Best eCommerce Platforms for Small Businesses.

eCommerce is important to our global economy.

So, why not create a great eCommerce website with an equally great eCommerce platform?

Businesses of all sizes can now compete in the online market using eCommerce platforms. Because making money through internet shopping is now easier, faster, and more accessible than ever, more and more businesses are trying their luck at it.

As a result, today’s entrepreneurs can choose from a dizzying array of eCommerce platforms, each of which promises to be the best.

For this reason, we’ve compiled a list of the best eCommerce platforms for small businesses so that you can easily see how various eCommerce solutions stack up against one another and make a more informed choice.

Let’s dive right in!

CHAPTER one

Top eCommerce Platforms for Small Businesses

Establishing credibility in the marketplace requires not only a well-designed physical location but also a well-optimized digital one that ranks in search engine results.

Online shoppers have high standards, and if your storefront is poorly built, your pages take too long to load, your payment options are confusing, you don’t use secure socket layer (SSL) encryption, and the like, you could be losing sales.

The best eCommerce platform for small business can solve all those problems, but it can be difficult to choose the right one if you don’t know where to start.

Different e-commerce systems have different features and capabilities. Some are intended for small businesses, while others are more suited to large corporations.

We’ve compiled this list in alphabetical order and provided brief descriptions of each platform’s features so you can quickly choose which one is ideal for your company.

BigCommerce

The tagline in their hero header says it all “eCommerce for a new era.”

BigCommerce is an excellent option if you want to open an online store and sell through different platforms and channels. This is a scalable e-commerce platform, making it a good fit for rapidly expanding businesses.

BigCommerce provides a wealth of customizable features and tools to help your online store stand out from the competition. They offer a wide range of services to meet the demands of users in many different industries.

With BigCommerce, you can easily expand into new markets and offer your products in new ways. This platform allows you to set up your shop on marketplaces like eBay and Amazon.

As a result, your company’s reach will grow and you’ll be able to establish a unified brand image across all channels.

BigCommerce’s cheapest monthly package is $29.95. When you take into account all of the included features, this is a really reasonable price.

Shopify (and Shopify Plus)

Shopify is one of the most well-known eCommerce website platforms around. You can’t have a conversation about online shopping or commerce without eventually bringing up Shopify.

This e-commerce platform is among the best, boasting numerous advanced features and a robust app market stocked with useful add-ons.

Shopify’s design templates and plugins provide you with many ways to make your online store look and function exactly how you want it to.

The website builder is straightforward and simple to use. Making a store can be done by anyone, regardless of their IT or coding knowledge.

Shopify is popular among businesses because it allows them to create a unique online storefront with minimal technical knowledge.

At just $29 per month, Shopify is an affordable option for many types of eCommerce stores.

If you need assistance with your online business, Huemor Designs is a Shopify agency partner who can help.

Shopify introduced new sections in 2021 with online store 2.0 and this has been remarkably helpful for our clients. Shopify store owners now have the functionality of drag and drop sections and reusing custom-built sections on other pages with just a click. Shopify is constantly looking for ways to ease management of the online store for small businesses. This release also unveiled a new integration with Github, allowing improved version control, and the ability for small businesses to work more cohesively with a developer without worry of overwriting client content changes.

Christi Carnahan, Digital Strategist

Squarespace

Squarespace is another well-known eCommerce platform due to its extensive marketing.

Initially, though, the company focused more broadly on website creation than on eCommerce.

This is a great option for anyone looking for a simple yet powerful platform to host a website for their business or portfolio.

You can switch up the look of your store whenever you like, thanks to the numerous modern and elegant themes available.

Squarespace’s inventory management system is available to anyone who uses its platform to create a website. With this integration feature, you can monitor stock and reorder before you run out of anything.

This eCommerce platform is a reasonably priced choice, with monthly plans starting at just $18. But unfortunately, there is no free option.

Volusion

You can choose from many eCommerce platforms, but one of the most well-known is Volusion.

If you’re a business owner looking for ways to expand your company, Volusion is the way to go.

With this platform, you can get detailed reports on a variety of metrics, which is a huge plus.

To monitor your site’s activity accurately, you’ll find all you need in one convenient place.

Individual plans start at $29 per month, with a 10% discount for yearly payments. You can try out Volusion risk-free for 14 days to see if it’s a suitable fit for your company.

In addition, they provide several storefronts to choose from.

The platform features a seamless checkout process and experience that works with popular payment systems like Stripe, Venmo, and PayPal.

Weebly

Since Weebly is owned and run by Square, it works well with its other products aimed at small businesses. One of the features of the platform is a secure and easy-to-use online shopping cart.

Weebly’s e-commerce platform includes a streamlined product search, a mobile-friendly checkout, streamlined order processing and management, and a range of shipping methods.

Due to their relatively basic offering, Weebly is made with mom-and-pop small business websites in mind.

You can open a store on Weebly for free, and paid plans are available for more features.

More advanced packages can cost between $8 and $38 per month, depending on which one you select.

Wix

Wix eCommerce is an excellent platform for selling a limited number of items.

Several templates on this platform make it easy to launch a professional website for businesses with fewer than 50 unique items. Putting together a functional site is a breeze.

Known for their advertisements on television to draw attention from new website creators, Wix eCommerce has a lot of cool themes to choose from.

To make a website, you don’t have to be a design pro. The platform also doesn’t expect you to know how to code.

Creating a website from scratch is a breeze with their Wix Code program, even if you have no prior experience with coding.

Wix offers a free, ad-supported version if you don’t mind seeing promotional content on your site.

However, the Business Basic plan, which costs $23 per month, is required to conduct product sales.

WooCommerce

Using the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress websites, you can quickly and easily build a fully functional online store.

As an open-source platform, WooCommerce offers a great deal of flexibility for those with web design and coding expertise.

Learning WooCommerce is rewarding if you value having complete control over the look and feel of your online store.

Users of the platform can take advantage of their coding skills to create the website they want without relying 100% on templates and themes.

Nevertheless, you can still make use of readily available themes and templates!

For those on a tight budget, WooCommerce is an open-source option that can be downloaded and installed for free.

However, you’ll have to foot the bill for hosting and payment processing.

For more of a comparison between WooCommerce vs Shopify, check out our article!

WordPress

WordPress may be more known as a content management system and blogging platform, but it can also host eCommerce stores. (Check out a list of the top WordPress eCommerce themes!)

With WordPress.com, you can publish content and accept payments from your customers without switching platforms.

WordPress gives you access to dozens of customizable templates and hundreds of thousands of plugins to expand your site’s features.

This solution makes it simple to accept payments online. You can charge for access to premium content, collect monthly donations, or offer digital or physical products.

There are plenty of WordPress.com subscription plans available.

If you just want to dip your feet in the water and see how your content performs, the free plan is more than adequate.

But if you’d like to present yourself in a more polished light, you can choose from various other packages priced between $4 and $45.

Since WordPress is also a Huemor partner, we can help you set it up for your online store.

CHAPTER two

What Huemor Looks Into for eCommerce Platforms and Why

Like selecting a location for a physical storefront, picking the right e-commerce platform is crucial.

From the reliability of the platform itself to the kind of customer service you can anticipate, there is a lot to think about before launching your business.

At Huemor, here’s what we look for in an eCommerce platform.

Usability for Our Clients

When creating a website for a client, you want to choose an eCommerce platform that is simple for them to use.

They can make any necessary changes and updates with little effort.

A usable eCommerce website also means that it is easy to use and navigate for its customers.

Security Functions

Nobody wants an unsecured website! To ensure the safety of our clients’ online stores, we prefer to work with tried-and-true eCommerce platforms.

Our clients benefit from this since their customers will feel more at ease once they realize their personal information is safe when browsing their sites.

This digital age has made website security a top priority. There are laws all around the world designed to safeguard consumers’ privacy, and a breach in security can erode one of your most valuable assets: trust.

Add-ons, Integrations, and Plugins!

To determine if an eCommerce platform is among the best, it is also important to look at its integrations and plugins.

In addition, we keep an eye out for ways to improve the functionality and usability of e-commerce platforms moving forward.

Platforms like WordPress and Shopify offer several different integrations that help to build and round out eCommerce websites.

CHAPTER three

Conclusion

eCommerce websites need a great eCommerce platform to be successful. Picking the right one for your business is key.

However, finding the best eCommerce platform for small business is not a question with a single, correct solution. Your choice needs to be tailor-made to your business and its objectives.

There is an e-commerce platform for any business, regardless of size, price, or feature requirements.

Finding a solution that can adapt to your needs as they change is the ultimate goal.

We hope that this list can help narrow down your options.