer relationships.

Integration option with many third parties to grow your business.

Do not worry about integration with other application that is valuable to your business connections. For example, you can integrate with a fingertip, Facebook, Stripe, Google, MailChimp, etc.

Trusted by many clients and well-renown in the market.

3dcart has five different subscription plans available for you to try out. From “Start-up Store” to “Pro Store,” ranging from $9.50 to $114.50 per month.

If you are unsure what to do, my advice is to try their free 14-day trial first, and then the decision is yours.

6. WooCommerce.

Free and fully customizable plugin for WordPress sites.

WooCommerce offers you flexibility like other eCommerce platforms; you can build your store in WordPress the way you like most and then start selling simply.

Marketing is also flexible because – WooCommerce gives you access to reward your customers with coupons, incentives, points and rewards, gifting, and many other ways.

You can write blogs to date your customers; SEO optimization is built-in. Therefore, you won’t have to worry about that. You can promote your products by linking with other relevant products to maximize your organic reach.

You can even automate email marketing tasks. It is also built-in within this eCommerce platform. You also have an A/B testing feature to analyze email-marketing efforts.  

Built-in email marketing automation.

You can reach your customer by leveraging another popular 3rd party channel, i.e., Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, and eBay, seamlessly integrating with your online store.

Finally, WooCommerce experts are providing you with their knowledge to help you get started with lots of tips and tricks about marketing and promotions.

• Don’t you know how to use coupons to drive more customers?
• Do you know how to use the first $50 in social media marketing?
• No worries, learn from experts and try it in your business.

Improve your marketing with the knowledge of experts.

Though WooCommerce is a free plugin to transform your WordPress site into a full-featured Online Store, there are premium plugins for you to try with better features.

7. Sellfy.

Start an online store within just 5 minutes.

Sellfy is a simple and flexible yet very effective and robust eCommerce platform available. You can add and sell any product on your website or social media channels. In addition, there are built-in marketing tools to help you get started, i.e., email marketing, coupons, discount, etc.

Drag and drop feature to build your online store.

You can connect your domain to an online store. A built-in shopping cart allows your customers to add multiple items, and a store language feature will change your online store language based on customer location and language.

Some key features:

• It is fully optimized for mobile devices.
• Embed option for your product virtually anywhere.
• Built-in email marketing feature.
• Up-sell and discount codes.
• Tracking pixel options for social media ads.

Built-in dashboard for automatic analysis.

Besides, your online store will receive secure transactions and anti-fraud protections that protect your client information. A PCI-DSS security system protects Sellfy; it has another feature called PDF stamping – you won’t have to edit a pdf file for every buyer, Sellfy unique feature will do that for you. It also has a limited download option available. Thus, buyers can’t share your file with other people.

Integration with more than 1,000 third-party applications.

Sellfy has four different subscription options available. Start from “Starter Package” to “Premium Plan” from $19 to $89 per month. However, if your sales volume is more than $200K per year, you may contact them for a more customizable plan that suits your needs.

8. ShopBase.

Perfect for drop shipping eCommerce solution.

Very flexible and easy to use even for beginners, 1-click ready online store. First, it is well-designed and pre-optimized for SEO; thus, you won’t have to tweak it for better performance. 

It is also connected with Drop Shipping or POD service providers. They take care of all the complex and heavy tasks where your job is to sell online hassle-free.

Thousands of pre-designed themes for you to choose from.

Online store themes must be eye-catching to attract customers, and ShopBase has thousands of them. It’s also mobile-ready, which means every theme has been pre-optimized for any device, i.e., iOS, Android, iPhone, etc.

It is also fully customizable; you can edit the HTML and CSS of your store to make it more personalized and suit your needs.

Verities payment gateway, including PayPal and Stripe.  

ShopBase has three different subscription plans. Basic Base, Standard Base, and Pro base. Starting from $19 to $249 per month. If you just created it, then the Basic Base subscription plan is for you; however, you might need a Pro Base plan for the enterprise level.

And, of course, if you are not sure, take a risk-free 14-days trial.

9. Volusion.

One of the oldest & renowned eCommerce solutions.

Volusion is an all-in-one eCommerce offering expertly pre-designed themes with custom domains and intuitive functionality.

Responsive themes: No matter which device your customer access, your store themes will adapt automatically.

Drag and Drop easy to use store builder feature for beginner or advanced users.

Pre-designed and SEO-optimized themes for your store.

With Volusion, you can sell your products the way you want. It has a fully customizable product page; you can add multiple photos and videos of products and brilliantly showcase them before your customers.

Another feature is powerful pre-optimized SEO and an automatic built-in analytics dashboard to track your store performance at a glance.

Built-in email marketing options can give your customers incentives with coupons, discounts, event promotions, gift vouchers, and many more.

Sell your products the way you like most.  

Robust integration with many third parties worldwide.

Volusion has four subscription plans, from the “Personal plan” to the “Prime plan,” ranging from $29 to $299 per month. And the Prime plan has a custom rate; you have to contact them directly.

And, of course, as usual – You may start their risk-free 14-day FREE trial without needing any credit card.

10. nopCommerce.

Free, open-source eCommerce – no holding back.

First, it is a solid FREE eCommerce platform with thousands of free features, just like a paid platform. They have 11 years of experience in this field, 60,000 live online shops are running with their free eCommerce platform, and 10,000 new stores are growing with them each year.

nopCommerce supports 1,500+ third-party applications; surprisingly, they have 250,000+ community members worldwide! So yes, and it’s still growing.

And it is not for just small businesses; nopCommerce can handle the needs of small to large organizations.

Now, why should you choose nopCommerce? The answer is simple – FREE with thousands of benefits, and nothing has to pay. It is free; there are no monthly charges or transaction fees.

It is highly secured with a PCI-DSS compatibility feature. And you can use multi-vendor and multi-store functionality called B2B and B2C to get the ultimate performance for Enterprise level business.

Finally, you can integrate nopCommerce with almost all third parties, i.e., Facebook, Amazon, and eBay services, just like a paid platform. And, because it is an open-source platform, there is no limitation in customization.

So, when it is free, there is nothing to lose except gain; now, let’s get started, shall we?

Executive Summary.

Everything has become computerized and accessible from the internet in this digital era. No need to look for outside examples; right now, you are reading this guide from your desktop, laptop, or android phone (maybe iPhone). Where you found this guide? Of course, from the internet. Your parents may buy groceries from an online shop, clothes, shoes, or other products. You may even have bought your laptop from an online store recently.

So, it is not a science fiction movie anymore. It is real; we are no longer in 1990. It is 2020, and everything is getting more and more digitalized.

Our grandfathers started their first business from a local shop, and now we will start our first business from an eCommerce platform. Not much difference; that was physical, and it is digital. Our advantage is we do it from home with comfort.

If you like my eCommerce guide, do not forget to give me thanks in the comment section below, or if you need to learn more about the eCommerce platform, do not hesitate to ask me.

Further reading: if you are going to start a business soon, you might need – “Best Email Marketing Software” & for making a professional website, don’t forget to check this out – “Best Website Builder.”