What Are the Best E-Commerce Platforms?

If you want to sell things online, you will need a website with e-commerce capabilities. We give highlights of three of the top platforms below.

Our Top Recommendation for E-Commerce: Shopify

Most web designers we’ve worked with cite Shopify as their go-to e-commerce platform. Shopify provides an online storefront, payment processing capabilities, inventory management, and much more. It’s also very user friendly. Because it is so popular, it is very easy to find a developer to help you build your perfect site, and there are many apps that have been developed to further customize your store. Shopify can support a very large online store with unlimited product offerings.

Shopify is a hosted e-commerce platform. We recommend going with a hosted platform because this takes the headaches out of self-hosting–such as lack of support and greater vulnerability.

A DIY Option for E-Commerce: Squarespace

If you are only selling a few products and want a simple, attractive site with few bells and whistles, you may be able to start out with Squarespace. Squarespace is a one-stop shop that provides domain names, hosting, and e-mail. It uses Stripe as a payment processor. However, we generally recommend making the leap and paying for professional website design instead of going the DIY route.

If You’re Wedded to WordPress: WooCommerce

We’ve discussed our love of WordPress many times before, and if you are a convert and want to keep your e-commerce on a WordPress site, you might want to check out WooCommerce. This is a good option if you want to maintain a blog and take advantage of WordPress’s robust offerings, but it is an open-source platform (rather than hosted), so you are on your own when it comes to support.

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We’d be happy to work with you to find the perfect platform for your online store and to ensure that your e-commerce efforts are fully integrated with your overall marketing plan. Contact Niki at [email protected] for a free consultation.