If you are searching for the best e-commerce platforms to start your online business in 2022, this post is where you need to go. You’d better make the biggest decision of choosing the best e-commerce platform to ensure the long-term growth of your business.
The best e-commerce platform is crucial to your online business success since it makes you build an online store without the knowledge of a developer, bottomless budget, and any coding skill. It might be tough for you to decide which e-commerce platform is the best since there are so many e-commerce platforms available online.
To make the decision much easier, here I will provide you with 5 best e-commerce platforms. You can keep reading to identify which one is most suitable for you.
5 Best E-commerce Platforms
You’d better explore the best e-commerce platform for your business since it’s so significant for you. I will provide 5 top e-commerce platforms for you, with bullets on price, free trial availability, and customer support. Let’s start:
- Shopify
Compared to other e-commerce platforms, such as Wix (nofollow) and Etsy, the 2004 founded platform – Shopify is one of the most user-friendly platforms with plenty of guidelines for new users.
It’s a good e-commerce solution for all types of business with plenty of shopping cart functionalities, and numerous third-party integrations, such as DSers, the best AliExpress dropshipping solution, and MailChimp, the right plugin to build your brand online and sell online in one place.
Price: Shopify pricing plans cover four types, they are: 1. Shopify Basic – $29 per month (and 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction), 2. Shopify plan – $79 per month (and 2.6% + 30¢ per transaction), 3. Advanced Shopify – $299 per month (and 2.4% + 30¢ per transaction), 4. Shopify Plus pricing is up to $2000 per month.
Free trial: Shopify provides a 14-day free trial
Customer support: Shopify provides 24/7 support in the following ways – phone, live chat, and email.
- Wix
Wix is a platform giving you the freedom to create, design, manage and develop your site presence exactly the way you want. It’s also a site where you can start your online store. However, with limited themes, it will not be as profession-designed as Shopify online store.
Wix e-commerce is set as a drag and drop theme. You can add and delete functions that you think are suitable for your business. It allows you to easily create well-designed storefronts. Moreover, Wix is still a great dropshipping platform. To learn more about Wix dropshipping, click here .
l Price: Wix has both e-commerce pricing plans and site pricing plans(I will only cover e-commerce plans since here it’s mentioned as an e-commerce platform): The pricing ranges from $23/month to $49/month. The transaction fee of Wix is 2.9%. It provides you with multiple payment gateways and sales channels at a lower price.
l Free trial: Wix doesn’t have a free trial
l Customer support: Wix also offers 24/7 support
- Etsy
If you are a crafty founder looking for your first customer, Etsy is an excellent marketplace here to help you. It is also a great e-commerce platform to test your concept, build a big audience and develop the foundation you need to succeed in your online business.
What is interesting here is: many Shopify store owners who started on Etsy decided to keep their Etsy shop while growing their Shopify store, which can bring a higher growth potential for online business. In a nutshell, to get more traffic and sales, you can get started with Shopify and a no-hassle Etsy sales channel integration. Then, you can try it out for a 14-day free trial before you commit.
Pricing: Etsy Standard plan: Available to all sellers for free. Etsy Plus plan: $10/month. At the same time, you need to pay a $0.20 Listing Fee, 5 % Transaction Fee, 3% + $0.25 payment processing fee as well as 15% Off Site Ads fee.
Free trial: No free trial
Customer services: Etsy offers support through the following ways: email, phone, forums, newsletter, and Seller Handbook.
- Weebly
With Weebly, you can create a beautiful and attractive website for your physical store. Then, your customers can purchase what they like online at your Weebly shop.
This platform helps you build and operate your online presence without taking time away from your in-person business. Both its free and paid plans make it an excellent option for an entity company that wants to get sales online.
Pricing: 1. Free plan: $0 per month. 2. Personal Plan: $6 per month paid annually or $9 month-to-month. 3. Professional Plan: $12 per month paid yearly or $16 month-to-month. 4. Performance plan: $26 per month billed annually or $29 month-to-month.
Free trial: No free trial
Customer support: Live chat, email, phone
- WooCommerce
If you are planning to grow your online business with WordPress, WooCommerce is the first choice for you, as it’s essentially a plugin of the well-known blogging platform. WordPress is great, however, it’s traditionally used for content-driven websites, not an e-commerce platform. Thus, WooCommerce is WordPress’s answer to those people who want to start an online business with WordPress.
The platform is designed for small to large online businesses using WordPress. The plug-in was launched on September 27, 2011, and quickly gained popularity due to its simplicity of installation and customization.
What is worth mentioning here is: DSers is free for WooCommerce users to do dropshipping business. Thus, if you want to start a dropshipping business with WooCommerce with a limited budget, don’t hesitate to join DSers.
Pricing: Average monthly fee is up to $30, which consists of $120/year for hosting; $15/year for domain name registration; $100/year for site theme; $108/year for shipping; 2.9% plus $0.30 per sale; $348/year for marketing and communications; $79/year for SEO; $65/year for SSL certificate
Free trial: Not at all offers a 30-day money-back guarantee)
Customer support: Only provides support via live chat or email; no support offered for third-party apps and plug-ins
What You Need to Know When Choosing an E-commerce Platform
When choosing an e-commerce platform to sell online. You should take many factors into account. There are 5 things you should pay much more attention to: the budget, your target audience, your business scale, business growth opportunity, and customer services. Let’s look at them one by one.
- Budget
Actually, for most entrepreneurs, money is the first thing they are concerned about. When choosing e-commerce platforms, you have to make them profitable for you. In a nutshell, if you start a small business, the profits are limited, you will gain nothing, or even lose something if you start with an expensive pricing plan.
- Target Audience
Why is your target audience also vital for you when deciding on an e-commerce platform? If you want to get a massive customer base, marketing on social media is crucial. In other words, you’d better choose an e-commerce platform allowing you to market on social media easily. Here I recommend WooCommerce, it offers built-in integrations with Facebook and Instagram. Then you are able to promote your items to users directly in their news feeds or main accounts.
- Business scale
This is the most direct factor. If you have a large catalog and need multiple product pages or plan to grow your business, choosing a platform with a lower SKU limit will basically limit your business growth. But if you don’t. You can choose an e-commerce platform that matches your other needs.
- Growth opportunity
The factor is easy to understand. How? If you are planning to grow your business or you think there will be more opportunities for your business to grow, e-commerce must be one meeting your requirements as your business grows. There is another potential reason why it’s important. That is the traffic of the site. Actually, in the beginning, you don’t need too much traffic. However, the truth is you need a host with high-traffic capabilities as you have a larger business scope.
Conclusion
There are plenty of e-commerce platforms you can choose from to start your online business in 2022. However, you must know which one is the best for you to grow your business.
Above are what I recommend, after reading, you might have known which one is best for you. Thus, just choose one to try out your brilliant business idea. And if you are going to start dropshipping in 2022, find DSers, the best AliExpress dropshipping solution to help you. Good luck to you.
