The best ecommerce platform for startups: A review

04 May 2018
Hub Box

With access to hundreds of e-commerce platforms, millions of suppliers, and billions of consumers, nothing has done more to level the retail playing field than the internet.

As a result, a panoply of new e-commerce-based startups have emerged. Some of the most prolific include Amazon and eBay, which both humble beginnings at the beginning of the ‘internet era’. Jeff Bezos started Amazon out of his garage in Seattle, and Pierre Omidyar began working on eBay as a hobby. Today, almost anyone with internet access can start an e-commerce website utilizing one of the hundreds of e-commerce platforms readily available, enabling them to become retail entrepreneurs as well as challenging the traditional brick and mortar giants.

But of the countless platforms available, which one is best for your startup or small business? We’ve taken a look at three of the most popular e-commerce platforms that startups love to help you find the one that might work best for you.

Shopify

The most renowned e-commerce solution amongst both industry leaders and laymen is Shopify.  Much hype has surrounded Shopify after launching its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in mid-2015 and more than quintupling its value in the subsequent years.  Below are five integral metrics that every startup ought to ponder when considering Shopify.

Price

Shopify plans start at $9 per month for Shopify Lite and top out at $299 per month for Advanced Shopify users. For enterprise solutions, Shopify allows businesses to negotiate on fees. Shopify also has transaction fees, but they are reduced for higher paying customers. The transaction fees are eliminated altogether for those who use Shopify Payments.

User-friendliness

Shopify is an easy-breezy ecommerce solution thanks to its drag-and-drop interface. Because it’s a SaaS solution as opposed to open source, manual customisation options are scarce. As Shopify has grown, its user interface has only become more refined. Shopify offers a smooth user experience for people of all skill levels.

Customization

Shopify offers a number of distinct templates and themes to customize the front end of its ecommerce shops. For example, startups can adjust their storefront through personalizing discounts, design layouts, and more. Its backend, on the other hand, is technically able to be modified, but sharp restrictions confine one’s ability to make alternations.

SEO

One salient advantage to choosing Shopify is its array of original content. Shopify has tons of articles detailing how to improve SEO, website performance, pricing, and more. Built into Shopify’s system is also a wide selection of SEO features. Many of the options such as editable title tags, editable meta descriptions, and auto-generated sitemap.xml and auto-generated robots.txt files are simple, but many people starting out will find the straightforward system convenient.

Speed

The average load-up time for an ecommerce website is 3.39 seconds, and many are shocked to learn that for every second fewer a customer waits, the conversion rate increases by 7%. Speed is crucial to the success of any ecommerce website. As expected, Shopify ranks among the industry leaders in speed with an average load time of 1.98 seconds.

Customer support

Given that Shopify has an abundance of cash, it spends a portion on certifying responsive, 24/7 customer support. The support team offers email, phone, and live chat

WooCommerce

For those who already operate a WordPress blog or for those who wish to create a WordPress shop, WooCommerce is a brilliant option. Setup and installation for WooCommerce is simple, and it’s only a download away. WooCommerce handles the entire purchasing process including product management, price points, shopping cart, and the checkout pipeline. While it’s not a long-term solution for big companies due to scalability challenges, it’s still a great starting point for a business looking to get their feet wet.

Price

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin, but it does offer paid extensions to galvanize a startup’s SEO game or further personalize checkouts. Official WooCommerce extensions begin at a cost of $29.

User-friendliness

Although WooCommerce does not offer an experience as polished or cohesive as Shopify’s, it’s far from an archaic bogged down system. In fact, it’s quite user-friendly, with helpful features and an intuitive layout. It’s also simple to toggle through settings, order reports, shipping or tax information, and more.

Customization

WooCommerce is a remarkably customizable service thanks to the thousands of free and premium extensions. However, these extensions are not perfect. While the open-source network and expansive selection of plugins is undoubtedly a positive, it’s vital to remember that utilizing numerous add-ons can dwindle website load times.

SEO

Even though SEO largely falls under the responsibility of the business, it’s still propitious for ecommerce solutions to offer tools to guide a website designer in the right direction. For example, WooCommerce provides a number of extensions such as WooCommerce Product Review Pro which supercharges the existing review system by adding Amazon-style picture and video reviews, apt review filters, and more.

Speed

One challenge WooCommerce startups’ face is loading speeds. As discussed earlier in the article, every second fewer a website requires to load results in a 7% increase in conversions. As a startup adds more plugins to its repertoire, the website slows down. According to Selfstartr, WooCommerce websites take 5.28 seconds to load.

Customer supprt

WooCommerce certainly lacks in its customer support department, but it’s not entirely their own fault. Due to the nature of open source systems, the plugins developed by private developers don’t fall under WooCommerce’s jurisdiction. Most startups will resort to adjusting their own code, or finding resources on the WooCommerce Support Forum. WooCommerce does offer customer support tickets for basic questions, technical questions, and sales questions, but it’s dubious whether technical questions are resolved in a timely and effective manner.

Big Commerce

Although BigCommerce may not have the same brand recognition as Shopify or WooCommerce, this ecommerce solution certainly packs a punch. It’s a great option for less programming savvy entrepreneurs looking to dive into the ecommerce business.

PRICE

BigCommerce monthly plans range from $29.95 to $249.95 and they don’t charge transaction fees. However, BigCommerce does have sales volume limits for its price options. For this reason, some customers have grown frustrated with BigCommerce’s price tiers.

User-friendliness

BigCommerce offers an intuitive and easy interface similar to Shopify’s. It has the same dashboard along the left side of the screen, which allows for seamless transitions among key pages such as the dashboard, orders, and analytics. Overall, there is not much more one could ask for. The design is straightforward and the content management system is intuitive.

Customization

Upon creating a shop with BigCommerce, the customer will have an array of free themes at his disposal for customization. However, BigCommerce also offers premium alternatives from $120 – $250. Frankly, both the free and paid options look fantastic, and it’s by no means necessary to shell out a couple hundred dollars for a premium theme.

SEO

The chief SEO feature BigCommerce possesses is its on-page optimization. It offers the capability to focus keywords, enter meta descriptions, and ALT tag attributes for images. While BigCommerce won’t specifically offer which keywords to target, it does outline and supply the ability to do search engine optimization.

Speed

Page speed is not only vital to ranking high in Google and other search engine results pages, but it’s also imperative to keep load times quick to prevent a high bounce rate. BigCommerce ranks highly in terms of speed with an average load time of 2.41 seconds.

Customer support

BigCommerce’s customer support is second to none. Customers can get in touch with a representative 24/7 over the phone, email, or live chat.

Each of these ecommerce platforms is robust and poses its own unique benefits and challenges. Innumerable startups successfully run ecommerce shops using Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce, and all of these platforms are more than capable of powering a shop, it’s simply a matter of identifying the right fit for your business. A startup with little to no coding performance might dovetail with Shopify or BigCommerce. On the other hand, a tech-savvy team could prefer WooCommerce’s flexibility. Ultimately, there is no one best ecommerce solution for startups or small businesses. It comes down to identifying which solution best calibrates with a startup’s budget, coding experience, customer support requirements, and so on.

You may also be interested in

Woman standing in front of Macy's with Christmas lights
Macy’s: A Pioneer in Retail, Leading the Way with UPS Access Points for Peak Season
Read now

3 min read

‘Tis the Season…To Shop ‘Til You Drop (Or, You Know, Panic-Order): A Peek into the HubBox Office’s Christmas Shopping Styles
Read now

3 min read

Selfridges: Leading Retail Innovation with DPD Pickup This Peak Season
Read now

3 min read

HubBox Widget on a mobile phone held in a hand
How to Maximise Profitability: Economic Benefits of Pickup Solutions for Retailers
Read now

4 min read

Woman online shopping on laptop
Customer Experience Spotlight: Personalization in Pickup
Read now

4 min read

Preventing misplaced packages: How to ensure successful first delivery attempts
Read now

5 min read