The Five Essential Rules for Choosing the Right E-commerce Platform
Are you an entrepreneur thinking about starting your own online store or e-commerce business? One of the most crucial decisions you have to make is choosing the right e-commerce platform. It's a decision that can significantly impact the success of your business. With so many options out there, it can be incredibly overwhelming to choose the right one. But don't worry, I've got your back. Today, I'm going to share with you the five essential rules you need to consider when choosing the right e-commerce platform that matches your personality and budget. These rules are tried and tested and have helped me and many of my students to build successful online stores. So grab a notepad and let's dive right in.
Table of Contents
1. Rule #1: Choose a well-known and well-supported company
2. Rule #2: Look for excellent third-party developer support
3. Rule #3: Choose an e-commerce platform that is easy to maintain
4. Rule #4: Choose a reasonably priced e-commerce platform
5. Rule #5: Choose an e-commerce platform with a good blogging platform that is optimized for search
Rule #1: Choose a well-known and well-supported company
The first rule when choosing an e-commerce platform is to choose a shopping cart that is maintained by a well-known and well-supported company with a huge war chest of cash. In other words, if you are thinking about using some unknown Podunk e-commerce platform from some startup company, just don't do it. You should only go with a well-known company, preferably a public company. Then you can rest assured that your platform is going to be pretty safe. Even if the public company were to go bankrupt, someone would probably buy them and continue to support your store, giving you time to migrate to a different platform. The only exception to this rule is if you go with a popular open-source e-commerce platform with tons of developer support.
Rule #2: Look for excellent third-party developer support
The second rule is that the shopping cart must have excellent third-party developer support. Most of you watching this video are not tech-savvy and do not have the knowledge or the drive to create your own plugins or design your own website. If you want to have an e-commerce platform that stands the test of time and evolves as the e-commerce landscape changes, that means you'll likely have to add new features to your online store at some point in your business's lifetime. Developers only develop for the most popular platforms. If you look at the overall market share of shopping carts in the United States, you'll see that Shopify is number one, followed by WooCommerce, followed by Wix, Squarespace, and Ecwid. But we all know that many of these shops don't make any money at all. If we look at the top 1 million websites in the world by traffic, it paints a completely different picture. The top websites in the world are on WooCommerce and Shopify, with Magento and Bigcommerce on the radar screen as well. Because Shopify and WooCommerce are by far the most popular shopping carts in the world, they command the most developer support. Any new e-commerce functionality will be created for these platforms first.
Rule #3: Choose an e-commerce platform that is easy to maintain
The third rule is that the e-commerce platform should be easy to maintain. Most of you watching this video probably just want your online store software to just work and not have to worry about your website crashing or having to upgrade anything by yourself. If you want to follow this rule, then you should probably rule out WooCommerce, even though WooCommerce is 100% free. You still have to have a server to run your website, and WooCommerce is based on open-source software, which means that you own the source code for your website, and you have full control over it. However, you still have to maintain the server that it runs on, and this basically means that you have to upgrade all of your own plugins and software, and you have to lock down your server in case anyone ever tries to hack you. Fortunately, WooCommerce and WordPress have a fairly robust push-button upgrade mechanism, but bad things do happen from time to time.
Rule #4: Choose a reasonably priced e-commerce platform
The fourth rule is that your e-commerce platform has to be reasonably priced and not cost you a large percentage of your revenue. So far, I haven't really said anything bad about Shopify, but one of the biggest negatives of Shopify is the price. The average Shopify store uses seven plugins that charge recurring fees. The typical Shopify user in my Create a Profitable Online Store course spends about $200 a month on Shopify. Meanwhile, other solutions like Bigcommerce, Shift4Shop, and WooCommerce are just way cheaper. Bigcommerce has most of the functionality that you need out of the box, so you don't get nickel and dimed on apps. Shift4Shop is on this list because the shopping cart is as powerful as Bigcommerce and Shopify, and it's 100% free when you process at least $500 in orders every single month. WooCommerce is 100% free to use, and WordPress has a library of thousands of free plugins to use for it. If price is one of your primary concerns, then go with WooCommerce, Shift4Shop, or Bigcommerce because they will be cheaper than Shopify.
Rule #5: Choose an e-commerce platform with a good blogging platform that is optimized for search
The fifth and final rule is to choose an e-commerce platform with a good blogging platform that is optimized for search. This last rule is only important if ranking in search is an important criterion. Unfortunately, Shopify does not offer a very good blogging platform. Not only is Shopify's blogging platform limited, but they have a sub-optimal URL structure that is less conducive to ranking in search. Other choices that I presented so far, WooCommerce easily has the best blogging platform because it's based on WordPress, and Bigcommerce offers a cool plugin that integrates with WordPress so you can seamlessly run your blog on WordPress and your store in Bigcommerce under the exact same subdomain. So basically, if blogging is important to you, then WooCommerce or Bigcommerce are better solutions than Shopify.
Conclusion
Now that you know my rules for picking the right shopping cart, make sure you choose the one that best fits your needs. If you have the budget and you don't really care about costs, then Shopify is probably your best option. Even though Shopify will nickel and dime you with apps and payment processing, it's the best choice not necessarily because the platform itself is better, but because it has the best third-party developer ecosystem. Go with Bigcommerce if you want an overall solid shopping cart and great out-of-the-box functionality without getting nickel and dimed with apps. If you are on a strict budget, then go with WooCommerce or Shift4Shop. WooCommerce offers you the most flexibility out of all the shopping carts listed because you have control over the source code, but you have to be tech-savvy to maintain it. Finally, Shift4Shop is a great all-around shopping cart that is free when you make $500 a month, which is a really low bar.
Highlights
- Choose a well-known and well-supported company
- Look for excellent third-party developer support
- Choose an e-commerce platform that is easy to maintain
- Choose a reasonably priced e-commerce platform
- Choose an e-commerce platform with a good blogging platform that is optimized for search
FAQ
Q: What is the best e-commerce platform for beginners?
A: If you're a beginner, then WooCommerce or Shift4Shop are great options. They are both free to use and have a lot of flexibility.
Q: What is the most popular e-commerce platform?
A: Shopify is the most popular e-commerce platform, followed by WooCommerce.
Q: What is the best e-commerce platform for SEO?
A: WooCommerce and Bigcommerce are the best e-commerce platforms for SEO because they have good blogging platforms that are optimized for search.
Q: What is the cheapest e-commerce platform?
A: WooCommerce is the cheapest e-commerce platform because it's 100% free to use.
Q: What is the best e-commerce platform for large businesses?
A: Shopify Plus is the best e-commerce platform for large businesses because it has advanced features and can handle high traffic volumes.
Resources
- Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/
- WooCommerce: https://woocommerce.com/
- Bigcommerce: https://www.bigcommerce.com/
- Shift4Shop: https://www.shift4shop.com/
