Which is best ecommerce software for creating Online store?

Why do you think WordPress is OK? I mean can you please suggest us your experiences with this one.

 

So I made an overview of ecommerce platforms. I hope it helps to make the right decision.

First. Why listen to me. I am a programmer with 6 years of experience in software engineering, so I’m pretty technical savvy. A year ago I pivoed to ecommerce and I learned a lot of business and marketing. I studied a ton of marketing materials and purchased several courses from the best ecommerce specialists. I also tried several ecommerce platforms in my different businesses. I have experience with Shopify, Magento, OpenCart and Woocommerce. I am not trying to sell you anything, but I think my blend of programming and ecommerce(and general digital marketing) experience will help some of you guys. And if some of you will benefit from that information I will be happy.

What to expect in this overview: I will talk about business-related value of ecommerce store, it’s features and integrations in general.
What not to expect from this overview: It's a high-level overview and not a comprehensive article. I will not talk about exact features. It’s a whole another topic that would take another 10 pages to write.

Woocomerce
Woocommerce is not really an ecommerce platform. It’s a Wordpress plugin.
The upside of using Woocomerce is that it’s super simple and easy to start if you know Wordpress and it’s free.
But it only the most essential functionality built-in. All the bells and whistles you will need to buy additionally. And you will inevitably be facing some difficulties, because Wordpress is a blogging platform and it wasn’t meant to become a fully-fledged ecommerce solution.
So from the business point of view you will need a lot of modern features on your store and you will have to buy additional plugins for that.
I also have experience with it. I started one of my first stores on Woocommerce and faced with difficulties right at the beginning exactly because of lack of functionality.

Shopify
Ease of use, a lot of integrations
Hosted solution, they own the website, you just use it
No wordpress integration - you have to use subdomain which is bad for SEO and doesn’t pass the link juice. It means that your blog will have less positive impact on your store. (I use Wordpress as a blog for my OpenCart and I integrated it as a subfolder on my store, so it's the best for SEO.)
All applications are paid on a monthly basis. So the total cost of any good store may vary from $200-500/month or more. Of course it depends on the features that you need. But from my experience if you want to have a good business you will have to use all the modern marketing features on your website in order to stay on top of your competition.

OpenCart
I personally use OpenCart for one of my stores and so far I am satisfied with it. It’s not ideal and it has its flaws. For example it has less applications and integrations. The upside is that it’s not a hosted solution. You own the website and the server. You can do whatever you want unlike Shopify. And it also has all the features that Shopify has and it’s free. For a good store you will need a technical person to help you integrate applications, so you will also need to pay for that. In my case I know both business and programming, so I do all the coding by myself. So it really depends on your situation. If you are not a technical person then I recommend going with Shopify and buying some essential applications. You will have to pay for them monthly, but in the future you can hire a programmer to make your own custom applications that will not involve monthly recurring fees.

Magento
This is a really enterprise solution. I tried it, because I heard that it had a lot of functionality. But I soon faced with speed problems and customisation difficulties. This platform is really hard to customize and make it work fast. So unless you are a Magento expert I don’t recommend using it. Because paying a programmer to make Magento work for you will be very expensive, because this work is hard. And you also can get the same functionality on Shopify and OpenCart. When I faced with speed and customization problems I pivoted to OpenCart and am happy with it.

This is my overview of ecommerce platforms. Maybe I would make another more in-depth post about what exactly marketing features I’m looking for in ecommerce platform, but it’s for another post.

Sorry for not-so smooth copy. I didn’t have time to polish it and just wrote from my head. I also can write a more in-depth and comprehensive overview and describe exactly what marketing techniques I’m looking for in a good ecommerce store, but maybe another time.

If you have any questions related to your particular situation and your business feel free to PM me.

 

Wow! Thanks for such an awesome and detailed answer. I would definitely appreciate your whole efforts. Bear with me as I am non-technical person and don't have much of exposure. However, you know setting up your online business isn't an easy task and it needs lot of research and hands on knowledge. I know it'e earlier but can you please suggest me any more. Say I grow very good business and I need some mobile application. So which of these platforms will fulfill my requirements.

Secondly I want a platform that should let me try it for free til time I want. Not for specific days or so.

Can you please provide your overview regarding Tibolli.NET as well as I have come across this one as well and never heard of this before but now people are comparing it with Shopify rather at some forums, I have seen that this one got more appreciation than known platforms.

 

What are the chances that I will have to pay nothing for it?

 

Mavitech hi. It's an interesting solution. I have some questions though:
1. Are you the only company offering this type of service? If something goes wrong I can't go to any other company for a fix?
2. What is the actual business value of the features that you bring? How does it impact my business?
Thanks. Looking forward for your answer.

 

You got questions but I got only one question that why should I pay. I have been trying to figure it out over few days and so far I found that only Tibolli.NET is offering what I am looking for. However, still I need to know if there's any more option in it?

 

1. And this is the problem. You are offering a custom solution that only you know well. And for a regular magento developer it will be hard to fix because he will need to learn your custom solution. And therefore I will need to pay him an extra money. So I am essentially tying my business to you forever. And walking away will cost me a solid amount of money. So you should provide some extra value, that could justify my commitment to your solution. What is it?
2. What is your criteria of a big ecommerce business? I know the guy who is making 25 millions in sales and I know everything about his store. I know how to build this kind of store using Shopify/OpenCart. Can you please elaborate on what features do you provide that I can't get with Shopify/OpenCart?

 

And also let me know how would you convince me not to opt Tibolli.NET. The fact that they are offering me things for free.

 

I completely agree with Oleksandr's answer. The ecommerce limitations he has pointed are truly valid. I also used couple of ecom platform but it didn't benefited me and so I moved on.

So here is my recommendation or suggestion to you. With hundreds of ecommerce platform out there in market (Free or Paid) I would like to suggest e-bee.com. E-Bee is an omni solution company that has its own e-commerce product like Product Inventory Management, Order Management System & Core commerce.

The best thing is that its in a component wise not in a package means you can use any of the product or all. You no need to be technical or hire a technical person to manage this platform as its fully supported with any software and work on drag & drop functionality.

 

Great advertising above !

For people still looking, just wonder: do you use google for search ?

So why not using a similar company for ecommerce ? It's called Auttomatic and it makes Wordpress + Woocommerce.

Woocommerce is the number one in the world FOREVER. This company will never close as Google will never close.

So if you plan more than what happens next month, use only Wordpress and woocommerce.

The best and easiest shop CMS to use manage, and that you will be able to update with only 1 click FOREVER.

Then if you want to keep thinking it's your problem, but you are wrong.

And NO, I do not work for Wordpress (does google needs advertising?), I am just a user who had previously been cheated by ads as the one above and by developers who pretending to know anything else but what they work with: they were all wrong.

Finally I was able to understand myself that Woocommerce is the best choice and the only smart choice, so I wish you not to make the same mistake as me.

 

Checkout this website. It will help you lot
www.wesuggestsoftware.com

 

Let me apprise you with the Top 3 trending e-commerce platform and its features instead of discussing about all e-commerce platform is of no use.

1. Magento
2. Bigcommerce
3. Shopify

First of all before choosing any platform for developing your e-commerce store make sure-

➤What are you looking for?

1. E-commerce store (small/medium/large).
2. E-commerce marketplace.

• E-commerce store (small)

If you are planning for e-commerce store with less products on it “shopify” and “Magento” will be best for you, they not just only offers you an online store they also have many extension providers who will allow you to integrate your store with other marketplace which will lead in sales increment.

• E-commerce store (small-medium)

In case your plans are neither too big nor too small “BIgcommerce” and “Magento” both can be considered as the saviour. It depends upon what all features you are exactly looking for.

• E-commerce store (large)

But if you are really planning something big like a big e-commerce store or a multi vendor marketplace where you are expecting a huge traffic the only saviour is magento framework it is really easy to operate can handle large traffic. There is large community support available with Magento forum where you can get your all problems solved.

You can also convert it into multi vendor marketplace with the help of service provider like CedCommerce which offers marketplace extension with free as well as paid variants.

People often goes for Woocommerce as well but i don’t think it is really worth trying as it is a content based management system which is good for writing blogs not to start e-commerce store.

➤What is your budget?

• Bigcommerce $29.95/month (standard)
• Shopify $29/month (basic)
• Magento $0 (basic)

➤How much resources are available with you?

Depends upon your technical knowledge or web developer available with you to solve your issues and bugs.

I had shared what i had considered before creating my own online store. I tried to solve your query but in case you need any help you can text me or you can visit CedCommerce.

 

Funny post You just forgot Woocommerce that is the biggest and most reliable ecommerce platform in the world FOREVER.

 

it's a very huge enigma...adter 5 years of ecommerce
I see the best sw dependece by project.

Woo for small shop
Prestashop-magento is top

But in Italy i think no one use opencart.

 

I am 100% sure that you or anybody you know, as well as anybody on this forum, will make a so big shop that he needs to use Magento

Prestashop is only for people who know nothing, all developers now want to quit this platform.

You really do not know what you are talking about if you think that Woocommerce is only for small shops. A company that is valued 1 billion dollar (Automatic, owner of wordpress and woocommerce) is working only for few people doing small shops. Funny guy !

 

ireally have huge problem with woocommerce, especially if the shop has 5000 product + variation and is on a dedicated server. So i'm bad developer?

 

No, you are not a developer at all, or your woocommerce store would not be slow.

 

please show me your woocommerce site with 3000 product + variation if you want send me a mp

 

Shopify platform can help you a lot for creating an ecommerce website. Shopify provides various advanced features to make a store more effective.

 

According to mine personal experience shopify is the best platform for creating ecommerce stores. Because shopify provides advanced and safe features as compare to other CMS’s.