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Ecommerce solutions are designed to help you start, maintain and grow your online business. Itâs important to do your research, so weâve laid out some of the options, to help you pick the solution that works for you.
Running a thriving ecommerce site isnât all about selling products. Youâll also need to make sure youâve got the best possible setup for sending and receiving money. It should be easy, cheap and fast - and online providers like Wise are here to help.
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Ecommerce Platforms |
Letâs get your new business up and running. Weâve put together a list of 12 ecommerce software solutions and platforms for small businesses - complete with some essential facts and stats you need to know.
For full pricing and details of available features visit the provider's websites. The availability of some features will depend on registration country.
A popular cloud-based ecommerce solution powering around 800,000 online shops worldwideš, Shopify is specially designed for small and medium businesses. This means that itâs super easy to use, so you can create and customise your online shop and start selling right away.
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Based in the UK, EKM is cloud-based and offers a comprehensive ecommerce platform which does pretty much everything you need. This not only means that youâll get UK-based customer support, but you may also find that the platform is more attuned to the needs and challenges facing UK businesses.
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Volusion provides an ecommerce software to over 180,000 entrepreneursâ¸, with most of the same features as its rivals. Itâs a cloud-based platform offering built-in search engine optimisation (SEO), mobile capability and intuitive integration with seller sites like Amazon Marketplace and eBay. Volusion is pretty easy to use and most of its best features are built directly into the dashboard, with no need to purchase any add-ons.
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PrestaShop is an open-source ecommerce solution offering a free basic plan. While itâs technically possible to run a functional site on the free plan, you are likely to need many of the add-on features â which are chargeable. PrestaShop isnât as easy as other platforms to set up and you will need to sort and pay for hosting, a payment gateway and other essentials yourself.
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If youâre an artist or crafter keen to start selling online, Big Cartel could be the platform for you. Itâs billed as âmade for makersâ, with a number of tools to help you tweak and customise the aesthetic of your online store. If you can code, Big Cartel even lets you adjust the JavaScript, HTML or CSS directly â but you donât have to, as there are many tools available for non-coders too. Itâs easy to set up and very affordable.
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Just like EKM, ShopWired is geared towards UK sellers. Itâs a great value solution, offering most of the standard features youâd expect from an ecommerce platform at a very reasonable monthly cost. Youâll get a full content management system (CMS), mobile responsiveness and the chance to sell on multiple channels. You can even expand your global reach with ShopWired, as it allows visitors to view prices in their local currencies.
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This large, US-based company offers three different products aimed at different enterprise levels. As well as a solution for larger businesses and one specifically for B2B and wholesaler firms, BigCommerce offers a full-featured platform for small businesses wanting to build an online shop. You can expect comprehensive, fully hosted solutions with all the bells and whistles of other top providers included. Set up is easy and quick, there are no transaction fees and thereâs a trial period if you want to give BigCommerce a test run.
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Same features for PLUS plan: USD 71.95 /mo and PRO plan: USD 224.95 /mo.š³
WooCommerce is one of the most popular and widely used ecommerce solutions on the web. As of 2015, around 30% of webshops were powered by it.šⴠThere are a couple of reasons for its popularity â firstly, itâs built on WordPress which a huge number of websites run on, making it quite easy to integrate. Itâs also free (with plugins and extras available to purchase if you want to extend functionality) and designed to be user-friendly. You will need a little technical knowledge if you want to customise your online WooCommerce shop, but itâs otherwise quick and easy to get started.
Magento is a free open source ecommerce solution for small businesses and start-ups, although the company also offers an expensive advanced solution for much larger businesses with more complex needs. Weâll focus on the free, open-source version here. It doesnât cost a penny to start using it, but you will need to pay for specialised Magento hosting.
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For some small businesses and entrepreneurs, there may not be a need to invest in a full-scale ecommerce solution. Instead, sites like Etsy present an easy, affordable solution. Itâs a marketplace for handmade, unique and custom art, crafts and vintage items, so itâs the perfect place for artists and makers to sell their work.
Getting started with Etsy is simple, you just need a professional set of product photos and you can open your own online shop straight away. Youâll pay a small listing fee per item, a standard monthly service cost and a commission when you sell anything. Whether Etsy takes a payment processing fee depends on the method used. For example, taking payments through PayPal is free. But donât forget about PayPalâs conversion rates - it can be cheaper to use an alternative like Wise.
Amazon is another direct way to start selling, without needing to build an online shop or website from scratch. This online retail giant sells literally everything, including products by other ecommerce businesses through Amazon Marketplace and Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA).
All you need is an Amazon account to register as a seller and start listing products. Before you start selling on Amazon though, make sure you take a close look at the fees and charges to make sure the numbers add up. There are also fees which apply to certain categories of products.
Once youâre all set up and the products are flying off the virtual shelves, itâs time to make sure you get paid. This is no problem if youâre selling in the UK, but you may face high currency conversion fees if you receive payments from customers in other countries. But donât worry, help is at hand. Add your Wise Business account to your Amazon account and withdraw your earnings directly into it using the real mid-market exchange rate.
Selling on eBay is just the same as on other marketplaces like Amazon, with one key difference. You can register with a free eBay account, list products and only pay fees when you sell items, but you also have the option to sell your products via auction. Many eBay business sellers prefer to use Buy It Now, the fixed price way of listing items, as itâs more like a standard ecommerce site.
eBay has a whole bundle of subscription packages and fees to familiarise yourself with. Each of these packages gives you a certain amount of product listings a month, although youâll need to pay extra if you exceed your limit. Again, itâs a smart idea to get your calculator out and make sure your profit margins can stay healthy when selling on eBay.
Interested in selling on eBay? Work out how much you could make with our eBay fee calculator.
We canât tell you which is the best when it comes to ecommerce platforms. Itâs all about finding the right fit for your business. We can however highlight some key things to consider, to help you narrow down your options. If youâre really boiling it down to just a few essentials, we recommend looking for solutions which score highly on:
Price: Choosing any new service will always come down to cost. Small businesses need a cost-effective solution that maximises profit and builds sales, without costing the earth. You need to find the right balance between the features you need and the cost of a monthly plan. It could be that spending a little bit more now results in healthy sales growth later on.
TrustPilot rating: Review sites should always be taken with a pinch of salt. Itâs very useful to know how others have got on with an ecommerce solution, but remember that their business needs may be very different to yours. Some people have unrealistic expectations, which will always result in disappointment. However, if the same issues are mentioned time and time again, this could be a cause for concern.
Number of products: If your business grows and you want to sell more, you donât want product restrictions holding you back. Many basic plans come with unlimited products as standard, so you donât need to pay more if your offering grows.
Mobile responsiveness: Over half (58%) of British consumers use their smartphones for online shoppingš³, according to research by uSwitch. You simply cannot afford to be missing out on this customer base, so always look for ecommerce solutions with mobile-responsive themes.
You might have spotted above that some ecommerce platform offers are particularly good for search engine optimisation (SEO). But why is this important? Well, SEO is all about making your website easy to discover by potential customers - If consumers canât find it, they canât buy your products.
Built-in SEO features aim to optimise online stores for Googleâs search results, which should make it easier for shoppers to find your products. There are lots of factors that make SEO work, from the simplest â properly naming products, page titles and URLs to match what customers are searching for â through to more technical aspects which can affect SEO performance, such as page-load speeds and accessibility.
So, when comparing ecommerce business systems, itâs worth taking a closer look at SEO. It isnât always included in free plans, but you donât necessarily want to be paying a fortune for a bolt-on.
Page load time is pretty much what it says on the tin. Itâs the time it takes for each page â in this case, a product page or a click-through to checkout â to fully load.
Itâs really important for SEO as well as customer service. Speed is a ranking factor for Google searches, so a slow site can see your ranking plummet. For customers, even a half-second delay can cause impatient shoppers to abandon their cart and head elsewhere.
For the very best chance of selling as many products as possible from your ecommerce site, it needs to be fast. Web users have sky-high expectations of how quickly pages should load and how fast websites should be. If they have a disappointing experience on your site, there are literally thousands of other websites for them to choose from.
Remember that a huge number of shoppers will make purchases from their smartphone or tablet, as well as browsing your site and finding information so they can make purchases later. So, your site needs to be mobile-responsive, and it needs to offer lightning-fast speeds.
Ecommerce solutions are designed to help you start, maintain and grow your online business. You wonât struggle to find ecommerce solutions, as there are many of them out there. The main problem will be sifting out the best ones, and choosing the right platform for your business.
Itâs important to do your research, so weâve laid out some of the options, to help you pick the solution that works for you.
Running a thriving ecommerce site isnât all about selling products. Youâll also need to make sure youâve got the best possible setup for sending and receiving money. It should be easy, cheap and fast - and online providers, like Wise are here to help.
Sources used:
Sources checked on: 14-November 2019.
*Please see terms of use and product availability for your region or visit Wise fees and pricing for the most up to date pricing and fee information.
This publication is provided for general information purposes and does not constitute legal, tax or other professional advice from Wise Payments Limited or its subsidiaries and its affiliates, and it is not intended as a substitute for obtaining advice from a financial advisor or any other professional.
We make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether expressed or implied, that the content in the publication is accurate, complete or up to date.
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