The e-commerce platform is growing with the explosion of new technologies in the IT field. Thanks to the advent of e-commerce platforms, all traditional commercial activities have turned to online business, helping many businesses save costs, time as well as increase efficiency. of business activities.
With the change in consumer demand, and the difficult market situation because of Covid-19, many businesses have to change their business model to match the new trend in the “new normal”. It is estimated that 70% of daily Internet users are using the Internet for an average of 6.5 hours per day. This is a great opportunity for businesses to promote online sales channels.
Here are the top 5 leading e-commerce platforms to help businesses build e-commerce websites:
- Magento
- Shopify
- OpenCart
- BigCommerce
- WooCommerce
Let’s learn more about these e-commerce platforms in the article below!
Magento
Magento is one of the top 5 leading e-commerce platforms in the world today. More specifically, Magento is the largest and most difficult open source e-commerce platform of the PHP programming language, using the MVC (Model-View-Controller) model and object-oriented programming (OOP).
In addition, Magento is used as an e-commerce platform to help build and develop e-commerce websites based on the Zend Framework platform. This is also the basis for Magento’s ability to integrate with countless third-party software, applications, and utilities – one of the many reasons why Magento is the most worthwhile e-commerce platform to use.
Advantages of Magento
Strong platform – exclusive features
It doesn’t matter how many types of products or products you have, Magento has the ability to store and hold all your product data. No matter how many of your products are in the hundreds or thousands, Magento cannot be overloaded.
Moreover, this is also the reason that your business does not need to worry in the future. Because of the growth of your business in terms of the number of products, it will not affect Magento. Even some Magento features like inventory management will help you manage your business more effectively. In terms of your online shoppers, Magento has built-in tools like product filtering and navigation panels to help users have a better shopping experience, increasing purchase conversion rates. This is also a plus point to help your website have better quality than ever.
SEO friendly tool
This is also a feature that other e-commerce platforms do not have. You can completely edit product pages on Magento Commerce version easily, in addition, Magento also automatically suggests SEO standard urls for your products. So it is completely understandable for customers to find products easily.
More specifically, Magento is extremely compatible with other devices such as mobile phones or tablets. This increases the user experience, making the search engine’s SEO evaluation of your website better than ever.
Fast page loading speed
Since the release of Magento 2, the loading speed of websites using the Magento platform has increased by at least one and a half times compared to other e-commerce platforms. No matter how many thousands of your products are, it will not affect the Magento system.
Page speed is important because according to Google Analytics, if your page takes more than 3 seconds to render, at least 50% of users will leave your website. And needless to say, you probably understand how page load speed affects your purchase conversion rate, right?
Flexible customization
With the feature of being an open source, your business can completely adapt the source code to the requirements and operation of your business. With other platforms, it will be quite difficult to edit product listing types or add other features to your website. But for Magento, you can completely edit it easily and anytime you want.
If you build your e-commerce platform with Magento from scratch then you will understand how easy it is to choose an integrated payment gateway, language, etc. Moreover, you can integrate 3rd party software, applications, utilities into Magento to use. This makes your e-commerce website easy to use and user-friendly. Customers will have even more reasons not to leave your website.
Advanced reporting system
Maintaining an e-commerce website is always difficult, but for Magento it is probably extremely simple. Magento reports have more than 20 fields of information displayed from your web platform. From marketing information such as products often added to the cart, abandoned cart rate, to information such as the number of views on each product, sales, number of orders, inventory reports, etc. All will be reported and re-statisticed.
Disadvantages of Magento
Price
This is the biggest drawback of Magento. More specifically, Magento has different versions available with free and paid versions. The free version is quite limited in features, but you can interfere by integrating 3rd party software. The paid version is quite expensive, costing you from $ 22,000 – 40,000 $ for 1 year, in return you can use all the most advanced features of Magento. In short, the benefits that Magento brings cannot be overstated if you use the paid version, this is both the strongest point and the weak point of this e-commerce platform.
Difficulty finding developers
There are many people using this platform, but the number of developers for this platform is relatively small because Magento requires high programming skills and experience. If you want to use this platform, you will have a hard time finding really experienced professionals.
But don’t worry too much about this point, you can completely contact Magento Agency – Magento’s official partner in Vietnam with more than 6 years of Magento experience, including seasoned Magento experts who will help you solve the problem. resolve all queries.
Shopify
Shopify is an omnichannel sales solution that does not require users to have knowledge of websites, hosting or HTML to use. This platform allows you to create online sales websites on e-commerce channels with features such as shopping cart, payment or order processing. With the current popularity, Shopify is also in the top 5 e-commerce platforms today.
Advantages of Shopify
Simple, easy to use
Because it does not require users to have knowledge of building websites, all you need is simply knowing how to use the internet, so Shopify is suitable for all types of users, especially those with little understanding of building. Build more websites.
Wide selection of store skins available
With interfaces divided by business categories such as: Art and Photography, Jewelry and Accessories, Restaurants and Dining, Furniture and more, .. users can easily choose the delivery options. appropriate interface to build your page in a more professional way to attract customers.
Shopify’s app store is diverse
Shopify has over 1200 different apps that help you automate your tasks, saving you time to invest in things like increasing sales or marketing.
24/7 support
Shopify Plus Agency customer care team is available 24/7 to answer your questions.
Disadvantages of Shopify
Shopify requires users to use the available URL
For businesses that want to build their own themes or intend to expand their business, platforms like Magento or WordPress seem to be a better choice.
Expensive cost
You pay for most Shopify features, from the store interface to tools for automating your tasks.
Speed
If the network connection is not stable, your business on this platform will be delayed.
OpenCart
Like WordPress, OpenCart is a kind of content management system (CMS) ideal for e-commerce models with more advanced features. This is an open source, specially designed for e-commerce companies by many specialized features for selling online.
Advantages of OpenCart
Flexible, easy to use
OpenCart helps you manage multiple stores at the same time, with extremely simple operations for both users and developers.
Full feature support
In addition to the required features of a website, OpenCart also supports additional features necessary for sales. You can completely customize information such as cross-selling, up-selling or recommending related products when purchasing.
Variety of features
Developers can customize with a module store, a huge interface, as well as a multi-language feature as well as a partner recruitment application to increase profits.
Data backup
OpenCart can backup and restore data in case of an emergency. This helps you secure data information in case your website has unexpected problems.
Disadvantages of OpenCart
Modules are still rigid, not flexible
Editing can be tricky if you want to add or remove information on your e-commerce platform.
Poor app store compared to other platforms
The application store is many but not enough, we still have to wait for updates in the long run. You can also integrate other applications into OpenCart but this is not really easy.
Big Commerce
BigCommerce is a relatively young e-commerce company, when it started providing e-commerce solutions to its customers in 2009. This is online software, integrated with Google Merchant Center, allowing users to advertise their products directly on Google Shopping.
Advantages of BigCommerce
Advantages in building payment methods
BigCommerce supports a secure shopping cart feature that integrates with many international payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, etc., as well as supports multiple currencies.
Various marketing tools
BigCommerce gives you the variety of using marketing channels on multiple platforms such as Amazon Marketplace, Facebook, eBay, Pinterest, ..
Flexible integration
Integrate dropshipping & warehouse with goods management systems, shipping, returns.
Disadvantages of BigCommerce
Limit on annual revenue
For each different subscription, BigCommerce will limit your annual revenue even though you don’t have to share the profits with this e-commerce platform.
Fees required for Insight reports
In addition to reports on customers, marketing or data search, etc., you need to pay an additional fee to be able to see the insight report.
WooCommerce
This is an open source WordPress plugin with features to support building sales websites. WooCommerce owns all the necessary functions in a sales page such as shopping cart, quantity, payment, promotion, or membership registration, ..
Advantages of WooCommerce
- All free.
- Simple to use for both users and developers.
- Provide a diverse WordPress template library, always updated with new features and receive support from the developers themselves
- Support many useful features: create arbitrary product management list, support multiple payment methods, support tax calculation, provide sample templates, confirm order status, ..
- High security, ensuring the safety of information for users, avoiding security risks from third parties.
Disadvantages of WooCommerce
- WooCommerce is a built-in platform, so it is impossible for you to want to build your own features because interfering with editing will cause instability to the system, as well as potentially other features. Built in functionality is not compatible with this platform.
- The sales operations on WooCommerce are all built-in, so if you are not in these businesses, it is relatively difficult to customize WooCommerce to suit your business.
Which e-commerce platform should I use?
Before the diverse choices of e-commerce platforms for businesses, it is difficult for businesses to make the right and right decisions. Choosing the right e-commerce platform also comes with finding the right system developers for the purpose of building the company’s website in the most professional way.
So to choose an e-commerce platform that is right for you, you have two options as follows:
Method 1: Take a look at the list of top 5 e-commerce platforms above and arrange in order of priority as follows to filter out the plan that suits you best.
What is the goal of growing your online sales channel?
Which e-commerce platform offers the feature that best suits your goals?
What is your budget? Which platform fits your budget?
Based on your budget, should you choose an e-commerce platform that serves your business goals temporarily or long-term?
From the above questions, you will choose a platform that best suits your business. Or you can use method 2 below.
Option 2: Contact SmartOSC – a consultant and implementer of projects related to the fields of digital transformation from building e-commerce platforms, business administration, cloud computing,…
Article source: https://www.smartosc.com/
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