According to Statista, global e-commerce sales are expected to reach $6.54 trillion by 2022, with online shopping being the world’s most popular online business. Companies that don’t engage in e-commerce may not stimulate business growth in the years to come.
Equipped with smartphones, IoT, tablets, and 5G data speed, most consumers prefer to shop online. No business can survive without an online presence in such a scenario. Unless, of course, they are ready to bear substantial losses and bear the opportunity cost in terms of customer dissatisfaction. Any business that wants to improve the brand experience for its customers in 2020 must create an online store.
So if you think it’s the right time to start an e-commerce business and collaborate with service providers for e-commerce website development and mobile app creation, you have come to the right page.
If you have decided to start an online business, the next step is to choose the most suitable among the plethora of online e-commerce platforms that can improve your business, creating an intuitive website. Now, this is a crucial decision to make because your favorite online e-commerce platform must not only be profitable but also meet the requirements of your business. Also, it is worth mentioning that many reliable e-commerce web solutions offer a wide range of customizations. This means that you can decide to go for a basic version and then customize it with the help of an e-commerce solution partner.
There are several excellent options available when you take a look at an appropriate e-commerce platform. You could be spoiled for choice when trying to choose one. In this article, we will provide some tips to help you choose the best e-commerce platform for setting up your online store. To finally make your decision more comfortable, you will also have an idea about two of the most popular e-commerce platforms and their features in this blog post.
How to Choose the Best E-Commerce Platform?
How will you decide which is the best e-commerce platform for your store? There are several considerations in this regard that you should pay attention to. We will highlight some of these aspects here.
The Type of Products You Sell
There are several platforms available on the market to help you create an e-commerce store. They will all have a standard set of features that will help you manage the basic store requirements. However, some of them will adapt better, depending on the type of products you sell. For example, your business approach will be different depending on whether you sell physical products like clothing or digital products like software downloads. Having a clear idea of the type of products you sell will help you get a transparent perspective from the start.
Integrations
An e-commerce business is never an autonomous entity with only the platform and products. A variety of third-party tools and applications must be integrated to manage different aspects of the store. For example, payment gateways, account management, shipping companies, marketing initiatives, etc., require the integration of third-party tools. It is essential to understand whether the platform of your choice offers a perfect combination with different tools in each area. In case the platform only supports a limited set of tools, things may be quite limited for you when you are looking to grow your business quickly.
Compare multiple platforms to see if you can easily integrate third-party tools without problems when you need them.
Profitability
This, without a doubt, should be one of your biggest concerns when searching for an online platform for your store. The pricing models of the different e-commerce platforms are often radically different. You need a careful analysis of functionality and associated pricing components to understand what is essential and what can be overlooked. For example, many small business owners would like to walk slightly in the beginning. So a lean and average platform with minimal financial risk would be what they will be seeking for.
On the other hand, a company-wide solution would be looking for as many functionalities and configurations to grab market attention. The two scenarios above would require completely different approaches and, depending on the nature of your business, you should be able to make a wise decision. Fortunately, you will find various pricing options with most platforms covering a diverse range for businesses and individuals.
Security
When you have an online store, you will also be responsible for your customers’ data. Therefore, the platform should provide foolproof security for your products and data. Make sure the platform takes security seriously. Customers will naturally hesitate to give details of their transactions if the site seems less secure. Therefore, you need to make sure that your platform is safe for the success of your business. Make sure your platform is PCI compatible, and HTTPS supported for a secure transaction.
Mobile-Friendliness
Mobile shopping is growing rapidly. So the chosen e-commerce platform must offer mobile support without hiccups. A good e-commerce platform will ensure that your customer finds the same uninterrupted user experience in your store, regardless of the device it is connecting from. With multiple options available, the same user would sometimes use different devices to make purchases from your site. If they can order from your store without any noticeable difference, you can consider your platform and tools as responsive. Regular tests and careful monitoring of customer behavior will give you information about defects in any aspect of the store.
Most of the significant e-commerce website design solutions are open-source and are available for free. Also, some themes and plugins are available through open-source, while many of them are authorized. To navigate this mix of options, you need the assistance of a digital service and an e-commerce provider for the perfect end-to-end execution of the e-commerce website development project for your company.
Related: Why Mobile Apps are a Treasure for Your eStore?
Magento 2 or BigCommerce: Which is the Best?
As previously mentioned, here are two leading online e-commerce platforms that you can explore before selecting the most feasible option. However, it is also recommended that you define the strategic objectives, resource allocations, and expected results that you want to achieve by starting the online store.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform available as software as a service (SaaS). BigCommerce is gaining ground among startups as it offers customized web designs based on fantastic front-end models. The platform provides an integrated online e-commerce platform solution with which you can create an online store from scratch and maintain it permanently. It also allows website owners to add blogs, search for marketing campaigns, launch coupons, and discounts. It has a security function that will enable you to define and forget, ensuring the best return on investment for your company.
Magento 2
Magento is a powerful e-commerce website development platform with advanced features and numerous extensions to meet the needs of modern businesses. It is an open-source online e-commerce platform solution. Over 30000 websites use it all across the globe, with the United States having the most active users. Magento is popular because it has considerable strength from third-party developers who work hard to innovate and increase its capabilities.
Related: Supercharging Magento : Expert Solutions To Accelerate Your Magento Store
Comparison between Magento 2 and Bigcommerce Platforms
Let’s look at the differences between the two giant platforms.
Pricing
Depending on the budget, the price difference can be a determinant factor when choosing an e-commerce platform. In much, the overall cost for putting up your online store (and at a later stage maintaining it) on one platform or another will be directly tied to your needs, business size, growth expectations, technical requirements, among other points.
It’s more than fair to state that each of the two platforms mentioned above offer various plans, editions, and packages to select from which form the pricing. To get a clearer picture, feel free to take a closer look at the Magento products and the BigCommerce products.
Theme and Design
What sets the tone for your brand image is the theme and design of your online store. Your website design will forever be etched in your target customers’ minds if it is unique and captivating. A responsive website is another vital element in e-commerce. In this case, both Magento 2 and BigCommerce are on the same level.
BigCommerce offers seven free elegant themes that are responsive. However, customization of the themes provided by BigCommerce is not possible, as in Magento 2. This offers limited flexibility, even in the branding exercise. The reason for the inflexibility is that BigCommerce is a proprietary entity, unlike the open-source nature of Magento 2.
Magento 2, on the other hand, offers fully responsive and visually stunning themes for all screens and resolutions. The open-source nature of Magento 2 is a big plus. This allows for easy customization of themes tailored to your brand’s messaging. Magento themes are also available with third party sites and the Magento Connect store.
Marketing and SEO
Marketing, as well as SEO, is an essential aspect of e-commerce. Both platforms did an excellent SEO optimization job and had powerful marketing skills. However, there are minor differences.
For Magento 2, natural referencing has been an essential feature since the days of its Magento 1 predecessor. Features such as product page optimization, layered navigation, category page optimization are quite advanced in Magento 2. The concept of Analytics is a big step forward in Magento 2. It allows you to follow the behavior of your customers quickly and to focus your keywords and your marketing campaign accordingly.
BigCommerce also has excellent SEO and marketing skills. It is effortless to add appropriate keywords to your product and site pages in BigCommerce. There are also robust social promotion tools in BigCommerce where your social media can be linked back to the eStore, just like Magento 2.
After the observation, the marketing and SEO capabilities of Magento 2 and BigCommerce are comparable.
Hosting
The main difference between Magento 2 and BigCommerce is hosting. The reason is that Magento 2 is self-hosted, and store owners will need to contact third-party hosting providers to host their e-commerce store. There are so many different hosting options depending on your providers, and you can choose the feature that you think is best and right for your site.
BigCommerce has a hosting solution included in their pricing plans at no extra cost.
It is a fully hosted platform that offers an all-in-one solution for creating an online storefront with all the essential tools integrated into the basic version.
Are you looking for blazing fast Magento Hosting? MilesWeb offers Magento Hosting powered by LiteSpeed and LiteMage for superior performance.
Safety
Another crucial point worth mentioning is the level of security that’s offered on the platforms.
Speaking of the safety features incorporated in Magento 2, the provided standard Magento security patches have you covered. The general rule is to follow and install the patch updates in a timely manner. What is more, Magento has recently launched a new Scan Service with which you may perform health checks of your online shop and detect possible hazards.
What’s for BigCommerce, the platform is noted for its great uptime rates. Plus, the service takes care of your eStore’s security by itself handling points like fraud protection fraud and overall general website security.
Community Support
Thanks to a large number of users, just like WordPress, Magento has a large community of users. This makes it easier for store owners to interact with the Magento community, even ask for help. BigCommerce is supported by BigCommerce University, with so many videos to learn the rudiment of an online e-commerce store. Thiѕ vidео ѕеriеѕ will walk you through building, managing, аnd grоwing a ѕuссеѕѕful оnlinе business using your BigCommerce ѕtоrе.
In Conclusion
With so many options available online today to build your e-commerce store, choosing the right one for your business might be challenging. The good news is that with the information you have through this blog post today, you should be able to select the platform that best fits the specific needs of your business.
I hope you find this article interesting and exciting? Which of the platforms do you think is the best and why? Comment below.
