Our head-to-head comparisons of e-commerce software platforms help you to easily compare important features. Quit Googling for reviews: here, you’ll see direct comparisons on one page.
All e-commerce platforms will allow you to build a small store very quickly, especially if you are just building a basic store with basic tools.
But the extra features they offer could make or break your site as it grows.
To avoid disruption and growing pains, you should take a holistic approach to evaluating what each platform can offer. Here are some of the key features to consider:
Your e-commerce platform should offer good usability for you, the manager, as well as the customer. We have mentioned this previously.
You do not want to have to employ a developer each time you want to make changes. Equally, you do not want to confuse customers with poor navigation. A dated appearance can put off buyers who are used to a modern, slick experience.
Our reviews look at the back-end administration, the shopping process, and the overall design of the finished store.
When you set up an e-commerce store, choice should be at the forefront of your mind. Payment options are no exception.
You might pay for everything with PayPal, but your customers may have another payment method in mind. If they do not see an easy way to pay, they will back out and find another vendor. (Also, making it difficult makes people suspicious of the legitimacy of your business — this is not good, especially when repeat customers and customer referrals can be so important for a small business).
We compare the payment processing options from each platform, along with the relevant fees.
You probably have a reasonable idea of the number of products you intend to list now. What about in a year’s time?
If your e-commerce platform caps the number of items in your store, that could become a huge headache later. Sure; you can increase the limit by paying more. But will that be cost-effective?
Host platforms don’t completely negate the need for technical features. Uptime is one of the most important. It tells you how much downtime you’ll suffer before your host credits you.
Even a small difference in uptime can have a huge effect on compensation. Consider the difference between an e-commerce platform offering a 99% uptime guarantee, vs one that offers 99.99%. The former would allow for well over 7 hours’ downtime before you’d be compensated.
With the latter, you’d get some kind of recompense after less than 5 minutes’ downtime.
With e-commerce, site speed is key, too. We know that tiny increases in speed cause huge increases in cart abandonment rates. So we factor that in when we write our comparisons.
Your e-commerce store is not an island. It needs to offer integrations with other services.
For example, you might want to segment your customer database according to past purchasing habits. The speed and simplicity of that process will be a critical factor in your marketing plan.
Likewise, you might want to automatically export product data to other sites. And you will certainly need to generate reports so that you can see how your catalog is performing.
We compare e-commerce platforms according to their integration capabilities. We look for integrations with mailing list providers, comparison websites, and Google’s Shopping platform. And we tell you if extra cost is involved.
If your store is offline, you’re not earning money. And if you can’t figure out how to solve problems, you’re going to waste time and money that you should be using to grow your business.
When you have questions, comments, or concerns, how easy is it for you to contact the vendor? When are they available? What methods can you use to get in touch?
Support is invaluable, and it is definitely something to which you pay close attention *before* signing on the dotted line. Our reviewers compare each e-commerce platform’s support provision side-by-side. That way, you can ensure you’re getting the best help available.
