4 Best Ecommerce Platforms for Small Business
We live in an era where anyone with something to offer (goods or services) can build a web presence. Over the past few years, we see a drastic increase in the world of ecommerce. Not only have the larger retailers started to build their ecommerce websites, but we also see a lot of smaller businesses doing the same. In this article we will cover some of the best ecommerce platforms for small business.
Today we have a large assortment of ecommerce platforms available that one can choose from to set up their business online. The more the choices you have the harder it gets to pick the right one that fits your specific business.
That’s why we have decided to focus on 4 E-commerce platforms that we believe are most suitable for small businesses.
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- Squarespace
- Big Cartel
4 Best Ecommerce Platforms for Small Business
All these platforms come with features to quickly set up an online store to sell products and receive payments. Some of the platforms have more integrated tools to manage activities like product shipment, inventory management, marketing and customer engagement.
Shopify
Shopify is a Canadian company founded in 2006. Their ecommerce platform is very robust and supports a combination of both online as well as point of sale requirements. As their tagline goes – “with Shopify you can sell online, offline and everywhere in between.”
The Basic Shopify package costs $39 per month ($29 if billed annually) and it includes everything that is needed to create your store, ship products and process payments. It also includes 2 staff accounts.
The next level plan called Shopify comes with more features like professional reporting and 5 staff accounts.
Irrespective of the package plans, Credit Card transaction fee applies to all payments unless using Shopify payments.
It is recommended for businesses that want to quickly set up an online store. The features are very intuitive and it does not require a lot of technical skills.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. It is another very popular and powerful Ecommerce Platform that comes with a substantially large range of tools. These tools enable you to set up your online store and manage other important aspects like shipping, payment, marketing and customer engagement. Professional reporting tools are available under all package plans.
The Basic BigCommerce package starts at $39 per month ($29 if billed annually) and includes all the features to set up the store and manage its day-to-day activities like payment, shipping, marketing and customer engagement. There is no limit on the number of staff accounts.
As the business expands, you are required to upgrade your package plans. Unlike in Shopify, your packages are closely tied to your store income.
There is no credit card transaction fee charged under any plan no matter what system is used.
BigCommerce is recommended for businesses that are growing very fast. They offer a lot more built-in features that are scalable as the business grows.
Squarespace
Squarespace was founded in 2003 and is based in New York City. It is known for its ease of use and its ability to easily drag and drop elements to create and update pages even without having to write a single line of code. Due to this feature, it has gained a lot of interest in the past few years especially with users who want to have a quick online presence without spending an arm and a leg.
The Basic Commerce package starts at $36 per month ($27 if billed annually) and provides a good storefront system with advanced analytics. It also eliminates all transaction fees charged in the lower plans.
Squarespace offers a free 14-day trial to evaluate what it has to offer. The trial version gives access to most of the premium features. Therefore, you can build out a complete website on the trial version to get a feel of it.
It is recommended for building creative websites as it offers the best design templates available at an affordable price.
Big Cartel
Big Cartel was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is an ecommerce platform developed by artists for artists. It is usually used by artists to sell their artwork. It is very easy to set up and free to get started. You can sell up to 5 products with the free account. If you need to sell more products, then you need to sign up for their paid plans. The personal plan at $9.99 per month allows for 50 products and their diamond plan at $19.99 allows for 500 products.
Big Cartel is very basic and comes with simple template designs. Therefore, any kind of customization beyond what is provided involves coding. So, it is suitable for beginners who are happy with selling a few products without any customization.
Big Cartel comes with simple ecommerce features to sell products online and receive payments. You have a section to track your orders. If any advanced features are needed, then Big Cartel encourages the use of third party plugins and Apps.
Big Cartel is recommended for artists that want to sell their artwork online or for any small businesses that have very few products to sell and are not looking to expand their business.
The Bottom Line
If you are a small business there are a number of ways for you to get started with setting up your online store. Shopify is quick to set up and requires few technical skills, BigCommerce is for businesses that are rapidly growing, Square Space is the easiest to design with and Big Cartel is for artists or small businesses that only have a few products.
At Black Kite Marketing we make it a point to be versatile and work with a variety of website building platforms. We have experience working with e-commerce platforms, restaurant ordering platforms as well as content management systems like WordPress.
If you need help building and managing a website for your small business call us at (516) 259-1813