Advantages/Disadvantages of Different Ecommerce Platforms?

I've been looking into the different platforms, including EBay, Shopify, and Amazon trying to make an educated decision as to where I should put my focus. What do those with experience see as the advantages and disadvantages of the various platforms (including any platform that might be preferred over these)?

 

It solely depends on what you want to do. If you want to create a brand then Shopify, WooCommerce, etc are the services for you, if you just want to sell in bulk without having a full-fledged store then Amazon, eBay, etc shall suffice.

 

So the platforms you are talking about, are used completely different.
You can use eBay and Amazon if you are just selling something.

But if you want to create brand awareness or want to dropship, then you can use Shopify or Woocommerce.

Shopify is easy to customize and lots of newbies use Shopify. There are lots of Shopify communities so you don't feel alone in case you have a question.

However, Shopify is not SEO-optimized and some users don't even know how to/where to add alt texts. And also, there are too many apps which can be confusing. And they hinder you from adding other tools outside Shopify apps.

Woocommerce is also easy to use and the main advantage is that you can add different plugins. The best thing I like about it is activating Yoast plugin which helps you create a really good content. This works well especially if you want to integrate a blog into your store.

Even if you don't need a blog, you are going to need customer engagement tools like live chat and popups. For that, you can activate Backtocart plugin.

So decide which type of business you want to start before choosing the platform

 

If your business model is dropshipping/custom brand, then I would use shopify/woocommerce.
They both are easy to learn.

 

Shopify is more secure than platforms like WooCommerce since Shopify fully hosts and manages their sites. However, if you need to fully control your data all the way, then Shopify probably isn't for you (since they run a closed platform). In that case you might want to look at open source alternatives like Solidus.