Introduction, Shopify and Bigcommerce
The rise of the web has allowed countless businesses to reach a wider market. Not only that, it has given rise to countless new online-only businesses. There's no doubt that the web provides a huge opportunity for businesses, but its important for organisations to make the most of that opportunity. In order to sell your products or services online, your website has to be appropriately equipped.
Building an online store from scratch is a mammoth task, and fortunately, an unnecessary one. Today, there is a huge variety of e-commerce software from which to choose. Most e-commerce software will provide businesses with standard functionality such as the ability to showcase products, take payments online and manage customers. Others will provide more sophisticated functionality, such as online marketing features, the ability to manage or integrate with in-store systems and the provision of APIs.
Which e-commerce software is best for your business depends entirely on the specific requirements of your business. If you're an online-only outfit, then POS integration won't be necessary, but you may get a lot of business from overseas, in which case foreign currency support would be a requirement. This article looks at some of the most popular e-commerce software available, providing an overview of each one to help get you started.
Shopify
Price: From US$29 (around £17, AUD$31) per month
Shopify is perhaps the most well known e-commerce platform available. It was set up in 2006 by founders Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake who, as the story goes, felt that there wasn't a simple-to-use e-commerce platform available and so built their own. The company claims that: "You don't need to have any technical or design experience to easily create a beautiful online store." Today it powers over 100,000 stores, including General Electric, Amnesty International and Tesla Motors.
According to Shopify, it's possible to get one of its online stores up-and-running within minutes. Users can choose from over 100 templates or they can design the look and feel of their store themselves. It accepts a comprehensive range of credit cards, has Level 1 PCI compliance and 128-bit SSL encryption for security, and it offers 24/7 support via phone, instant messaging or email.
The platform provides a full CMS with which users can manage the functionality and layout of their online store. Users can manage their store on-the-go using Shopify's mobile apps and the platform itself is fully responsive, meaning the store will be optimised for visitors regardless of whether they access it from a desktop computer or a mobile device.
Shopify also offers users unlimited hosting for their stores, in-depth analytics of how visitors are using their store, and functionality for marketing such as SEO optimisation, a discount and coupon engine, gift cards and email marketing tools.
Bigcommerce
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Price: From US$35 (around £20, AUD$37) per month
Bigcommerce was established in 2009 and has since grown to host over 50,000 online stores. It promises to "support your business, not just your store." In addition to offering support via phone, instant chat and email, it also offers articles and videos to help with e-commerce, and access to a team of e-commerce experts who can provide advice and guidance about online selling. Their experts are qualified in both Google Analytics and Adwords.
Like Shopify, Bigcommerce provides a variety of templates and themes to help stores look their best and get up-and-running quickly. Alternatively, users can design their own store or use Bigcommerce designers to do so. The platform incorporates a "complete content management system" that it says allows users to run an entire website, rather than just a store.
Users can benefit from detailed and flexible product management, optimised search engine rankings, along with a variety of integrated marketing tools and analytics. Payments can be accepted via 65 pre-integrated gateways and shipping details can be customised as per the business's requirements. The platform offers automated order processing, flexible tax rules depending on where orders are made and shipped, and support for multiple currencies.
Volusion, CoreCommerce and 3Dcart
Volusion
Price: From $15 (around £9, AUD$16) per month
Volusion has been around for fifteen years, having been set up in Texas over in the US in 1999. The company touts its platform as being the "best all-in-one e-commerce website builder", and says it powers over 40,000 online stores. In January of this year, it completed a US$35 million (around £20 million, AUD$37 million) debt financing to expand its e-commerce services.
As with other e-commerce platforms, users are offered a variety of templates from which to choose and can also customise templates if they so wish. Should a more complex design be required, Volusion offers a custom design service that can incorporate branding and a business's social media presence.
The platform provides the site and product management tools you'd expect, marketing functionality for SEO, social media, and affiliate outlets, along with emails and order management functionality for fast order processing, accepting payments, tax calculations and POS integration.
In addition to its platform and associated services, Volusion offers apps from its partners, support for users and a knowledge base for help with e-commerce. Users can draw upon blog posts, guides and webinars.
CoreCommerce
Price: From $30 (around £18, AUD$32) per month
CoreCommerce was set up in 2001 and powers over 13,000 online stores. It focuses on providing e-commerce services to small and medium-sized businesses and won two American Business Awards in 2013. The company places an emphasis on simplicity and transparency, promising that its platform is easy-to-use and that customers will not fall foul of any hidden charges.
Perhaps CoreCommerce's most unique aspect is that all of its features are offered to all of its customers regardless of what plan they are on. Price plans are determined by the number of products, the number of email addresses, the amount of bandwidth and the amount of storage required by the user. The company also has a "best value promise", by which it promises to offer the best price per product in the industry.
As with other e-commerce providers, CoreCommerce offers functionality for store design, product management, order processing and marketing. Of its headline features, the platform offers unlimited product customisation options, a built-in blogging engine, and secure hosting that is provided by Rackspace and comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
3DCart
Price: From US$20 (around £12, AUD$21) per month
Having been founded in 1997, 3DCart is the oldest of our featured providers. It was set up with a view to incorporating as many of the most requested e-commerce features into one platform as possible, and today, is used to power more than 17,500 online stores. The company says it has six core values by which it operates: ongoing innovation, good service, simple solutions, fostering trust, keeping employees and customers happy, and stimulating prosperity amongst employees and customers.
Some of the platform's new and innovative features include the option to accept Bitcoin as payment, a module that users can install to offer gift-wrapping, a purchase order system, the option of offering a loyalty program and the ability to offer recurring orders. Many of these features are very specific, meaning that stores can be highly tailored to the needs of each business.
Stores can be designed using one of the 50 templates offered by 3DCart, or users can design their own store. A quick edit bar means that making changes to the design of a store is simple. Product images are forefronted with 3DCart's auto-zoom feature and products can be sold via Facebook with its store integration. As with some other platforms, users can blog directly from 3DCart and tools are provided for setting up coupons, sending newsletters and affiliate marketing.
In addition to its platform, 3DCart offers a number of professional services. Users can request help with SEO, PPC, shopping feed management, social media, Facebook ads and conversion consulting. Help can also be provided to ensure that a user's store is set up to the highest standard. Services such as site cloning, setting up custom tracking, data migration and training are offered. In addition, 3DCart can provide SSL certification. Hosting is guaranteed at 99.9% uptime and 24/7 support is provided via phone, email or online chat.
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