With businesses craving for a digital space, a massive surge in eCommerce building platforms has been witnessed. Each business must choose the best platform that suits the business style and has the features that correspond to the type of business in question. Hence, it is imperative to look at the various options available and which could be best for a particular business model.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Not only us, but the entire world is discussing only one word today, Coronavirus. Yes, the pandemic has left us all vulnerable. The global economy is in the doldrums and businesses are gasping for a space in which they can carry business activities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
As a result of the pandemic, small and medium enterprises were forced to create their online identity. There’s another reason why SMEs have been allowed to shift their business online. The e-commerce business has crossed past 3 trillion dollars by 2020 and is growing at a rapid pace of 18 percent. A combined force of pandemic and e-commerce growth influences the decision of enterprises significantly towards online stores to sell their products.<\/span><\/p>\n
However, the key question is which web design platform that businesses must choose and which eCommerce resources should be applied to enhance the potential of the website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
The Website Builders:<\/b><\/p>\n
There are two ways a business can build an online presence. Either the business chooses to engage the customers with social media only or builds a strong online presence with a website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Mostly, to have a strong presence, businesses go for the website as well as social media accounts. But building a website isn’t as easy as signing up on Facebook or LinkedIn. One requires a specific website building platform that caters to all the needs with futuristic tools keeping in mind the long haul of the business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Among Duda, Wix, Godaddy, Squarespace, and others WordPress wins the race with a 39.5% market share as a website builder and a whopping 64% as a Content Management System. It is obvious when a large number of businesses choose WordPress, they are bound to use the WordPress eCommerce tool to build their online store. Therefore, WooCommerce dominates the eCommerce<\/a> store building landscape completely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
What is WooCommerce?<\/b><\/p>\n
Popularity of WooCommerce<\/b><\/p>\n
Why Alternatives?<\/b><\/p>\n
There is no competition for WooCommerce when a small or medium enterprise decides to build its online store. Basing the website on predesigned templates offered by WordPress<\/a> for free and building an eCommerce store for free using the open-source WooCommerce looks predominantly the most obvious option.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
WooCommerce Alternatives:<\/b><\/p>\n
Besides fulfilling the unique needs of the eCommerce store, we can’t ignore the fact that the majority of 61% of entrepreneurs are not enamored by WordPress and its plugin<\/a>, WooCommerce.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
There are 4 subscription plans you can choose from on Wix:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
There’s no alternative to Wix if you are running a category-specific small store with unique offerings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Like others, Squarespace has strong built-in tools for marketing. And above all, Squarespace is known for its 24*7 support. With one personal plan, Squarespace offers 3 commercial plans:<\/span><\/p>\n
Squarespace has a plan for large businesses with a dedicated account manager and SEO.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Many swear by WordPress and its functionalities<\/a>. However, some people find WordPress plugins irritable or unfamiliar to work with. Those who don’t want to self-manage their store but want an eCommerce platform to do that for them would go with Bluehost.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
The best part with Bluehost is it takes the headache away from searching plugins<\/a> and installing with predesigned plugins already available to manage the store on its own.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Features:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
There are 12 cost-free and mobile responsive designs. You can choose from a diverse range of paid templates<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>BigCommerce plans are four:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
For startups, eCommerce store BigCommerce is overkill but if you are an already established business, there is no looking back for you once BigCommerce sets you up for an online business with a big eCom online store.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Over one million businesses rely on Shopify because Shopify offers all-in-one website building tools<\/a> as well as eCom store building tools for small to medium business enterprises.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce website builder, similar to Bigcommerce<\/a>, that powers more than one million online stores, making it one of the most popular choices on this list.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Shopify is designed to offer a wide range of eCommerce tools in one suite:<\/span><\/p>\n
With 70+ pre-designed templates<\/a> and 4000+ apps, you are assured to design a store that understands all your needs and fulfills them in a quick time with Shopify.\u00a0<\/span>Shopify, to cater to all types of businesses, has 5 plans:<\/span><\/p>\n
Another backdrop with Shopify is its additional fees for everything from payment processing to additional charges for 3rd parties.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Think of adding any functionality and OpenCart makes it possible for you. It also has integrated marketing tools to help you promote your products through email or social media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
The platform is free. However, if you need any specific feature and you can’t find it. You’ll end up paying $99 per website per month for dedicated support.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
There’s a major bottleneck though. One requires to log in to Ecwid to manage the store instead of from the website backend itself.<\/span><\/p>\n
That being said, Ecwid offers a limited free plan forever for small businesses and startups. The free plan allows 10 products to be showcased. Ecwid also has paid plans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
If you are building a fresh store, you may want to go with WooCommerce or Wix, but if you wish to integrate your existing store, Ecwid is the best and efficient option.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
You can find lots of plugins<\/a> in Magento and a great number of templates to choose from. Besides, you have Magento Community Edition that is free. While Magento Enterprise Edition is developed for big enterprises with all-in-one eCommerce features. However, the enterprise edition is not a very cost-effective option.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Weebly is one of the most potent alternatives of WooCommerce because of tons of features, plugins<\/a>, and templates that allow businesses to build small to large online stores with a wide range of features, community support, and phone support.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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